KMHS Pirate Radio is off the air - the 250-foot-tall transmission tower that broadcasts the station's signal, fell Wednesday morning and is now cut up and in a pile. The tower is off of E Street in Eastside. Martha Schroeder, in the background, works for Pacific Pulmonary Services in the nearby building and said if she had not stopped off for breakfast Wednesday, the tower would have fallen on the company van that was parked where the truck is now. When the tower fell, it hit the top of the building near the left corner. The tower leaning on the building has been cut up and removed from the structure and piled where it is now. World Photo by Lou Sennick

Around 7:30 a.m. on Wednesday, a core group of personnel at a local radio station heard something terrible cut across the airwaves.

Dead silence.

"That is not the sound you want to hear at a radio station," said Steve Walker, the station director for Pirate Radio, KMHS 1420 AM, which broadcasts from a small building just west of Marshfield High School.

At first, the station's managers - high schoolers from Marshfield and North Bend - thought the station had just temporarily gone off the air as it has done from time to time. But then someone drove the mile or so over to the 400 block of E Street in Eastside where the station's broadcast tower is and noticed something strange.

The 250-foot red and white tower was nowhere to be seen.

Pirate Radio is sent via microwaves from the station, a small building just west of the high school, to a 1,000 watt transmitter on E Street, where it is sent to a tower on site that broadcasts it out to the community.

"I'm amazed it could fall - but it did," said Rod Danielson, the Coos Bay School District's business manager who toured the site Wednesday with Superintendent Karen Fischer Gray.

When the tower fell, it came crashing down on a three-story building housing Pacific Pulmonary Services, a home oxygen and respiratory care business. No one was in the building at the time.

"Had I not stopped for breakfast, the van would have been parked right there," said Martha Schroeder, 30, who works for PPS.

On Wednesday, Schroeder went into work earlier than usual - about 30 minutes after the tower had fallen. By Thursday morning, a construction crew was on site, cutting down the tower and patching things up. The tower had struck the top of the building, gouging the roof and punching a gaping hole in the side of the building.

Danielson said the district does not suspect any foul play and immediately contacted its insurance company. A claims adjuster will look into the cause of the accident, but so far, no cause has been determined. Ron Nance, the station's program manager, said the tower likely stood for the last 50 to 60 years.

As the district began looking into how to get the radio station - which runs 24 hours a day, seven days a week, all year long - back on the airwaves, it encountered a dilemma.

"We are trying to figure out who owns the tower," Danielson said. "The downside is that whoever the owner is, may not have to put up a tower."

In 1997, a local radio station donated much of the equipment - and a much coveted Federal Communications Commission license - to the school in order for KMHS to get off the ground. However, as Danielson sifted through the paperwork regarding the deal, he said the list of donated radio equipment does not include the tower. The district simply pays rent to a landowner and pays for the power to run the tower.

No one is certain when the radio station will be back up and running.

"Hopefully a minimum of days, not weeks, or months," Nance said.

Danielson said preliminary estimates from a tower engineer indicate a new tower would cost between $15,000 and $35,000. Another option is for the station to purchase space on another nearby tower. Walker, who also teachers marketing, and radio and television broadcast classes at Marshfield High School, said the FCC allows for temporary emergency structures to be put up to get a station back on the air.

"We are pursuing all those options," Walker said.

By federal law, Walker said, the station has 10 days to inform the FCC they're off the air. FCC rules also mandate that broadcast stations can only remain dark for so long.

"If you're not broadcasting continuously for one year, you automatically lose your license," said J. Dominic Monahan, a broadcast communications attorney in Eugene.

The acquisition, or loss of, an FCC license is nothing to sneeze at. Walker said the paperwork for Pirate Radio to become an FM station has been in process for eight years.

Fischer Gray indicated Thursday the radio station is an important priority for her.

"We are not going to jeopardize that (FCC) license - it means too much to us and the community. We will be off the air as little as possible," she said, noting that her preference is to purchase space on another tower.

"There is no thought at this point to discontinue our radio station. It's too precious," she said.

The station bills itself, as a student-operated station whose playlist consists of current, non-objectionable, music hits from the Billboard Top 40. The bulk of the station's audience consists of students, but Walker said it is popular with other segments of the community too. Students promote school and community activities on the station and cover high school sports events such as football, boys and girls basketball and baseball.

About 170 students participate in the operation of the radio station, Walker said.

"For some of them, it's a big part of their educational life," Walker said.

But for the moment, there's not much for the radio students to do.

Sixteen-year-old Evan Blom, a junior at Marshfield High School, is the station's music director and has been involved with the station since he was a freshman. Blom said students continue to record programs and public service announcements as if it will be back on the air tomorrow.

Broadcast students also spent Thursday writing to local business leaders, apprising them of what occurred. Many businesses are paying advertisers on the radio station.

"We have very good community support," Walker said. "We're optimistic that things will be righted and that we can continue on."

But until then, the radio crewgrieves the loss of an integral part of its communication link.

"Silence is not golden," Nance said.