[BC] Big copper theft in IA

[RichardBJohnson at comcast.net]

Theft of anything worth over $1000 is a felony in most states. It is "grand theft." Anything below that watermark may be "petty larceny," but with some property such as weapons, even if it is only worth $10 it is considered grand theft.

The problem is enforcement. It is hard to catch copper thieves. The police would rather spend their time doing something easy and visible like catching speeders. There is an AM transmitter site not too far from my home in Beverly which a truck rolled up on a weekend in plain sight and tore out an entire ground-system, neatly rolling it up and putting it on the back of a flatbed trailer. The radio station was on-the-air at the time so I doubt that it was "authorized." I expected that there would be some repercussions so I wrote down the New Hampshire license plate number.

There was no investigation, nobody cared. The station, with its transmitter site at the Peabody/Danvers town line, eventually went away. The site still remains and the last time I was in the area, the tower was still standing.

Unless someone goes to the head of the town or city, the Mayor, the City Manager, etc., and starts a big stink, the police will never find the perpetrators and certainly will never prevent it from happening.

The solution is an above-ground counterpoise made from Alclad or similar materials. For AM nondirectional antennas, four 1/4 wavelength-long radials, insulated at their ends, and supported by utility poles have been proved to make the required FCC inverse-distance field intensity, and the far-field is nearly circular.

Cheers,
Richard B. Johnson
Book: http://www.AbominableFirebug.com/

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jerry Mathis" <thebeaver32 at gmail.com>