OK Radio: KGUY-FM Tower Dropped While On-Air

Non-Com KGUY 91.3 FM’s listeners out of Guymon, Okla. might have been waiting last weekend for the consuming crescendo of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture or another epic ending of a music piece from the Tower-Collapse-OklahomaHigh Plains Public Radio-owned classical music station, but, according to wireslessestimator.com, were instead treated to deafening silence after a tower crew hired by American Tower Corporation cut the broadcaster’s tower down without notifying them, timed perfectly by the tower techs for it to pancake upon the earth.

High Plains Public Radio director of programming and operations Dale Bolton said KGUY started receiving calls from loyal listeners that the station had stopped broadcasting, and then the usual equipment checks were made to assess why the station was off the air.

“We were later notified by American Tower that they had cut the tower down over the weekend because a crew had tried to make repairs to the unsafe tower and couldn’t,” Bolton said.

Bolton said he had previously noticed that the tower appeared to be crooked and stood at “an odd angle.” He believes it could have possibly been a problem with the guy wires.

Although Bolton said the tower should be decommissioned if it was a danger to workers and others in the guyed tower’s proximity, he thought that “It would have been nice if we were able to give our listeners notice.”

“Unfortunately, the tower hit our satellite dish and building,” Bolton said when the crew cut the guy wires and let the 418-foot tower fall across an open field.

American Tower acquired the tower last year as part of their acquisition of Global Tower Partners’ structures for $3.3 billion.

The unmaintained structure, with KGUY as its only tenant, was purchased by Global Tower in 2004 from Titan Towers which built it in 1982, according to FCC records.

KGUY 91.3 FM (800 watts) Red=Local Coverage Area

High Plains Public Radio operates a network of 21 FM stations providing public radio service to 78 counties across five states of the High Plains region.