Vandals destroy three 410-foot towers, unaware crime would backfire and gift religious broadcaster

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Vandals destroy three 410-foot towers, unaware their crime would backfire and gift a religious broadcaster

In Featured News by Wireless Estimator / January 16, 2023



FOURTH DOWN, NONE TO GO – When Truth Broadcasting Co. purchased Winston-Salem, North Carolina’s oldest radio station, WSJS 600-AM, in March 2021 from Crescent Media Group for $625,000, one of the station’s four-tower array had previously collapsed and had been nested amongst brush and weeds since at least September 22, 2020, as seen on Google Earth. Since then, the station has been operating on FCC approval for emergency antenna facilities. In late December and Early January, vandals or one individual had felled on different days the other three 410-foot guyed towers erected in 1968. It inadvertently provided financial relief to the religious broadcaster as he gets WSJS back on the air at another location with a plan that had been in operation since last August or earlier and has been approved by the FCC.

The FBI and local authorities are investigating the felling of three AM broadcast towers owned by Truth Broadcasting Co. in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, each one on a different day within less than three weeks. ... The first collapse witnessed by a nearby homeowner, Cliff Orgnon, occurred on December 21, 2022. ... After the three towers were destroyed, WSJS went off the air.

According to Stu Epperson Jr., the president of the Christian broadcasting company that owns the station, at first, he thought it was weather related. However, on the date of the collapse, peak winds topped out at 13 mph, and most of the day averaged 9 mph.



The Winston-Salem Journal provided a bird’s eye drone view by Walt Unks of the downed radio towers on YouTube

Epperson said in an interview with the Winston-Salem Journal that when another one of his towers fell, he realized “it was actually criminal activity.” ... Although Orgnon alerted city council members on January 3 at a public meeting that two towers had collapsed, Truth Broadcasting appears to have waited until January 5 to contact the Winston-Salem Police Department to investigate the criminal incidents that began 16 days earlier.

Epperson informed the Journal that his employees implemented a patch to put the 600 AM signal onto the last tower on the property. ... Unfortunately, the vandals took down that one last Monday or Tuesday, crippling WSJS’s weak signal.

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