[BC] Big copper theft in IA

[Rob Landry]

On Sat, 11 Feb 2012, Cowboy wrote:

> Catching thieves, protecting the citizens and their property ( what we 
> pay them for, and their reason to exist in the first place ) produces no 
> direct cash income to local government, or government at any level for 
> that matter. Persecuting the citizens, like speeding tickets, does !

Speeding automobiles are dangerous. Some 30,000 people die in traffic 
accidents every year in the U.S. as things are; can you imagine what that 
number might be if police stopped enforcing speeding laws?

The potential harm in stealing someone's ground system is, by comparison, 
rather less.

> Another solution is to shoot the thieves !

That seems rather harsh; even under Shari`a law they'd only have a hand 
cut off.

But I doubt it would make any difference what penalty you apply. Even if 
you've got them on camera and call the police, the thieves would likely be 
long gone with their booty by the time the cops arrive.

> Since we can't shoot them, and any other personal deterrent is likely
> also illegal, our only solutions are to make it somehow impractical,
> close to impossible, to remove the system, such as encasing buried radials
> in concrete, or something similar.

At the 1510 site in Waltham, Massachusetts (I forget the call letters; 
they seem to change with the weather), the ground system is under a paved 
parking lot. The same was true of the former WRCA 1330 site, also in 
Waltham (the station has since moved to a site in he neighboring city of 
Newton).

The best approach I've seen so far was at a station in Monterey, 
California, back in the '80's. The tower was in the bay at the end of a 
pier off Cannery Row, and the ground was salt water, with no radials at 
all. That station ran only a kilowatt, but you could hear it 40 miles 
away.

Rob