Evan Adkins, director of engineering, called Mike Kirtner, the president of Kindred Communications, last Thursday just prior to lunchtime.
“Are you sitting down?” Adkins asked Kirtner after he answered the phone.
Kirtner, 75, has seen a lot in his time as a broadcast owner in the tri-state area of Kentucky, West Virginia and Ohio along the Ohio River.
One of his AM station’s copper radials once fell victim to a copper thief cutting its wires.
But an FM transmission line being snapped and cleared in broad daylight? He couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing.
The alleged perpetrator — Paul Crisp of Catlettsburg, according to WSAZ(TV)’s reporting — had severed the main transmission line leading up to the broadcast tower of 93.7 WDGG(FM), a 100,000-watt country-formatted FM station licensed to Ashland, Ky., which goes by the moniker “The Dawg.”
Kirtner isn’t sure how the suspect is still alive.
“He was lucky in that he didn’t die, he was unlucky that he got caught,” Kirtner said.
The cable crosses a bridge from the transmitter building and then runs up the tower located on Musser Lane in Catlettsburg, and Kirtner said the thief cut all of it.
Crisp, according to Kirtner, allegedly dragged the heavy line down to his house, only a few hundred yards over a hill from the tower site, and had already cut it into smaller sections, presumably in an attempt to scrap the copper out of the wire.
Kirtner suspected the perpetrator must have scoped out the theft in advance — including by disabling the site’s video surveillance system prior to cutting the lines. WSAZ reported there was also a copper theft at the same site on May 23.
“It was definitely well-thought out,” he said.
The Boyd County, Ky., Sheriff’s Office later obtained a search warrant, discovered the cut-up transmission line in his yard and obtained a warrant for Crisp’s arrest.
WSAZ said Crisp was apprehended after a short pursuit by deputies and charged with second-degree fleeing or evading police, among other offenses.
WDGG was left with its Class C1 FM signal off the air.
Kirtner said the station is currently operating at heavily reduced power — around 10 watts — utilizing both a backup transmitter and an auxiliary antenna.
Recovery effort
WDGG’s damaged transmission line itself, Kirtner noted, is of an unusual size. Because the lines contain pressurized gasses, simply splicing the cut pieces back together introduces a risk of gas leaks.
As a result, Kirtner is seeking to source an alternative route. Total repair costs, he estimates, are somewhere between $70,000 and $100,000, as the line can run as much as $160 per foot.
Adkins is spearheading the recovery efforts, putting together cost estimates and coordinating with the station’s insurance company.
He comes from a lineage of engineering — Adkins’ late father, Virgil, was a longtime chief engineer for Daystar Television Networks.
“He’s been a godsend working through all of this,” Kirtner said of his director of engineering.
The station’s tower climbing crew is on notice, and Kirtner hopes to have a direct transmission path installed and operational by Friday, June 5 — though he emphasized that it will take more time to resume at full broadcast power.
Kirtner and Adkins are also still unclear if the main antenna itself suffered electrical or physical damage from the incident.
Local difference
WDGG is one of seven stations operated by Kirtner’s group. He’s been moved by the response in and around Huntington, Ashland and beyond.
“Because we’re locally owned, listeners see this as a community business that’s been attacked,” Kirtner said.
At church services on Sunday, for example, he had several congregation members come up to him to offer their support. Even if they aren’t around-the-clock listeners, he explained, they see the stations active around the tri-state area.
Kirtner’s stations offer a weekly street promotion, “9th Street Live,” which transforms a block of downtown Huntington, W.Va., into a Friday night of live music and food from local vendors.
WDGG is also running the 22nd annual “Dawg Dazzle” from Huntington’s Harris Riverfront Park this July 3, which features plenty of patriotic fireworks and a headlining performance by country music star and Cross Lanes, W.Va., native Kathy Mattea.
It draws approximately 15,000 people each year, Kirtner said, with West Virginia-based artists in conjunction with both local county and city governments.
“It just benefits everybody, and I think that was one of the reasons people were so sympathetic to us on what has happened,” Kirtner said. “They’re very familiar with our promotional events.”
Lessons learned
Kirtner is not sure if the incident could have been prevented, but he warns even FM station owners: A copper theft, rendering your station completely off the air, can happen anyplace, anytime.
“Criminal intent is hard to avoid,” he said.
Looking back, Kirtner may have sought to have around 200 feet of transmission line available — easier said than done because of the unusual size, he added.
“But it doesn’t hurt to have on hand,” Kirtner said.
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