@roadriverrail@flockofnazguls@th Still. The principle of how to do this (in 1987) is not difficult, but the list of people who had both the technical know-how and access to both the equipment and the locations needed from which to transmit had to be short.
@AE4WX@flockofnazguls@th Oh, no doubt. Clearly the person worked in broadcast in their local area or was a sufficiently obsessed amateur. But you can't just "round up the usual suspects", and IIRC it was generally believed the hijack was done from a van, so getting caught in the act on such a short transmission doesn't seem likely.
I've heard of pirate radio stations running out of a van that went years without getting caught.
@AE4WX@flockofnazguls@th Ah, I didn't realize the receiver for the signal from the studio was on top of the Hancock. I know Chicago geography, but hadn't thought about where the TV transmitters were. I come from rural Florida, where getting line-of-sight to a tower was never very hard.
@roadriverrail@flockofnazguls@th oh yeah, they weren't going to get caught in the act, for sure. But I'm skeptical about the van... tough to get line of sight to the top of the Hancock Building from a van unless you're WAY far out... I grew up at 87th Street and California and I don't even think a van could do it from there. I think they were likely close by and high up in one of the nearby buildings.
@AE4WX@flockofnazguls@th I'd only ever heard the "van" thing as a rumor, and I only bought into that because (1) if I were to run a hijack, mobility would be on my mind (2) Tampa FL had a famous FM pirate station that operated from a van.
@roadriverrail@flockofnazguls@th From where I lived you could see (and therefore transmit to) the skyline only if you climbed a tall tree.
Closer in, I used to work at Archer and Lawndale, and on the top of the parking garage you could get line of sight from there... not sure where you could get a van that high though.
maybe they subsequently got a career in broadcast/RF engineering, maybe with some prominent clients and even if they couldn't get nicked for that incident, feared being fired/losing out on work as they were seen as a potential sabotage risk?
@vfrmedia@roadriverrail@flockofnazguls@th That's the other thing. The statute of limitations ran out 30 years ago. Surely the culprit would have popped up and said "okay, fine, I did it." I find it strange they didn't
A chap who did similar on the Dutch/German border - taking over a cable headend feed after German TV (that was relayed to Dutch cable networks) had closed down waited 30 whole years before he finally owned up to it as he had two countries worth of Communications Ministry officers hunting him - thankfully there is a statute of limitations...
(turn on auto subtitles/translation if you don't understand German)
@AE4WX@roadriverrail@flockofnazguls@th Oh I like the doing it from the top of a tree version so much better than the van story. That's almost movie-worthy.
@roadriverrail@AE4WX@flockofnazguls@th It really would. But I want it not to be a white van. I feel like that's been so overdone. I mean, unless it was presented as the **first** white van criminal act LOL