by geerlingguy
2 subcomments
- Cutting a live transmission line is incredibly foolish, for many reasons, but I'm guessing the station has a modern(ish) solid state transmitter, which has great foldback protection.
I've seen (and personally tested) AM transmitters dead shorting, and within less than a second (probably less than 100ms, but I haven't measured precisely) it will fold back on a dead short to like 1% of its operating power, lower if it still detects a short.
This is to protect the (even more expensive) transmitter from lightning strikes or other weird eventualities (like the line leaking pressurized nitrogen, used to prevent shorts from moisture mainly).
But replacing that 3" transmission line is not cheap or fast. Usually the runs are planned and designed, and every elbow / connection has losses that are accounted for.
- In Detroit copper theft was an epidemic a few years back. Once the easy stuff in abandoned houses was gone thieves went further afield. .
A few brave thieves went after power substations. For some thieves a lack of knowledge was fatal.
https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/detroit/2017...
by silisili
10 subcomments
- Kentucky for some reason has an epidemic of this. My father lives in the middle of nowhere in a perfectly safe area, yet still at least once or twice a year someone steals the phone or power lines leading to outages. I live in a similar area in another state and it's nearly unheard of.
I wish they'd up the severity of these crimes - people willing to damage infrastructure for everyone else just to make drug money are not conducive to a functional society.
- Working backwards from clues in the article, thief maybe stole 200-400 ft of wire.
Assuming between 3-1/8″ - 6-1/8″ diameter.
Somewhere between $1,360 - $6,400 of scrap value. $70k-$100k to repair...
Absurd.
by userbinator
0 subcomment
- This isn't just any regular copper cable:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coaxial_cable#Hard_line
by legitronics
3 subcomments
- How is this person alive? That’s a terrifying amount of relatively high frequency energy. And pressurized gasses of some sort.
by cpncrunch
1 subcomments
- Looks like this guy has a history of drug trafficking: https://wchstv.com/news/local/deputies-boyd-county-man-charg...
by AndrewKemendo
3 subcomments
- That’s wild. Radio transmission power is no joke.
I replaced the 100W FM transmitter on our college radio tower and got in front of the emitter beam for like 10 seconds and my head rung for a week. The amps and power aren’t to be messed with.
I can’t even imagine messing with 100K line that’s a solid block of copper
- I'm surprised nothing more serious happened. There was obviously a serious electrocution risk, but I think that is the easiest bit to deal with. 100kW of radio waves, whilst non-ironising, can still microwave you. With 100kW there could have also been a serious reflection back to the transmitter. This guy cutting the cable is far luckier than he will ever know.
by liampulles
0 subcomment
- This kind of thing is totally routine here in South Africa. Probably about a third of power cuts in my area these days are due to some kind of cable or electrical theft.
by CamperBob2
2 subcomments
- The alleged perpetrator — Paul Crisp
Nominative determinism in action.
- That's 100,000 watts "ERP"- the actual power in the transmission line can be as low as 5,000 watts. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effective_radiated_power
by grahamburger
0 subcomment
- Oof, that's a bad day. I've had cable stolen from a tower site like that, but it was cable we had spooled out for installation the day before, not in active use.
by asdefghyk
1 subcomments
- The photo shows a cable ( with insulation ) that looks at least 4 inches thick ... (from a distance )
by helterskelter
0 subcomment
- Darwin awards should give this guy an honorable mention.
by trick-or-treat
0 subcomment
- Reads like a super-villain origin story. Welp, I guess he doesn't have to worry about getting the electric chair.
- Sigh. Can these thieves figure out how much copper and gold is in Flock cameras?
by nosmokewhereiam
0 subcomment
- Is just setting up a mixcloud accountafter this a viable solution?...100k for the ant...
by welcome_dragon
0 subcomment
- Is this not an old story? I seen to recall hearing it awhile ago
by ApolloFortyNine
0 subcomment
- >Total repair costs, he estimates, are somewhere between $70,000 and $100,000
This is always so depressing to read, especially when you realize the thief did the damage only to gain a couple hundred dollars in copper. It's just a massive net loss for society to deal with this.
It's a similar problem places have with people destroying ac units to steal some small amount of copper.
Theft is always bad, but this blatant net negative for the world theft is the kind of thing that makes you wonder about societies long term.
by CamperBob2
2 subcomments
- Is it too soon to talk about regulating the $#@* out of scrap-metal dealers?
- Kudos to Kirtner and Adkins for retaining their counterpoise through this enraging incident.
by elzbardico
0 subcomment
- How the fuck is the thief alive????
by mikeweiss
1 subcomments
- Wait a second, I just realized something... how much would the station be paying in electricity to transmit at 100,000 watts 24/7 ? Their electric bill must be like $200,000 per year??
- The criminal will be out in a few months to strike again I'm sure.
- The trash thief will never be able to replace that. I guess insurance will help but that’s just another excuse for them to raise rates.
That thief should be indentured until he pays it back in full.
- I'm looking for a Kalshi bet that the perp is a tweaker.
They say it could cost $70,000 - $100,000 to repair, but I also wonder if they'll have to refund ad buys while they are running at 10 watts and such reduced coverage. Makes me also wonder what kind of insurance broadcasters might have for such incidents when they can't broadcast.
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