PLEADING TO POLICE – WJLX General Manager Brett Elmore is requesting the Jasper, Alabama Police Department, which has now been put under a national spotlight, to capture the thieves who stole his AM radio station’s 200-foot guyed tower and its transmitter. Some critics of the incident believe the theft was a coverup so that the FCC would not find out that the station had not been broadcasting for quite some time, and media outlets were duped into accepting Elmore’s claims. A video also contradicts Elmore’s assertions.
Other than local, state, and industry media covering a communications tower collapse, unless it involves a fatality, failure incidents seldom get national legs. However, when an AM station general manager in Jasper, Alabama, reported earlier this month that vandals in the night had walked off with his 200-foot tower, forcing him off the air, it had all the right visuals, novelty, emotion, and angst for additional coverage.
So much so that AP, the Washington Post, CNN, Fox, New York Post, the Today Show, hundreds of newspapers, blogs, and other U.S. and foreign outlets couldn’t ignore writing about it.
WJLX General Manager Brett Elmore informed Wireless Estimator that blogger Ron Johnson, who refutes the theft allegations, “has more skeletons in his closet than my local cemetery,” and his website can only be compared to the Onion, but less relevant.
Partly because WJLX 1240 AM station manager Brett Elmore has played the media like a fine fiddle, championing the need for a thorough investigation and marketing why America should contribute to his GoFundMe page that has already raised over $10,000 towards his goal of rebuilding the station’s uninsured stolen tower and transmitter that will cost at least $60,000. Elmore now states that the cost could be anywhere from $100,000 to $150,000.
“Now we’re silent, but we won’t be silent for long. I’m gonna work tirelessly to get this thing back up and running, one way or the other,” Elmore said in an interview with The Guardian.
“The sad part is that Jasper has always been a radio town. They have always supported their local radio station,” he said.
Media coverage will likely expand if it was a hoax
Unfortunately, a closer look at the incident by industry professionals has found many inconsistencies in the theft report, and they have recently expressed their reservations regarding the vanishing structure and transmitter.
According to blog poster Ron Johnson of the Alabama News Beacon, who has hurled numerous accusations against Elmore’s accounting of the incident on the Beacon’s Facebook page, about five years ago, Elmore allegedly “deemed the AM operation too high-maintenance. Consequently, he shut down the AM transmitter when it required significant repairs,” and the site was neglected for years.
Johnson said that rumors of an FCC complaint about the silent AM led Elmore to believe there might soon be an inspection revealing the tower’s sad state and its inability to operate.
Johnson believes “to mask the prolonged (unlawful) non-operation the manager claims the damage occurred ‘within the past several days or weeks’.”
Although Elmore has presented himself to major media outlets as the station’s owner, according to FCC records, he is the station’s general manager, and James D. Earley owns WJLX.
No FCC program filings since September 27, 2021
FCC records show that on July 3, 2017, the station filed for a Silent Special Temporary Authority (STA, maintaining, “The station uses a Gates #1 transmitter. The transmitter operation has become intermittent and because of the lack of spare parts, the licensee elected to go dark until such time as the spare parts needed are located.”
On August 25, 2017, WJLX notified the FCC that it had resumed operations.
Nevertheless, the station appeared to have stopped broadcasting sometime in 2021 based on its discontinuance of FCC-required filings.
The last issues and program filing identified that the station’s last program was on September 27, 2021, with a 15-minute Jasper Kiwanis Club discussion.
The Wall Street Journal castigates the FCC; blogger says the electric bill is a must-see
WJLX had filed for and received a STA from the FCC following the transmitter theft. However, when the station filed another STA requesting permission to continue broadcasting on its FM translator, the FCC denied that request last Thursday, and WJLX turned its FM translator off.
James Freeman, assistant editor of The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page, struck out at the agency’s decision, saying, “It’s nice to know that when life hands you lemons, there’s a federal official out there ready to try to squeeze just a few more ounces of hope out of you.”
He ended the February 9, 2024, opinion piece with, “Save WJLX radio!”
Johnson wants to show that WJLX saved money by not running its transmitter.
“Personally, I’m amazed that investigators have not already obtained power consumption records from the site, which will prove the AM transmitter has not operated during the past several years, and this would put to rest the ridiculous claims that this is a situation which occurred suddenly,” said Johnson.
In an email to Wireless Estimator, Elmore shrugged off Johnson’s comments, stating, “As far as the Alabama News Beacon is concerned, I would compare them to the Onion; however, the Onion is much more relevant. The blogger has more skeletons in his closet than my local cemetery.”
Johnson, however, isn’t the only person questioning Elmore’s statements and why he wasn’t aware that the transmitter was off and that he only became aware of it when a landscaper sent to Bush Hog the area found the tower missing.
A 10-minute tongue-in-cheek video by Geerling Engineering questioned the tower’s disappearance and the accompanying transmitter, where a broadcast engineer called it a “bizarre story,” in a YouTube video that has over 115,000 views and 780 comments.
In an interview Monday with AL.com, Elmore said, “I’m not listening to any of the rumors or the speculation of an inside job. That’s completely bogus and false.”
“I need help finding who did this. That’s what I need,’’ he said. “Someone knows something.”
YouTuber provides hard evidence that the station had been on hard times and theft was unlikely
WJLX played upon America’s heartstrings and purse strings, collecting almost $11,000 of their $60,000 GoFundMe goal to replace the transmitter and tower they allege vandals stole on February 2, 2024. General Manager Brett Elmore provided the media with a photo of the equipment building and tower in its serene setting. He said Jasper’s 14,000 residents lost their community’s voice. WJLX may have been speechless long before the theft. The pictures taken this week from video frames from YouTuber William Collier show a less pastoral view of the dilapidated equipment shelter that appears to have been hoarse for quite some time due to being disconnected from Alabama Power Company’s electric service.
Piqued by Elmore’s questionable claims, YouTuber William Collier visited the WJLX tower site this week, and he and an associate filmed their experience, presenting further evidence that belies the narration being provided.
Collier’s video shows that the equipment shelter had been broken into since the door was ripped from its locking clasp and remained ajar, yet the tall weeds in front of it were not trampled, which would have been expected if vandals were carrying the transmitter through that opening. But once inside the building, it told a different story, a narrative of years of neglect and theft that didn’t appear to be recent.
Mold was everywhere, the floors were caked with dirt and debris, and literally, everything had been stripped from the equipment building, not just the transmitter.
Outside video recorded a convincing story that the tower had not been recently stolen but had been removed, possibly months if not years, before.
The electric meter had been removed, and Alabama Power Company could quickly inform authorities when service was discontinued.
Rusted guy wires were threaded through a collapsed cyclone fence, which could have indicated that the tower had fallen onto the fence. However, a closer look shows that brush and weeds have been growing through the fence’s fabric for some time.
Except for tire tracks on a dirt road leading to the tower site, the surrounding area shows no trampling of tall grass and weeds in the surrounding area’s 200-foot circumference. In addition, if an anchor’s guy wire was cut, it’s likely that the tower would spiral into an area about 30% to 50% of its height and most likely collapse on the roof of the equipment building.
Also, to remove the sections, they would have had to be cut and loaded on a flatbed trailer, which would have left work area depressions and tire tracks in the field.
The above photograph of the stolen tower’s AM base and a section of the adjoining equipment shelter missing its door, which was provided by Brett Elmore, shows brush and weeds growing around the foundation. Jasper detectives will be assessing the surrounding area where the tower should have fallen and the building itself to assess whether the collapse of the tower and theft of it and the transmitter in the building recently took place, as reported. The photo below is a screenshot blown up from a video taken by William Collier showing vegetation approximately three feet high surrounding the foundation, none of it flattened by the guy tower that allegedly collapsed days earlier.
