Reporter Tess Koppelman of WDAF-Fox 4 TV is reporting that a pair of radio stations in rural Cleveland, Missouri were knocked off the air by thieves who stole copper wite from a radio transmission tower. 04-01-2008 Copper Thieves Knock Radio Stations Off The Air Copper thieves strike again: this time stripping copper pipe and wire from a radio transmission tower. The dangerous heist knocked two radio stations off the air. On April Fool's Day, Dave Brewer usually plays a prank. This time he changed the format of the radio station. But on Monday, 1140 and 1160 AM really did go off the air. "On the way back from lunch we heard nothing and we thought, 'Uh oh, the storm must have gotten to it,'" Brewer, KCTO/KCLX manager, said. But when the engineer went out to the towers near 251st and State Line Road, it was clear this was not storm damage. "They took bolt cutters and took the locks to the fences at the tower bases, that's how they got into them," Brewer said. They took all the copper from two of the towers, probably sold as scrap metal and the thieves probably made a couple hundred dollars and since it happened in a rural area, it's unlikely there were any witnesses. Worst yet for KCTO and KCLX, the outage happened during the popular Alex Jones show. "When you displace him for any reason the phones light up like a Christmas tree," Brewer said. The crew has been scrambling to get back on the air and the general manager explained the situation to listeners who could hear him. The engineers still have some fine tuning to do for the next day or so and they're asking listeners for some patience. "They could be hearing it on the moon for all I know and deader than a doornail in Grandview," Brewer said. If you know anything about the theft, call police or the Tips hotline. And the thieves should know the radio station is replacing copper tubing with steel, so they're not going to get anything if they return.
