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Someone stole a Jasper radio station’s 200-foot tower, owner says

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Re: Someone stole a Jasper radio station’s 200-foot tower, owner says

#211

Post by geerlingguy »

amelius wrote: post #172
Angostura wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shame they can't set up 1 1-Watt transmitter on a poll to meet the regulations and then sent a direct feed to to the FM transmitter

Shame they can't just retransmit an internet radio station they receive over satellite.

The main purpose of translators is to give AM radio stations an avenue (at lower cost than an FM only license) to reach listeners on the FM band and have a more consistent signal throughout the day — but they only keep that privilege if they continue maintaining the AM broadcast facilities as the primary signal.

There are issues with FCC public licensing to be certain, but the way a lot of stations deal with translators isn't quite above the board considering many stations attempt to follow the regulations (IMO).

Re: Someone stole a Jasper radio station’s 200-foot tower, owner says

#212

Post by 1over137 »

fbdab103 wrote: post #206
wly_cdgr wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Question is moot because I would just do my job to the minimum acceptable standard of competence by sourcing a picture of the actual tower

So...a picture of some random sky? Maybe draw an outline of what the tower would look like if it were there?

'Artist renditions' are used for space news, criminal descriptions, etc. maybe not such a crazy idea here.

Re: Someone stole a Jasper radio station’s 200-foot tower, owner says

#213

Post by fbdab103 »

1over137 wrote: post #210
brookst wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is that infuriating? It’s accurate, acknowledges the suboptimal photo choice (or availability), and has some humor. As an editor, given this as your only photo choice, what caption would you write?

>As an editor, given this as your only photo choice, what caption would you write? I would just not include a photo at all.

As a reader, I want to have a sense of scale of the tower.

Re: Someone stole a Jasper radio station’s 200-foot tower, owner says

#214

Post by fbdab103 »

1over137 wrote: post #212
fbdab103 wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So...a picture of some random sky? Maybe draw an outline of what the tower would look like if it were there?

'Artist renditions' are used for space news, criminal descriptions, etc. maybe not such a crazy idea here.

Sure, for high profile things. This is the daily news and a mild curiosity which is hardly worth the resources. Show a picture of a similar model tower, annotate it as such, and I have now have a sense of the difficulty in cutting it down.

Re: Someone stole a Jasper radio station’s 200-foot tower, owner says

#215

Post by 1over137 »

fbdab103 wrote: post #213
1over137 wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>As an editor, given this as your only photo choice, what caption would you write? I would just not include a photo at all.

As a reader, I want to have a sense of scale of the tower.

Of course. The scale is 200 feet, as described in the article. Maybe you want it in football fields?

Re: Someone stole a Jasper radio station’s 200-foot tower, owner says

#217

Post by dang »

sh79 wrote: post #145

The image of another tower used in the article is pretty confusing. This https://apnews.com/article/radio-station-tower-stolen-am-fm-... > one apparently includes the real one, which I think makes the theft appear more within the realms of possibility.

("the article" referred to by parent is https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/feb/08/alabama-200f.... We merged https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39311852 hither)

Re: Someone stole a Jasper radio station’s 200-foot tower, owner says

#218

Post by Anotheroneagain »

loeg wrote: post #167
blackfawn wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their FM station is a "translator" which listens to their AM station and rebroadcasts it. Translators are a secondary service that must only rebroadcast their primary service.

Why would someone design a radio system this way (instead of independent signal to the FM) and what is the risk of running an FM station without rebroadcasting that lead to these rules?

I suppose for safety reasons, as AM receivers can be easily improvised. (in some kind of critical situation)

Re: Someone stole a Jasper radio station’s 200-foot tower, owner says

#219

Post by alright2565 »

fbdab103 wrote: post #208
Brian_K_White wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plus it would have to be a $100M military super stealth chopper to do a theft in the night, and would probably also have to be operated by that same military to force all the air traffic infrastructure to look the other way and see nothing. I think we have our answer. Obviously that station was spreading the wrong ideas to the public, and now they are not.

Why would it have to be stealthy? Even if they did it in broad daylight, announcing their presence with a loudspeaker, "We are taking this tower." Would I, a random bystander care? For all I know, they were contracted by the owner. Definitively someone else's problem.

you can look up historical data about what aircraft were where at what time.

Re: Someone stole a Jasper radio station’s 200-foot tower, owner says

#220

Post by [deleted] »

dageshi wrote: post #207
wly_cdgr wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Question is moot because I would just do my job to the minimum acceptable standard of competence by sourcing a picture of the actual tower

How and where would you source it from? The tower is gone, there's likely no public domain images of it, no stock images of it, so where do you get a picture of it?

[deleted]
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