Wednesday, January 16, 2002
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Wednesday, January 16, 2002 |
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Neighborhood bombarded with rap radio By DAVE
HAMRICK
Residents of a Fayette County community are tuned in to an Atlanta rap radio station ... but not by choice. Signals from a transmission antenna on a cell tower off Swanson Road are coming through loud and clear in Gaelic Glen subdivision near Tyrone, says Wes Wilkins. "It's coming through on the telephone, television, stereo and computer speakers," said Wilkins, who added that he has talked to his neighbors and more than 80 percent of them have the same problems. "It's 24 hours a day," he said, "and sometimes some pretty obscene things come out of the mouths of those disc jockeys. That's where free speech needs to end is when I can't turn it off," he added. When the problem first started, Wilkins said, he thought it was a flaw in his telephone. He called BellSouth, who sent a technician out. "When he saw the tower, he said, 'That's your problem,'" said Wilkins. Radio station WHTA 107.9 responded to the community's concerns by sending technicians out with filters, Wilkins said, but that solution was unsuccessful. Neighbors have asked for help from the Federal Communications Commission, but so far the agency has taken a hands-off attitude, he said. An FCC spokesman confirmed this week that the agency won't get involved until the community and the radio station have exhausted all possible solutions. "If there is no solution and the station is doing nothing wrong, many times these communities have to live with it," said a spokesman, who added that the problem is "not uncommon." Phone calls from The Citizen to the radio station have not been returned. Wilkins said one other solution has been suggested ... the Radio One cell tower that holds the station's antenna could be increased in height so the antenna could be placed higher and its signal would be less likely to interfere with the surrounding neighborhood. But the tower is an eyesore already, Wilkins said. "We just looked up one day and it was there," he said. "And if it doesn't work, we're still stuck with [the interference] and we've gotten a higher tower out of it." That solution may not be viable anyway. The tower already is 500 feet tall, the maximum allowable under Fayette County's ordinances. Increasing it would require that the tower owners go before the county Zoning Board of Appeals and ask for a variance.
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