[quesera]

Ah, thank you. There is also the "dead mans switch" monitoring option, which is probably in use at some very understaffed stations.

So this licensee's best claim is that they had some kind of major equipment failure, their dead mans switch worked and took them off-air, and someone jumped on the opportunity to take down a non-energized radiator tower and steal their equipment.

It is still unbelievable of course! The best time to find someone at a remote transmitter site is when the tower has recently gone dark. And it does not address the gap between failure and awareness/reporting.

Thanks also for the cite to the notification requirement timelines.