KAAY Tower #1 Down....

Per Doug Virden's e-mail and Facebook post:

"A couple of photos taken by Pat McDonald Hardwick after the tower went down.

According to an all access media article one of the KAAY nighttime directional towers has fallen down.  Currently there are only two towers standing.According to the Chief Engineer it was caused by a rusty guy wire at the insulator.  Inspectors will be at the transmitter site this week to look over the two remaining towers.  An STA has been filed for 12.5KW ND at night, that’s seventy five percent less power.

A boatload of money has been spent in recent years to get the signal back to full power.
 

As to what will happen with the station is still uncertain.  It will be very costly to put up a new tower and wonder if the company will spend the money to replace it?  Cuts have been made recently due to the pandemic." (re: the coronavirus, or "COVID-19" pandemic...google it for all the drama you can stand. bs)

It has been estimated that the tower went down right around Memorial Day (2020).

 

I walked amongst those towers with David B. Treadway and Jerry Sims, looking for Glaspie Dillard's grave; it took Daniel Appellof to take us; we rode on his truck tailgate out to the site near one of the towers to see his resting place.
 

Sad to say, this is what budget cuts cause; lack of maintenance and inspections lead to catastrophe.  Knowing what's been going on with KAAY in these latter years, some people's opinion is that this tower may never get replaced....

 

Thank you, Doug Virden, for alerting us to this tragedy.

 

Bud S. (staceys4@hotmail.com)