‘What do you mean, the tower is gone?’: thieves steal 200ft structure from Alabama radio station | Alabama
theguardian.com
‘What do you mean, the tower is gone?’: thieves steal 200ft structure from Alabama radio station | Alabama::Small radio station forced to go silent after ‘unbelievable’ theft of giant tower, which would cost over $100,000 to replace
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Lucky they didn't kill themselves. AM works by sending a FUCKton of RF energy into the tower structure. If you're touching the tower and ground you're going to conduct it instead and poof.
Typically towers are simple structures to elevate the actual antennas high up in the air. The towers aren't live wires, they're ladders with rungs for mounting.
Not AM. They’ve got an insulator at the base, the entire tower is live. There’s so much energy being transmitted you can get sparks off the fence surrounding the tower.
https://youtu.be/Aax-ehkRTnQ
There was another video where a guy clamped a wrench to ground with a jumper cable and held it (wearing insulated gloves) within arcing distance of the tower. The power transfer of the arc was enough that you could audibly hear one of the transmission frequencies just in the arc along. Those AM towers are no joke.
Surely there's an easy to find switch to cut power and make it safe.