[HN Gopher] Someone stole a Jasper radio station's 200-foot towe...
___________________________________________________________________
Someone stole a Jasper radio station's 200-foot tower, owner says
Author : HiroProtagonist
Score : 226 points
Date : 2024-02-08 14:06 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.al.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.al.com)
| delichon wrote:
| I need to check my homeowner's insurance to see if I'm covered if
| the house is stolen.
| rssoconnor wrote:
| Ah. "The Problem of the Missing Baseball"
| soco wrote:
| Note to self: don't build a steel house.
| speed_spread wrote:
| Just pour concrete over it.
| azornathogron wrote:
| Not as implausible as it sounds...
|
| The guy in Luton whose house was stolen did get it back, but it
| took two years.
|
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-67356...
| trompetenaccoun wrote:
| In this case the squatter was able to legally sell the house
| in his name:
|
| https://www.edinburghlive.co.uk/news/uk-world-
| news/squatter-...
|
| >He applied to the courts for permanent possession of the
| home and won following an appeal, despite the judge accepting
| that he had committed criminal trespass. According to new
| reports, Mr Best has now sold the home for a huge profit.
| voakbasda wrote:
| When the courts legalize theft, it is past time for a
| revolution.
| dylan604 wrote:
| You should also check if the coverage depends on who does the
| stealing. Like, if your house is stolen into the spirit world
| like in Poltergeist. Clearly, this wasn't an act of God.
| brodouevencode wrote:
| meth addicts
| Enginerrrd wrote:
| Or an insurance scam by the owner?
| justusthane wrote:
| According to the article it was not insured.
| jibbit wrote:
| not in the US, but i believe we have plastic manhole covers here
| now because you can't leave anything metal unguarded
| euroderf wrote:
| Aren't those going to be light enough that people will steal
| them just for the hell of it ?
| mikrl wrote:
| Blessed are the scrappers, for they shall inherit... 200' tall
| radio towers?
| dgrin91 wrote:
| How come they didn't notice that their service went dead when the
| tower was stolen?
| InitialLastName wrote:
| The tweet says "a tower site" which implies they have others.
| It's entirely possible/likely that they have multiple towers
| for better coverage; if one went down they would lose some
| coverage area but not all of it.
|
| It's an AM station, so they may also shut down overnight (as
| many small stations do to avoid over-propagation).
|
| Off topic: I could have guessed that guy was a radio station
| manager without any context. There's just a look to them.
| Kon-Peki wrote:
| The tweet said that they took a crew with a bush hog ([1]) to
| "do early cleanup of the property before we do more work down
| there". So this was almost certainly a long-abandoned radio
| tower that they acquired and were planning to bring into
| service. The grass needs to be _severely_ overgrown before
| you need a bush hog.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brush_hog
| randomdata wrote:
| _> The grass needs to be severely overgrown before you need
| a bush hog._
|
| Use of a bush hug does not imply the need for a bush hog,
| though. Even for routine maintenance of the grass you're
| apt to choose the bush hog out of convenience and
| practicality. It's not like you're going to waste time
| puttering around with the push mower you cut your grass at
| home with for a tower site out in the middle of nowhere.
| I_Am_Nous wrote:
| A single season of no maintenance in rural Alabama could
| easily allow the property to be full of Giant Hogweed[1]
| which seems to allow UV light to penetrate our skin a lot
| more easily, causing severe burns. Especially around a
| tower where birds roost and spread droppings for 100 feet
| around the area.
|
| 1. https://www.al.com/news/2018/07/giant_hogweed_plant_on_a
| laba...
| jcpham2 wrote:
| Absolutely. One season of no maintenance in Alabama is
| enough for any property to be overgrown. Everything grows
| like weeds here, even pine trees
| nosrepa wrote:
| I used to mow the grass at an active radio station. I
| occasionally had to DR a path to each tower so they could
| do maintenance. They don't regularly mow the fields where
| the towers are, though Toro did occasionally come out and
| mow the whole thing as a test site for new mowers, which
| was neat.
| astrange wrote:
| I was hoping this was an actual hog, like the goats you can
| get to eat your lawn.
| roamerz wrote:
| >There's just a look to them.
|
| Yup I've got a face for radio as well.
| jabroni_salad wrote:
| based on the description this was an unattended repeater
| hn72774 wrote:
| It's covered in the article...
| nickcotter wrote:
| Note that the tower doesn't really look like that picture in the
| nypost - it's a much more portable looking affair:
| https://maps.app.goo.gl/Y9QMBDPnazGT1cgj9
| imglorp wrote:
| A few guys with plasma cutters and a winch could have that
| pieced and loaded on a flatbed in no time.
| huytersd wrote:
| Not easily. Those metal tension cables are dangerous to cut
| and it's going to have to fall like a tree in some direction.
| alistairSH wrote:
| These towers often have several sets of tension cables at
| various heights, so you could cut the outermost/tallest
| set, drop the top-third of the tower, and work your way
| down. Still dangerous, but it's not always "bring all 500'
| down at once".
| cf100clunk wrote:
| There are YouTube video compilations showing exactly what
| you've described.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Metal thieves are not known for following strict workplace
| safety protocols.
| huytersd wrote:
| Sure, but if you've ever been around high tension mental
| cables before you'll realize you need a huge pair of
| balls to cut those. It's not safety protocols, it's fear
| that it might cut you in half.
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| Actually, as I learned from MythBusters, a wire snap will
| be unable to server a limb or worse. You will still be
| dead, but your body will be intact.
|
| https://mythresults.com/episode62
| yourapostasy wrote:
| Container ship dock line snaps on the other hand...
| tyingq wrote:
| Also Navy aircraft carrier arrestor cables. Like:
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/1981/12/04/us/around-the-nation-
| two-...
| m463 wrote:
| If you cut a wire under tension at the very limit of its
| range on one end, can it hurt you?
| sillysaurusx wrote:
| I had the same question. Intuitively, I don't think so,
| but that's based on nothing but simulating it in my head.
| In reality you might risk the tower collapsing on you if
| you cut too many.
| depingus wrote:
| Why even cut the cables? Wouldn't they just back out the
| tensors at the anchors and do it all under control?
| mynameisnoone wrote:
| That's how I would do it without remote cutters, a small
| shaped charge, or thermite. Fall direction will be
| completely out of control, so it would be worth being
| close to the tower to reach a safe area.
| lttlrck wrote:
| I don't see how you would have less control by backing
| off tensioners vs. destructive approach. You don't have
| to release all guys at once in either case.
| asadotzler wrote:
| My tower has 8 guy wires and each is easily released from
| the ground with hand tools.
| cf100clunk wrote:
| Almost certainly that tower was of galvanized steel, so if
| the mystery adbuctors had knowledge of welding or metallurgy
| (no idea if that was the case) they'd know that plasma
| cutters would be toxic overkill unless they knew how to
| paint/paste where they cut. Portable chop saws would do just
| fine. I witnessed pros take down a radio tower by remote-
| controlled chop saws cutting the guy wires sequentially.
| snypher wrote:
| Old timers will say, incorrectly, "just drink some milk"
|
| On a serious note, a short term exposure like this probably
| wouldn't be that harmful*, and they seem like risk-takers
| already so the hazards are factored in for them.
| rapjr9 wrote:
| Off topic, but why are there no remote control chain saws?
| Seems silly to stand next to an engine driven chain that
| could fly off at any time.
| plasticchris wrote:
| There are - a sort of tracked vehicle with an arm that
| can chop down a tree, hold it, and scrape off the small
| limbs before stacking the log.
| hiddencost wrote:
| Steel scraps at $225 a ton..
|
| That's about what a large pickup truck can haul.
|
| Copper is worth 20x more.
|
| I dunno, if you're willing to work that hard you could probably
| just become a contractor.
| sokoloff wrote:
| I think the issue is that some people are willing to work quite
| hard, but only intermittently. (Though that doesn't necessarily
| disqualify them from being a contractor either, I suppose.)
| randomdata wrote:
| Most people don't fear hard work, they fear being beholden to
| other people. Ain't nobody hiring a contractor under the terms
| of _" Yeah, go ahead and build me a house however you like,
| whenever you feel like it. I don't care about what you do."_
| trompetenaccoun wrote:
| Wow.
|
| My feeling is that metal theft is getting out of control. If the
| news reporting on it is to be trusted, cases are in fact rising.
| Thieves have probably always hit junkyards and stolen wire, but
| now there seems to be more and more infrastructure hit as well.
|
| The oddest aspect of this is that scrap steel isn't even worth
| that much. How many tons could that be? Let's say it's 400 tons,
| that's maybe $100k. And it seems like extremely high risk,
| because they're going to be looking for this everywhere now. Why
| would they not just steal two or three cars, which would never
| make the news. They must be skilled to pull something like that
| off in a night.
|
| Edit: Another user linked the street view, apparently the article
| image wasn't the actual tower. So based on that it's much less
| metal even.
| zdragnar wrote:
| Our local metro area has had a problem with copper thieves for
| a few years now, cutting open and stealing the wiring from
| street lights.
|
| People are why we can't have nice things, apparently.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| They're targeting rail infrastructure here, but a lot of
| copper there is being replaced with cheaper materials like
| aluminium.
| jacquesm wrote:
| And signalling with fiber.
| sonicanatidae wrote:
| Humans will always be the problem, because there is one
| immutable fact about humans that history has proven too many
| times to list.
|
| There. Is. Always. An. Asshole.
|
| Always.
| throwanem wrote:
| 'People' is a remarkable way to misspell 'poverty'.
| mcphage wrote:
| In the broad I agree, but in this specific case, I don't
| think poor people can dismantle a 200' steel radio tower
| without anyone noticing. I'm guessing that would require
| some heavy, expensive equipment.
| throwanem wrote:
| To do safely, sure.
| zdragnar wrote:
| Poverty is not itself a reason to commit crime. Some people
| steal whether they are poor or rich, others don't, whether
| they are poor or rich.
|
| Around here, it's mostly organized gangs doing the
| stealing, not random poor people... If that were the case,
| the city wouldn't have a single light fixture left
| unscathed.
| throwanem wrote:
| > Poverty is not itself a reason to commit crime.
|
| Of course not. It would be absurd to assert otherwise.
| You always get some scofflaws, but I don't see a reason
| to assume you get _more_ scofflaws in a weak economy than
| a strong one. More lawbreakers, yes, but breaking laws
| for economically rational reasons isn 't the same as
| doing so for its own sake.
|
| I would be curious to know where the people who join such
| groups come from, and what other prospects they might
| have had such that difficult, dangerous, and illegal work
| still ends up looking preferable.
| zdragnar wrote:
| Limited experience based on what my friend told me (I
| grew up in a rural community, so very different
| dynamics): it starts in schools.
|
| Gangs start recruiting young. It's a fast way to get
| "friends" who have more than you do- the illusion of
| power, material wealth, so on.
|
| Furthermore, attempting to do well in school means your
| fellow students will bully you for "acting white".
|
| If your parents didn't do well in school, they are less
| likely to pressure you to do well. They might be working
| long hours to make ends meet, or living on disability or
| either form of welfare. This will exclude you from many
| extracurricular activities which require parental support
| as well.
|
| If you see your parents barely making ends meet, and
| gangbangers offer you the illusion of more, and everyone
| around you says you'll never amount to anything by
| studying or trying to get good grades, it isn't hard to
| see the allure.
|
| So, for these students at least, poverty is a culture and
| the trap becomes lifelong once you get a record and can't
| get a job anywhere that pays better than minimum wage.
| Rinse and repeat with the next generation.
|
| My friend was fortunate enough to have a father who
| pressured him to do well in school, and to go on to
| secondary education. He escaped the trap, but few of the
| people he grew up with did the same.
| cyberax wrote:
| And if you tell anything of the above on a public forum,
| you'd be immediately canceled and branded a "racist".
| It's amazing how the current progressive elite is
| undermining themselves.
| mecsred wrote:
| You read this comment on a public forum.
| cyberax wrote:
| Sorry, I meant to say on an official forum, where
| speakers are identified by name.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Plenty of us are identified by name.
| throwway120385 wrote:
| Can you name an example of this happening? Because OP's
| narrative is very common in a lot of "progressive" places
| in in the media. It's one of the core ideas of
| progressivism that poverty is a trap and that people need
| help from the government to escape it.
|
| I can think of some other less mainstream news sources
| that would have a problem with that idea.
| zdragnar wrote:
| It's probably the part where I mentioned the cultural
| aspect of my friend's experience, including trying hard
| in school resulting in being scoffed at or bullied for
| "acting white".
|
| Also, the "people need the governments help to escape it"
| was very much not the moral of this particular parable.
| All it took was a father who gave a damn.
| cyberax wrote:
| > Can you name an example of this happening?
|
| Easy. Ann Hsu, a school board member in SF:
| https://sfstandard.com/2022/07/19/racially-insensitive-
| schoo...
|
| Here are her exact words: "Especially in the Black and
| brown community, I see one of the biggest challenges as
| being the lack of family support for those students...
| Unstable family environments caused by housing and food
| insecurity along with lack of parental encouragement to
| focus on learning cause children to not be able to focus
| on or value learning"
|
| > It's one of the core ideas of progressivism that
| poverty is a trap and that people need help from the
| government to escape it.
|
| Except that somehow it also adopted a notion that certain
| groups are forever victims. Black communities are
| struggling? That's because of white supremacy and
| systemic racism. So we need to double the struggle
| against the white supremacy.
|
| Investigating the causes of Black struggles? That's
| racist.
| cornhole wrote:
| i blame it on culture
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| > People are why we can't have nice things, apparently.
|
| Always has been. With that said, this is incredibly
| impressive from a logistics perspective. Hire these folks for
| demolition and salvage work.
| xtiansimon wrote:
| Or arrest them, convict them, and make them pickup garbage
| on weekends.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Good luck with that. You can't even arrest people who
| break into vehicles in broad daylight.
| 01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote:
| Good luck with that, someone will have to supervise them.
| And supervise the supervisors.
| chasd00 wrote:
| when the price of copper went through the roof a few years
| ago the local drug houses in Dallas started accepting it as
| payment for drugs. They would then sell the metal to scrap
| yards at a profit. Once that was up and running any copper
| left unguarded was gone instantly. Air conditioners were
| gone, wiring in new construction was gone, wiring in rent
| houses was gone, any copper anywhere was stolen constantly. I
| remember seeing people pushing shopping carts in Old East
| Dallas filled with copper cables, pipes, and other stuf.
|
| There was a story probably once a month about someone
| breaking into a power substation or some other high voltage
| area to try and steal copper and electrocuting themselves.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| My local scrapyard requires a photo ID before they will pay
| for anything other than aluminum cans. Doesn't seem like a
| complicated solution.
| thfuran wrote:
| And it's a good thing that fake IDs are illegal so
| criminals can't circumvent that kind of thing.
| supertrope wrote:
| Metal thieves who are exchanging wiring for cash for
| drugs are even more impulsive than other street
| criminals. Sometimes raising the bar a bit can make a big
| difference.
| chasd00 wrote:
| that's what started to turn the tide (along with falling
| prices) the police started cracking down on scrap yards
| buying obviously stolen property.
| throwway120385 wrote:
| Around here most of them require an electrical or
| plumbing contractor's license to sell that stuff. There's
| an online system to verify the license, and one of the
| conditions of the license is purchasing a bond and
| insurance.
| brewtide wrote:
| In an area around nearby, years ago (in the sticks...)
| someone went up the power lines through the woods and clipped
| all the bare grounding wire from miles of poles from about 8
| feet up to the ground.
|
| Seems like a lot of work for low money.
| Xirgil wrote:
| Criminals don't make sense to you because you're trying to
| explain their behavior with your own thought process. You're
| likely much smarter than they are, with a better understanding
| of risk vs reward and lower impulsivity. Also you can't explain
| criminal behavior with purely financial motivations. Car
| thieves are not making $33k per car. A lot of them don't even
| sell them, just steal what's inside and use them for a joy ride
| (ask me how I know). Lots of petty criminals and drug dealers
| are not making very much money, especially for the level of
| risk. But compared to a traditional job it's much less
| restrictive, fun and exciting, lets you hang out with your
| friends most of the time, and has a lot more social clout with
| their peers than traditional employment.
| dreamworld wrote:
| IMO, they should be playing games or sports instead. Give
| people more opportunities to do just what you said (instead
| of working supposedly boring (at least to them) jobs),
| instead of hurting people/property to achieve that.
| pgrote wrote:
| How do you know?
| sillysaurusx wrote:
| Seconded! Sounds like interesting stories.
| yreg wrote:
| Reminds me of sand theft. Apparently, sometimes even an entire
| beach gets dug up and stolen.
|
| Planet Money did an episode on it.
|
| https://www.npr.org/transcripts/628890875
| dylan604 wrote:
| > Why would they not just steal two or three cars,
|
| Is this a real question? You're coming at this with the
| position that car theft is so easy because it's easy to get
| away with and has a high rate of return. That only works if you
| have the connections with chop shops or exporters to be able to
| get money for that car. You also have to have the skills/tools
| for being able to steal the car in the first place. To flip
| that, the people that do steal cars would probably have no clue
| on how to dismantle a steel structure, have the means to
| load/haul that steel, or know what recycling places will even
| buy from them without immediately reporting it to police.
| me_me_me wrote:
| 100k between 4-5 people, is a lot of money for a lot of people.
| Especially metal stealing ones
| MobiusHorizons wrote:
| I highly doubt it's worth 100k as scrap. The "6 figures"
| price tag was to replace it. Maybe they have some way to sell
| this equipment for its original purpose, but if they are
| selling it for scrap it'll go for a tiny fraction of what it
| would be worth in working condition.
| chasd00 wrote:
| also, if the scrapyard suspected it was stolen they
| probably wouldn't buy it. I bet it's at the bottom of a
| river somewhere.
| jcpham2 wrote:
| Nah Jasper is that kind of place in Alabama where even a
| stolen 200' tower can be fenced
| vcg3rd wrote:
| ~5 years ago when I was driving back and forth to an adjacent
| state to work on our house to get it on the market, I discover
| my ground wire had been stolen. It was no more than 2' long and
| was the only exposed wire outside. The house was on a very
| rural 2 mile road with only 7-8 other houses. They had to be
| desperate.
| asadotzler wrote:
| The tower can get some stub legs welded on and it'll be good as
| new, at least $10,000 worth, maybe as much as $15,000. The 200'
| self supporting tower I've been eying is $11,000 used.
| quickthrowman wrote:
| 400 tons is 800k pounds or 10 fully laden semi trailers of
| material, it's definitely not anywhere near that much. I bet
| you could fit the whole thing on one flatbed with room to
| spare.
| snypher wrote:
| It's definitely not that much, as the yard near me pays $0.60
| a pound and that tower is not worth $500k.
| ssl-3 wrote:
| 400 tons?
|
| As a reference: A 10-foot section of Rohn 45G weighs about 70
| pounds. 200 feet of 45G is thus about 1,400 pounds -- less than
| a ton.
|
| (I do not know if this particular tower was Rohn 45G or
| something else that may be heavier -- I only know that it was a
| guyed tower, and that (when guyed) 45G can be stacked beyond
| 200 feet.)
| bombcar wrote:
| There's no discussion, but a 200 foot tower doesn't come down
| without evidence on the ground unless you have, well, a 200 foot
| crane.
| russdill wrote:
| If you cut the wires on the type of radio tower, it will come
| down on its own.
| daedalus_j wrote:
| Yes, certainly. But the point is that it will leave *VERY*
| obvious indications that it was felled in such a way.
| eschneider wrote:
| My money is on this being insurance fraud.
| roamerz wrote:
| It was an AM station so I wouldn't rule out political
| motivations.
| shrx wrote:
| _The estimate, he said, is expected to be six figures. Elmore
| did not have insurance on that property._
|
| edit: quote from https://www.al.com/news/2024/02/someone-stole-
| a-jasper-radio...
| DamnInteresting wrote:
| A better source than the tabloid New York Post:
| https://www.al.com/news/2024/02/someone-stole-a-jasper-radio...
| dang wrote:
| Thanks! We've changed to that from
| https://nypost.com/2024/02/07/news/radio-station-baffled-
| aft....
| sonicanatidae wrote:
| Meth heads are REALLY stepping up their game.
| chasd00 wrote:
| they can get resourceful that's for sure. A family friend had a
| catalytic converter stolen in the parking lot of a grocery
| store when they stopped to pick up a few things. Stealing a
| catalytic converter involves cutting parts of the exhaust
| system out of a car.
| cafard wrote:
| A lot of Priuses in my neighborhood lost their catalytic
| converters a few winters ago. Mostly this happened at night,
| so there was more time than for whoever hit your friend's
| car..
| fragmede wrote:
| so in defense, you can have a catalytic converter cage put
| in, but it seems they will just cut through that as well to
| get at the catalytic converter.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| Skilled thieves can do that with a battery powered saw in
| less than 30 seconds, there's been more than enough videos on
| youtube showing just how easy it is.
|
| Cheap battery powered tools have made _a lot_ of crime a hell
| of a lot easier.
| euroderf wrote:
| Just wait for the _drones_ that bring the saw and haul away
| the converter.
| quickthrowman wrote:
| It takes about 30 seconds to make two cuts through exhaust
| pipe with a one handed battery sawzall or battery angle
| grinder.
|
| https://www.homedepot.com/p/Milwaukee-M18-FUEL-18V-Lithium-I.
| ..
| jack_riminton wrote:
| My BS detector is going off on this. It's such a monumental
| effort for what would quickly become pretty worthless scrap
| asadotzler wrote:
| Someone who needs a 200' self-supporting tower. Getting one
| from Rohn is probably $15,000 to $20,000 and more than half
| that used. I've been shopping towers for several years and when
| I read the headline my first thought was "yeah, Starlink needs
| a clear view of the sky" not "some meth head tryin' to sell
| steel for scrap."
| hluska wrote:
| The world has changed in odd ways. Ten or twenty years ago, this
| would seem like very ambitious drug addicts. Today, there's a
| real chance that this will turn out to be a prank for Internet
| cred. And as strange or unlikely as that sounds, a guy recently
| made the news for intentionally crashing a plane for internet
| cred. I sure never would have imagined that.
|
| We live in interesting times and that's not always a good thing.
| 486sx33 wrote:
| Seems like there could be more to the story.. perhaps an
| alternate explanation than scrap value. a giant steel frame for
| an antenna would have scrap value, but relatively not that much.
| For a lot less hassle and more money you could grab a couple semi
| trailers and cut them up, they are usually just laying around
| unhooked.
|
| Then again I guess meth heads aren't masters of cost benefit
| analysis
| lxgr wrote:
| Scrap metal thieves are indeed not always the brightest. I've
| heard of cases of attempted thefts of (powered) power lines of
| electrified railways...
| boringg wrote:
| I should feel bad for the outcome, but i don't....
| 486sx33 wrote:
| I agree. A tire manufacturing plant closed in my home city
| back in the early 2000s. I guy we knew from high school
| wanted the copper that came to the plant under ground in a
| vault. He figured for some reason it was disco ... and blam
| fried his legs and hands completely cooked all his nerves in
| them and apparently one of his teeth exploded.. I mean , why
| would they turn service off to a manufacturing plant when
| they can just pull the meter ?
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| 20 years ago rotten.com would post pictures of charred
| thieves that managed to electrocute themselves at the top of
| a pole.
| jacquesm wrote:
| This happened in Amsterdam a couple of decades ago. There
| was a newly minted industrial area on the other side of a
| bridge and the power company had temporarily run a pretty
| beefy hookup to the other side of the canal (Zeeburgerdijk)
| to power the various businesses there. The cable was about
| 4" thick. One night the power went out without warning and
| the power company showed up, when they found the break they
| found a hacksaw embedded in the cable fused solidly to the
| cable guts.
|
| They never bothered to file a report with the police
| because they figured whoever did that had been punished
| enough and sure enough there was a report of a guy with
| massive burns reporting to a nearby hospital that same
| night.
| inferiorhuman wrote:
| Happened in San Francisco too, although without any
| report of injury.
|
| https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/thieves-steal-16-feet-of-
| cop...
| mynameisnoone wrote:
| Death porn and poverty porn are disgusting.
| beAbU wrote:
| In south africa we have multiple stories of people destroying
| massive power transmission systems for the smallest piece of
| copper pipe or conductor thats exposed on the side of a
| transformer.
|
| Metal theft is almost universally not accompanied by common
| sense.
| boudin wrote:
| It reminds me of this story, an elderly woman cutting Armenia
| off the internet after mistaking a fiber with copper
| https://www.neowin.net/news/75-year-old-granny-cuts-off-
| the-...
| mynameisnoone wrote:
| South Africa is one the most unequal and dangerous advanced
| economies where middle class white people almost universally
| live in fortified compounds. Desperation, unemployment, and
| crushing poverty is what drives such property crime.
|
| A friend of mine lived in the suburbs of Moscow in 1991. The
| family was watching TV when suddenly the power went out. It
| turns out someone stole the power lines to sell for scrap.
| Infrastructure cannibalism is a sign of civilization on the
| verge of collapse.
| beAbU wrote:
| Im sad to admit that this has happened about a dozen times
| in my life since the 00s, in South Africa.
| Animats wrote:
| "Better Ads Experience Program Certified"?
| moioci wrote:
| Jasper has always had a unique brand of criminal:
|
| https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-jul-29-mn-60726...
| standardly wrote:
| Fun fact, my grandparents moved into that house. It was cheap,
| and within a year they found part of an undetonated pipe bomb
| in the shed in the back which the ATF came and confiscated.
|
| Jasper is a strange place. You hear of meth heads, being in
| north central AL and all. But the town has a unique history and
| there are actually a lot of really rich folks and nice
| neighborhoods there. It's an old mining town with a lot of old
| money, and rich folk from all over move there because of Smith
| lake. It used to be "the hitman capital" of the US and I've
| heard stories from a pilot friend of an umarked and
| unidentified black leer jet transporting shady
| individuals/cargo that used to frequent the Walker County
| Airport.
| jcpham2 wrote:
| This guy Jaspers
| csa wrote:
| Jasper and the surrounding area is very similar to Shittown (of
| podcast fame).
|
| Crazy shit happens there for random reasons that probably won't
| make sense to an outsider.
|
| This could be as simple as someone having a beef with a person at
| the station or one of the content sources that the AM station
| broadcasts.
|
| It could be something as simple as drunken weekend shenanigans.
| Why? Because they could.
| jcpham2 wrote:
| This is totally Walker county. It was an AM station so it
| probably took the owner the weekend to look into it. We've got
| local stations near me that relay to the top of a nearby mountain
| and weather or road conditions can delay repairing that local
| station. I have family in Jasper, this really happened it's wild
| that's it's national news.
| sho_hn wrote:
| If you need more radio tower stories tonight:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_(2022_film)
| AdamJacobMuller wrote:
| I'm not particularly susceptible to jump scares in movies or
| anything shocking really, but, this movie had me on the edge of
| my seat.
|
| Good movie, much better than expected. Watch some of the making
| of features too, they filmed it all "real" (up on a 50ft tower
| or something) and it shows in the acting.
| schappim wrote:
| Images of the actual tower:
|
| https://cdn.scrippsnews.com/images/videos/x/1707511452_vrzZ9...
|
| https://www.radioworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/WJLX.p...
| russellbeattie wrote:
| The thing about this theft is that in order for it to be worth
| the effort, there needs to be a buyer.
|
| Is the FBI looking into what must be an organized metal salvage
| pipeline? First the salvage place needs to pay the thieves, no
| questions asked and no paper trail involved, then they need to
| pile it or chop it up, then sell it on to industrial factories
| that can use it, who must look the other way in terms of knowing
| about the source of the metal.
|
| This involves (among other crimes) tax evasion, book keeping
| fraud, money laundering, secrecy and probably a lot of bribery.
|
| I mean, if I can't buy pseudoephedrine without the state
| recording my license, surely it'd be pretty straightforward to
| require the same to sell copper.
| rbc wrote:
| There's a lot of detailed discussion in the Radio community here:
|
| https://www.radiodiscussions.com/threads/wjlx-200-tower-repo...
| thih9 wrote:
| Is anyone here familiar with structures like these? Do you have
| any theories how this could have happened?
| arp242 wrote:
| The tower seems to be in a relatively remote field, and the
| tower seems pretty small (judging from [1]). Cut it down and in
| to pieces with a few battery-powered grinders, put in a van or
| two (or a small truck), and off you go. I suspect this may be
| easier than it appears at first sight.
|
| [1]: https://edition.cnn.com/2024/02/08/us/stolen-transmitter-
| rad...
| diggan wrote:
| How realistic is the theory in the article regarding it being
| picked up by a helicopter? I don't know how much a tower like
| that could weight, nor how much a typical helicopter that a
| private individual has access to could lift.
|
| But if they'd be able to collect a significant value after
| cutting it down into pieces somewhere else and sell the
| pieces, maybe it makes sense (from the thief's perspective)
| to helicopter away the tower after detaching it from the
| ground.
| Bluestrike2 wrote:
| It's a small tower, but I'd think it'd probably still
| weighs a couple thousand pounds. I could be way off there
| and it's smaller than it looks in the CNN photo, but you're
| likely looking at using a construction helicopter and
| needing experienced people capable of rigging the tower and
| actually lifting it without killing everybody.
|
| My guess is that they just dropped it and chopped it up. A
| helicopter seems ridiculously over-the-top and cartoonish
| for a couple hundred bucks in scrap metal value you'd gain
| from the theft. You'd waste more than that in just fuel for
| the helicopter.
| Brian_K_White wrote:
| 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.
| fbdab103 wrote:
| 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.
| alright2565 wrote:
| you can look up historical data about what aircraft were
| where at what time.
| diggan wrote:
| As long as the ADS-B transponder is on, yeah. I'm
| guessing if you're about to do a short flight to hijack a
| radio tower, you might want to turn that off.
| Brian_K_White wrote:
| I don't think the helicopter was meant to be a real
| suggestion, just relaying an example of some of the calls
| and emails they've received. I think it was meant to sound
| silly but just show that people are interested, including
| people with no real idea.
|
| All in all, the physical theft looks almost trivial to me
| going by the pictures of the actual site.
|
| What mystifies me is how it went unnoticed at the
| electrical level, that a landscaper had to tell them.
|
| The location is remote and unmanned, but the station must
| know instantly when anything at all changes even slightly
| about the transmitter or antenna.
|
| Not because of webcams or anything like that either.
|
| The connections from the signal source to the transmitter
| and from the transmitter to the antenna are not just one-
| way and blind. Any change at the load directly and
| instantly affects the source.
|
| I mean obviously I must be wrong about that somewhere along
| the way.
|
| I actually had a ham licence but back in the 80s and I was
| only 11 or so. So my understanding is both educated and
| not.
| stevetron wrote:
| I once worked at a company that put telemetry equipment
| out in the field. At a planning meeting for one project,
| some of the project's locations were not very accessible,
| i.e. one was at the top of a cliff. Someone made the flip
| remark about using a helicopter. The manager, who was an
| ex-seal, checked into it, and found they could afford it
| if they were strict about the flying-time, and that's
| what they used. The former manager, who had gotten the
| project for the company, would have had everyone using
| pack-mules, because he liked recreational backpacking.
| buildsjets wrote:
| I once got a quote to sling a 1500 lb load 5 miles from an
| airport to a remote area. $10,000.
| dylan604 wrote:
| > The tower seems to be in a relatively remote field
|
| you pretty much just described every single tower site.
| vanattab wrote:
| Kinda but some are more remote then others. Some are in a
| field next to a neighborhood and shooping center and some
| are surrounded my 100's of acres of crops.
| Anotheroneagain wrote:
| Theft like this is suprisingly common, usually everybody
| assumes it's people doing their job.
| rightbyte wrote:
| Just wear a yellow reflective jacket and don't look around
| yourself nervously and you could steal the sign from the
| Police station.
| doubloon wrote:
| and much of rural america is increasingly depopulated. not
| only would nobody notice, there is nobody there to notice.
| quickthrowman wrote:
| Two to four people showed up in a pickup pulling a flatbed
| trailer, armed with battery powered metal saws and a dream. The
| rest should be self-explanatory.
|
| You could rent all of the equipment for a few hundred dollars:
| a 3/4 or 1-ton truck, a 30-40' flatbed trailer, and a few
| portabands/angle grinders.
|
| Hi-vis vests and hard hats also lend an air of legitimacy.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Hi-vis vests and hard hats at night are still super
| suspicious. No legit crew would do this kind of thing at
| night.
| marssaxman wrote:
| Is there any reason to believe it _was_ done at night? It
| does not sound like they have any idea when it disappeared,
| or how long it was gone before they noticed.
| mikey_p wrote:
| One of the theories I'm seeing is that the owner dismantled the
| item because they didn't want to maintain the AM station, just
| their FM translator. The alleged theft is just a cover store to
| cover their actions.
|
| The AM station was fairly small at 1KW, and only had a 200 foot
| tower which is also rather small. Some folks looking into it
| found public records from the FCC showing that the owner has be
| fined or found to be out of compliance for only using the FM
| translator with the AM station off air in the past, so this
| points to possible motivation.
| sh79 wrote:
| 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.
| graemep wrote:
| One of my earliest memories of something in the newspapers was,
| as a teenager, finding out a picture in The Guardian was of any
| entirely different conflict, more than a decade earlier, albeit
| in the same country.
|
| The media did not really care much about accuracy then, and its
| even worse now.
| jackfoxy wrote:
| This is more and more a problem, not just with images. Even
| most of the higher quality (better researched) Youtube
| channels are fast and loose about using irrelevant stock
| footage to go along with their narration. Of course the
| channels with AI voice-over are universally terrible at this.
| I know a lot of this is content creators have limited access
| to good visual content. A naval historiographer I follow will
| show, for instance, ship photos or archival video that is not
| exactly the ship or event he is describing. He's probably a
| solo creator and I'm sure constrained by archival access, and
| frankly time.
|
| One notable exception I have found is this channel
| https://www.youtube.com/@wildwestfaces The narration is often
| of first person memoirs of historic events and the images are
| relevant and sync well with the narration.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| >> A naval historiographer I follow will show, for
| instance, ship photos or archival video that is not exactly
| the ship or event he is describing.
|
| It isn't about money or resources. Even the biggest budget
| Hollywood productions regularly pass off incorrect ships in
| full understanding that most viewers cannot tell a sloop
| from a brig. Sometimes it is about cost or practicality,
| but more often it is about which ship comports with
| audience expectations.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Which, in my books, invalidates either as a learning
| resource.
|
| I mean, as a viewer, if I spot a naval historiographer
| routinely using wrong footage, then how certain can I be
| they're not also playing fast and loose with what they're
| saying? After all, the only piece of clear evidence that
| I have points towards them not caring.
|
| As for what "comports with audience expectations", maybe
| this is an extreme position, but to me, intentionally
| choosing something incorrect but more recognizable is
| gaslighting at scale - it reinforces the misconception in
| those already exposed, and introduces it to those new
| (usually young) to a topic.
| jackfoxy wrote:
| Drachinifel is pretty darned knowledgeable. I imagine its
| not that easy to get enough footage of some American WWII
| destroyer that is NOT a Fletcher class, (as a made up
| example), to fill out an entire 45 minute narration. And
| there's a shit ton of work that goes into a video that
| long for a solo creator.
|
| Now, the abysmal nature of name brand corporate history
| videos is another matter.
| seadan83 wrote:
| A single example of one inaccuracy many years ago is not
| evidence for (at least as far as the Guardian is concerned):
| "The media did not really care much about accuracy then, and
| its even worse now."
|
| To say that, you would also need to know the actual accuracy
| rate of media over time. I don't think anyone really knows
| that without perhaps having done a PhD thesis on the topic.
|
| What's more, good media publishes citations & corrections:
| https://www.theguardian.com/info/complaints-and-corrections
|
| They will correct things like that when pointed out. On the
| other hand, honest mistakes of the wrong photo is not that
| uncommon. In this case, I think the resource was looking for
| just a stock photo. I did not read the article and
| immediately think, "Oh yeah, random tower in the middle of
| nowhere USA, this is for sure a picture of _that_ tower ".
| Perhaps just me..
|
| Regardless, on wrong image, I've certainly noted that a few
| times - for example reading protest signs that are clearly
| for a different time/issue than what is being documented (EG:
| protests in Russia in like 2010s and the news was running
| images from things that happened 15 & 20 years earlier).
| 1over137 wrote:
| >In this case, I think the resource was looking for just a
| stock photo.
|
| God forbid they just write their article with no photo at
| all. Better to use a wrong one apparently.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| this captures a meta-observation very well.. a "PhD"
| worth of knowledge is needed to discern, but publishing a
| stock photo for a news item is incentivized to be a
| moment's decision. Compare and contrast to "any idiot can
| ask hard questions that take days to reply correctly to"
| .. there is a power asymmetry at work in the public eye.
| Guideropes and economic assumptions disappearing into a
| sand-storm of digital information.
|
| basically, not looking good for the future of reliable
| media
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| > _In this case, I think the resource was looking for just
| a stock photo. I did not read the article and immediately
| think, "Oh yeah, random tower in the middle of nowhere USA,
| this is for sure a picture of that tower". Perhaps just
| me.._
|
| Yeah, I'd assume it's just you. My default assumption for a
| photo next to a piece of text is that the two are directly
| related, in particular the photo being the subject of the
| text.
|
| Okay, so maybe they wanted to have _a_ photo, but there 's
| no way to frame this that makes the journalist or the
| outlet look good. Intentionally or not, choosing a wrong
| photo is still screwing with readers' perception of
| reality.
| eastbound wrote:
| The Guardian never publishes a link or an academic
| reference to the source of scientific articles it pretends
| to quote.
|
| As you say, it also waits until a reader notices factual
| mistakes, the other ones just slip through. Last point, you
| don't have any backing to conclude that their mistakes are
| honest, and not the result of intent of bias. Given their
| bias is always in the same direction, I do not believe for
| a second that The Guardian isn't putting its thumb on the
| scale when they only reproduce the part of scientific
| studies that goes in their editorial direction,
| conveniently leaving the rest unsaid.
| flaminHotSpeedo wrote:
| The caption is infuriating:
|
| > "A different radio tower, which has presumably not been
| stolen"
| cutemonster wrote:
| I think it's a good caption? I also think it's probably not
| been stolen
| brookst wrote:
| 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?
| wly_cdgr wrote:
| 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
| fbdab103 wrote:
| So...a picture of some random sky? Maybe draw an outline
| of what the tower would look like if it were there?
| 1over137 wrote:
| 'Artist renditions' are used for space news, criminal
| descriptions, etc. maybe not such a crazy idea here.
| fbdab103 wrote:
| 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.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| That's the thing: you don't. The difficulty of cutting it
| down is what is the major difference between the real
| tower and the depicted one.
| dageshi wrote:
| 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?
| wly_cdgr wrote:
| See, that'd be my job as a photo editor. To know the
| answer. That's the job. That's what makes it a real job
| when actually done right. Any high school age intern can
| find a picture of a random radio tower.
|
| If you can't meet that standard, don't run a photo, or
| don't run the story. The world won't come to a standstill
| because a partisan rag from a provincial backwater didn't
| run a filler item about a wacky heist halfway across the
| world.
| dageshi wrote:
| In other words, you don't know how practical or not it is
| to find a picture of the tower and your opinion on the
| subject is worthless.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| It doesn't matter how practical it is. What matters is,
| the only honest course of action is to not include a
| photo of a wrong tower if it's not practical to find a
| photo of the right one.
| 1over137 wrote:
| >As an editor, given this as your only photo choice, what
| caption would you write?
|
| I would just not include a photo at all.
| fbdab103 wrote:
| As a reader, I want to have a sense of scale of the
| tower.
| 1over137 wrote:
| Of course. The scale is 200 feet, as described in the
| article. Maybe you want it in football fields?
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Smoots.
| fbdab103 wrote:
| A picture is worth a thousand words. 200 feet tall and
| how thick are the bars? How many? Could I do it with a
| hacksaw or would I need a more intense torch? I want to
| visualize perpetrating the crime.
| ssl-3 wrote:
| It's hard to correctly visualize something when the
| provided visuals are abhorrently wrong, though, isn't it?
|
| There's a world of difference between an old free-
| standing Long Lines tower and the straight-and-narrow
| guyed tower that actually disappeared, just as there is
| also a world of difference stature between Roseanne Barr
| and Gwen Stefani.
|
| A picture may be worth a thousand words, but each of
| those thousand words has negative value when they're
| simply wrong.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Yes, and what the wrong photo does is fuck with your
| sense of scale entirely. The included tower is more of an
| industrial installation; the real tower is more like
| something a couple drunk metal thieves could salvage in
| an evening.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| It's mocking. It's like a subtle middle finger to those who
| suspected something here makes no sense and decided to look
| more carefully at the photo.
|
| Like others said, I too would choose to not include any
| photo at all - there's no way to frame inclusion of a wrong
| photo as something _good_.
| trbleclef wrote:
| The one in the article looks like a stripped down Long Lines[0]
| microwave tower, not anything at all like a radio broadcasting
| tower.
|
| [0]https://long-lines.com/
| dang wrote:
| ("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)
| Stratoscope wrote:
| > _The FCC also notified WJLX on Thursday morning that the
| station would have to go off the air because of the theft. While
| WJLX still has its FM transmitter and tower, it is not allowed to
| operate its FM transmitter while the AM station is off the air._
|
| W.T.F.?
|
| I've been following this story, and as a ham operator I am
| usually a big fan of the FCC. But I don't understand why the loss
| of the station's AM tower should require their FM transmissions
| to also be taken down.
|
| I must be missing something here. Can anyone help me understand
| this?
| blackfawn wrote:
| 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.
| Brybry wrote:
| To add to this with sources:
|
| "Loss of primary station's signal. The translator must be set
| up to go off the air if the main station's signal is lost."
| [1] and cites regulations [2][3]
|
| [1] https://www.fcc.gov/media/radio/fm-translators-and-
| boosters
|
| [2] https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-47/chapter-I/subchapte
| r-C...
|
| [3] https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-47/chapter-I/subchapte
| r-C...
| Angostura wrote:
| 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
| amelius wrote:
| Shame they can't just retransmit an internet radio
| station they receive over satellite.
| geerlingguy wrote:
| 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).
| loeg wrote:
| 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?
| Kwpolska wrote:
| And isn't AM sound quality worse?
| dylan604 wrote:
| Stereo AM signals are (was?) a thing!
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AM_stereo
| op00to wrote:
| AM sound quality can be much better than FM. There are AM
| pirates that show up once in a while that have absolutely
| beautiful signals.
| Anotheroneagain wrote:
| I suppose for safety reasons, as AM receivers can be easily
| improvised. (in some kind of critical situation)
| denotational wrote:
| > Translators are a secondary service that must only
| rebroadcast their primary service.
|
| I must be missing something, because this seems an arbitrary
| rule that has no purpose except to increase the FCC's
| licensing revenues by allowing them to charge more for "real"
| spectrum allocation that for a "translator" allocation.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| The US Code of federal regulations, Congressional records,
| and media reports from around the time of enactment are on
| the public record, why not take a look yourself to check if
| you are 'missing something'?
| HPsquared wrote:
| I wonder how much "economic" activity goes towards satisfying
| arbitrary requirements such as these.
| brookst wrote:
| Lots of economic activity goes into supporting Chesterfield
| fences.
| healsdata wrote:
| "arbitrary" <citation needed>
| AnarchismIsCool wrote:
| Eh, there isn't really a modern reason to operate like
| this. If you ever deal with the FCC you'll find a lot of
| their rules are fairly dated and weird.
|
| All that said, in terms of economic waste and lost
| opportunity, this isn't the hill I'd die on.
| amelius wrote:
| If stuff like this surprises you, then you haven't seen David
| Copperfield make an airplane and statue of liberty disappear.
| joemi wrote:
| I'm not sure if you're trying to make some sort of joke or not,
| but that's not really related at all. This tower thing was just
| something in a remote location being dismantled in between
| regular visits, which is not at all how Copperfield
| accomplished those illusions.
| ryzvonusef wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZSxb8QIIa4
|
| jeff geerling made a video on this, has some details on FM/AM
| translators, and how difficult it is to dismantle a tower.
| chasil wrote:
| Wouldn't it be easier to destroy the supports, causing it to
| fall?
|
| As long as the power is off, this seems faster.
| geerlingguy wrote:
| Presumably the power was on--else the FM translator would've
| been in violation if it was transmitting. Also the owner
| never mentioned any monitoring of the AM signal, but most
| radio stations have at least one if not two or three
| different means to monitor their signals (and the FM is
| supposed to be integrated into that since it's not its own
| station).
|
| If the tower disappeared overnight... it would not be able to
| be done without a trace, and if any listeners were listening,
| for almost any station I've heard of, at least one listener
| would call into the station.
| assimpleaspossi wrote:
| How did they not notice this immediately themselves instead of
| having a landscaping crew notify them?
|
| When I was a broadcast engineer, we were required to constantly
| monitor the on-the-air signal. In addition, that tower is live.
| How did they disconnect it without serious shock?
| sandworm101 wrote:
| A small-town radio station likely doesn't have a 24/7 monitor.
| And it is AM, which they seem to be have kept running only to
| facilitate their FM license. I bet they just sent it a feed and
| checked on it ever few days/weeks. If a small AM station drops
| off the air, would any listeners think to inquire about why?
| rstephenson2 wrote:
| The most plausible theory to me: this is all FCC licensing
| related, where the owner is operating an FM station that is
| licensed as an AM station + repeater, but _nobody_ listens to
| the AM station or cares. Other comments say they haven't been
| broadcasting on AM in ~5 years, so it seems likely that it was
| stolen much earlier and nobody noticed. The Jeff Geerling video
| kind of supports this, but doesn't call anyone out since it is
| speculative. Because if it is true, the station either didn't
| notice, or ignored it until the landscapers filed a report,
| forcing them to address it and pretend like it just happened.
| thehamkercat wrote:
| This reminds me of [1]
|
| [1]: https://archive.ph/tOuMU
| mlhpdx wrote:
| Interesting that the folks making the broadcast weren't listening
| to it.
| sam_goody wrote:
| OT:
|
| One of the best short stories ever written is O. Henry's "A
| Retrieved Reformation".
|
| It takes place in Elmore, is about a thief, and is WTF. Which is
| a tenuous connection, but nonetheless a story worth reading ;)
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-02-10 23:01 UTC)