Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/02/09/200-foot-radio-tower-stolen-in-alabama.html
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Truther than strange!
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“Unfortunately, the site was not insured. We’re a small-market station, but we’re going to get back, and we’re going to be back on the air as soon as we possibly can,” Elmore said.
How long does it take to cut down and cut up a tower and load all that and a transmitter? Has a rival started up recently?
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They’d have to cut this thing up into a lot of small pieces or it would raise all the red flags. I’m amazed the scrap value would justify the labor.
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Somewhere there must be a “no questions asked” chop shop for large scrap.
Maybe they should start putting Airtags on bridges and stuff?
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Cut a guy wire and it collapses, often.
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“Often”? You’ve done this before? 
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This is what I don’t understand about catcon thefts. The shops that accept stolen goods face no legal repercussions .
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Anyone walking around with a suspiciously long object sticking out of their jacket?
They must be a very small market station if nobody noticed they had gone off the air. On that note, how does their broadcast engineer not notice the transmitter is gone?
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Is that a 200-foot radio tower in your pocket or are you VERY happy to see me?! 
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You haven’t?
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They surely stole it for the scrap value.
I’m not so sure this was the motivation. Yes, you can get $0.06—let’s be generous and say $0.10)— per pound for scrap structural steel, which is not nothing for a 20-30,000 lb structure. And there’s definitely a market for scrap steel.
But I struggle to find the motivation behind also stealing the transmitter and associated equipment. No other station would buy it. And to say it’s difficult for an individual to make money selling scrap electronic equipment is a huge understatement.
I’m not implying it’s insurance fraud, since none of the missing equipment WAS insured. I’m saying it smells…odd that someone undertook a pretty labor-intensive steel scrapping operation AND took the transmitting equipment.
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Ha! I have some experience from a past profession. The idea is the guys are sort of “loose” and when the wind deflects the tower the opposing guy tightens and translates the side load to a vertical load down the leg of the tower. Loose being a relative term; if you cut one side of the guying there may be enough off centre pull from the others to bring it down. Cutting.guy wires not all that easy though but they evidently did it. Crane not necessarily needed in any event 
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You can aim it well enough to land on a truck?
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There are a couple radio/comms towers on top of random hills within logging parcels near my FIL’s place in rural NE AL. I could totally see one of those towers disappearing without anyone noticing for a while. There are maybe 10 people/square mile in this area. If a guy wire was cut as @David_Guilbeaul suggests, there’s a high probability that no one would’ve heard the tower collapse. 
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Those are probably ten foot sections, one or two people can lift. This looks like tubular tower legs. Other lattice type telecom towers may have solid legs and be much heavier. Breaking the sections apart in such an old install would be hard, but your catcon sawzall would separate them 
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That depends - do you want to be able to use the truck afterwards?
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i mean, if you cut the wire and then come back later, does it even make a sound?
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This article suggests it was the copper they might have been after.
Copper is worth significantly more but I couldn’t find how much copper is in a transmitter and antenna.
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Not in North America, at least.
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