SoCal Radio: Thieves Knock KNSJ-FM Off-Air

A thief - or thieves - last Thursday broke into the transmitter site and tower of community radio station KNSJ 89.1 FM Descanso, stealing equpment and taking the station off the airwaves, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune.

Sheriff’s deputies are investigating the break in, but so far they have no leads, according to Martin Eder, the station’s executive director. No fingerprints have been found in the office room that houses the station’s broadcast equipment, he said.

Because the robbery of the Federal Communications Commission-licensed station was on private property on federal land as part of the Cleveland National Forest, it may be considered a federal crime, Eder said.

KNSH 89.1 FM (330 watts)

More than a thousand dollars’ worth of equipment were stolen. KNSJ’s losses include its power supply, a flat screen computer monitor and its wireless hot spot, a transfomer that converts 110 AC voltage to 220 ACC voltage and wireless equipment, news and program director Jim Brewster said.

KNSJ is a community-supported nonprofit that broadcasts out of a secure area in the Cuyamaca Mountains. Its signal transmits out of Descanso.

The perpetrator was able to gain access to the room the station uses in the mountains by breaking in through a steel door with some type of crowbar. The door frame was bent and the lock disabled, Eder said. The station went off the air at 7:05 p.m. on Thursday.

The station is able to stream its programs online at knsj.org until its transmitter site in remote Monument Peak in the Cuyamacas is fixed.