Vandals have caused two radio stations to go off air in Greenville, Mississippi, following the theft of copper from the broadcast tower.

As reported by Radio World, 100.7 WDMS(FM) and 1260 WGVM(AM) suffered significant damage to their broadcast tower as a result of a copper theft.

All three signals on the tower, WDMS, WGVM, and WGVM’s 97.3 FM translator, were knocked offline.

The incident happened on November 21, with the stations suffering damage to their transmission lines, an AM antenna tuning unit, an iso-coupler for both the AM and its associated FM translator, and to both AM and FM transmitters, according to a filing with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

The filing notes that the towers are owned by High Plains Radio Network, LLC.

Radio World reported last week that the stations were still off air, while also reporting that High Plains Radio Network contacted the Arkansas-based Broadcast Industry Group to provide technical support to repair the damage.

The incident happened at around 5:30am on November 21 when both stations went off the air.

Following this, station management turned up at the transmitter site and found that a vehicle had attached a rope or a chain to the elevated transmission lines for all three stations, according to the filing.

The vehicle in question had pulled all of the lines out from the studio building, which is adjacent to the tower, and did “massive and total damage,” as the STA noted. 

It's not the first time that opportunist copper vandals have targeted tower infrastructure for the material. In one such notable case last year, a pair toppled a 500ft cell tower in Oklahoma while stealing copper.