Television Sends Out Distress Signal

[Ioman]

Pretty weird...

"It's the case of the TV. that was calling for help.

A U.S. Air Force search and rescue alert was triggered by Chris van Rossman's flat screen Toshiba TV.

It has a built-in VCR, DVD and CD player.

And an undocumented feature that has authorities scratching their heads.

Some sort of electric glitch was causing van Rossman's TV to transmit on the international distress frequency.

The signal was picked up by a satellite and relayed to the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center in Virginia.

Van Rossman had no idea until airmen, deputies and Corvallis, Oregon, police were knocking on the door of his apartment.

The errant signal was traced to his TV set.

Van Rossman was warned to keep the TV off or face a $10,000 US fine for sending a false distress signal.

A spokeswoman for Toshiba says they've never heard of this sort of problem before, but the company is promising to give van Rossman a new TV. "

[nightowl]

Very Strange. Is the government watching us through our TVs?..........Jim

[llbbl]

To increase safety at sea and in the air, communications procedures were developed for use in times of distress. The international distress frequency is 500 KHz. In routine communication, merchantmen contacted each other (or shore stations) on 500 KHz and then shifted to a working frequency. To make sure that routine traffic does not interfere with distress traffic, two SILENT PERIODS were designated. These periods of 3 minutes each were from 15 to 18 minutes and 45 to 48 minutes past each hour. Safety and urgent preliminary broadcasts could be started during the last 15 seconds of a silent period. The clock that was originally fitted in Radio 1 on HAIDA had a dial face that was appropriately marked to indicate the silent periods. Except for actual distress messages, all traffic on frequencies between 480 and 520 kHz ceased during the silent periods.


http://webhome.idirect.com/~jproc/rrp/distress.html

[ECA]

Would that be a GREAT gag, to pull on someone...
Have all your friends pull up and tell him his SET is calling a distress signal...

[llbbl]

http://www.eveleigh.com/image.categories/electronics/television/broken_tv_lg.jpeg

its not working!