Electrocuted Climbing Abandoned Radio Tower 

Even unused insulated towers can pack quite a shock punch. It's due to the static electric charge buildup on the tower that results from wind blowing through the tower. Discharge arcs of one foot or more are not unheard of.

Abandoned all right, until nightfall that day. The way I understand that transmitter site, there are three local radio station transmitters feeding their signals into the antenna systems there. The two shorter towers, including the one this idiot went near, only operate at night with a directional pattern. One of the transmitters is 50 kilowatts. During the day, the transmitters, including the 50 kilowatt one, all feed the tall tower at that site. If he touched that one instead............ While the old tuning huts are seemingly abandoned, the new tuning equipment is outdoors in those stainless steel enclosures you see in the video. The FCC should require signs on the property fences that read: "Attention RU-vidrs: this transmitter site is not abandoned. You MUST write the names of your next of kin at the bottom of this sign before tresspassing."

Yea those towers aren't as abandoned as you thought. 🤣

Most people don't understand also that the tower will receive other signals around it. Even dead towers won't be dead. They can conduct a neighboring towers energy through the airwaves

The tower can pick up other nearby stations, or static from wind,make sure NEVER to touch the mast and ground at the same time. Don't mess around with rf, it is CRAZY dangerous.

I thought electrocution = death or severe injury due to electric shock.

You didn't want to touch the other 2 towers?

You really are lucky to be alive. Even with a spectacularly badly maintained site like that, the transmitter can still be on. You're lucky it's not running the full 50kW advertised power, or my friend you'd be a piece of fried bacon.

I'm the former owner of two AM radio stations. Neither of my stations had the amount of power this station is licensed for. You were a fool to ignore that "No Trespassing" sign and walk in the fence where the tower stood. You could have literally been killed under the right conditions. No, it wasn't your tennis shoes that saved you, either! AM towers have ridiculous amounts of power running through them. Even at lower power, you can still get a jolt by touching a "hot" tower. The owners of that station aren't doing themselves any favors either. They are required by federal law to maintain safe, locked fences around their towers. What I saw could subject them to a fine if inspected. To others who want to explore, leave broadcast facilities alone. They're not as abandoned as you perceive them to be, and you are most likely trespassing!

Dude…..glass insulators at the bottom of each leg are kind of a MAJOR clue that you missed?? Geezzzzz…….

When you heard the gate opening that was just another RU-vidr sneaking in to make a video

Even if it's not transmitting... it sure is receiving 😂 Aerials work both ways!

AM towers are crazy, if it was performing at its full 50 kilowatts, that would have been much worse. Glad you're alive!

Stupid is as stupid does.

This video really captured the feeling of exploring something alone on a summer day 😄 good music choice

That's essentially a giant capacitor. When it was in use it built up a load of wattage and was just sitting there looking sexy waiting for it's victim to come along.

That whole site is a major FCC violation, particularly with the tower fences.

Man the hate on here… well produced video with a great soundtrack. I grew up near a AT&T long lines tower and it carried the same fascination for me as a kid and young adult. That art deco station building is pretty amazing too.

Those are fairly well preserved very old towers. That style dates to the 1930s. They might even be bald Knocks. Before they went to the inverted stack design. Looks like the old antenna tuning house, made a brick is still there but they have new antenna tuning boxes, out of aluminum or stainless steel. I remember the words of my former Chief engineer, after I touched the shower for the first time I got bit. He said hurt didn't it, taught you not to touch a second time. Assume everything is hot unless you personally ground it. And then assume that it still be hot...

This could have been SUCH an interesting video, but instead, you turned it into a complete waste of bandwidth

Another thing the RF emitted from the towers CANmess up your camera. Folks that film towers often use film type cameras to avoid RF interference issues with cameras-and again the RF can interfere with you! RF burns can be worse than fire because they are deep and take a long time to heal. Can also be infected later.

Those towers might still be radiating a signal if you got shocked climbing on it. So they might not be abandoned after all.

Alright so my friends and I went to an abandoned air force base in CA that had an old hospital. It was tagged and broke to shit and had security. We went in and some sensors went off and I couldn’t find my way to an exit considering it was pitch black and we didn’t all have flip phones back then. I was caught by security. He said “Look, I don’t see you guys caused anymore damage but with the homeless and the drug addicts I don’t need anymore stress and I need this job. Look, I know it’s fun and you are kids but it’s not haunted, everyone who says things have happened have lied or have just seen homeless people sleeping in some of the rooms. Just tell your friends not to come back please.” And he drove me to the gate and that was the only time I ever entered private property knowingly. I only had to be told once.

WPTF 680kz is owned by Don Curtis aka Curtis Media Group. Glad to see he's keeping up this historic property. 😢 Typical

Hi, yeah, this is one of the numerous fashions to act irresponsibly.

If you look at the actual equipment, there's not much evidence these towers are abandoned. The equipment boxes for the first tower are literally shiny. Tower climbing is dangerous enough as is, your lack knowledge makes it borderline suicidal.

Some of these are the radiator. Not a structure to hold antennas but the entire structure is live. If you notice the bottom legs. At the bottom there are four isolators that keep them from ground. I'm pretty sure what you felt was static discharge since its not grounded.

The signs were there for a reason imagine that.😆

It doesn't look like anyone has stolen the ground plane

In this video today we learn that a lot of abandoned facilities rent out their towers to active stations and that some stations use entirely different antenna sites to transmit daytime and night time signals! We also learn if there's shiny metal boxes, those are NEW! For A Reason! C'Mon man, show us your burnt hand! PS< the lawns are mowed...for a reason.

Assume ANY tower is HOT! You got “bit”by AM power fed to the tower. While exploring places like this ---DO NOT TOUCH! Only time a radio tower is safe is if ALL the RF power fed to it and antennas on the tower is off and the structure is grounded. 50 kw is more than enough to be LETHAL! It can KILL !

You got shocked not electrocuted

Almost another successful winner of a Darwin Award. Assisted in this case by not learning to read.

A static shock and being "electrocuted" are very different things. One of them you don't walk away from.

What is the name of the soundtrack in the first part of the video? It sounds so familiar but I can't remember where I heard it?

Current record show the station license for one kilowatt, not 50,000. Seems like a drastic power increase I don't know what station would honestly want that

what music did you use for the background music

Another candidate for the RU-vid Darwin Award, walks right over RF radiation sign

Please. What is the name of the sound track being played at the end? Thank you

whatt song did you use in the intro?

Welcome to AM

You need to JUMP onto the tower. You are creating a circuit with one of your knees/legs contacting earth ground

Not abandoned at all….50KW WPTF AM 680 is still very much on the air.

Electrocution results in death….this is just a shock.

6:30 STL antenna on the ground

When he touched it he made a connection between the earth and the tower, thus electricity found a path through him to ground. If he had thick rubber gloves or something then this wouldn't have happened is my guess. And maybe the grass or soil was wet. But with electricity you shouldn't guess 😢

you were lucky you weren't seriously injured or killed even when not energised by a transmitter an insulated tower of that size can still be at high voltage from other nearby live towers inducing current or just plain old static and that can be many thousands of volts lesson learned i hope. never touch a tower that's sitting on insulators like the ones there! otherwise nice footage be safe.

AM is received through antennas and you can be miles away and get shocked just by a long wire

Nicely shot. I also loved the sound track.

name of the first song? or at least genre

I'm trying to figure out which behavior demonstrates more intelligence - 1) Messing around with high energy RF installations or 2) Filming yourself committing a criminal act

Bro don‘t Write you Climb when you don‘t

Why the company that abandoned the towers rather than scrapping them for their metal is also beyond me. They are still responsible to maintain the safety fencing, tower painting and lighting. It usually costs nothing to have them scrapped and they must pay property tax on them as long as they stand. (actually even if they are on the ground) I have not heard of such fools around where I live. Ron W4BIN

AM antenna are dangerous

Ouch

Read the signs

bellissimi gli induttori

0:03 I have that exact same sign.

Well if you were electrocuted you wouldn't be here electrocution always means the result was death, otherwise you were just shocked.

I wonder is these towers are dead not into business or something!!!

4:51 🤣 A brick shit house...

FAAFO

Two lies in the video title. First you did not climb the tower. Second you are still alive so you were not electrocuted. Clickbait.

you would be d ead if this was a real video. The amount of wattage pulsing through that connection would wave killled you.

Click bait.. did not climb tower but did get a small shock overwise you'd be dead... Stop with the BS