Posted on 10/18/2004 10:28:58 PM PDT by twntaipan
EUGENE, Oregon (Reuters) -- TV hardly gets much better than this. An Oregon man discovered earlier this month that his year-old Toshiba Corporation flat-screen TV was emitting an international distress signal picked up by a satellite, leading a search and rescue operation to his apartment in Corvallis, Oregon, 70 miles south of Portland. The signal from Chris van Rossmann's TV was routed by satellite to the Air Force Rescue Center at Langley Air Base in Virginia. On October 2, the 20 year-old college student was visited at his apartment in the small university town by a contingent of local police, civil air patrol and search and rescue personnel. "They'd never seen signal come that strong from a home appliance," said van Rossmann. "They were quite surprised. I think we all were." Authorities had expected to find a boat or small plane with a malfunctioning transponder, the usual culprit in such incidents, emitting the 121.5 MHz frequency of the distress signal used internationally. Van Rossmann said he was told to keep his TV off to avoid paying a $10,000 fine for "willingly broadcasting a false distress signal." Toshiba contacted Rossmann and offered to provide him with a replacement set for free, he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
LOL! Also, it could not take all the earthquakes that occur when Michael Moore walks.
I heard about this on the radio. I laughed so hard. The radio guys spent over a half hour talking about how this could happen. I bet the guy who owns the television didn't find it humorous when those people came to his door.
yeah im sure thats what the tv was thinking
I wish they'd mention which Toshiba model it was. I bought a flat screen Toshiba (30" tube) HDTV last December. So far no search & rescue teams in the neighborhood . . .
He shouldn't have been watching SEE-BS News.
It's called spurious harmonics. 121.5 Hertz is nearly the harmonic of 60 Hertz, which coincidentally is the frequency emitted by wall power outlets.
LOL!! that is, I beleive, freaky
...and I get snow on FOX thirty miles away. hmmmm
lol. I was in Walmarts today and this loud shrill alarm went off. I asked a floor employee what was happening. He said "I don't know. I guess it's some kind of alarm" Suddenly it stopped. I replied "No kidding but for what"? He just laughed and shrugged and joked (I think) "maybe it was a bomb alarm" This kid either really good at keeping people calm or had no idea about the store codes.
Most likely, it was a bad oscillator or RAMDAC chip.
Yeah, my mistake, I was thinking 121.5 MHz, but wrote Hertz instead, 121.5 MHz happens to be near the bottom end of the aircraft frequency spectrum of 118.0 MHz.
Huh? Hell, I get snow on my roof anytime from late October until March, sometimes as late as April.
The only distress signal that'd get Moore's attention is when the lights go out at the nearest Krispy Kreme.
Heh. I was in the science building once during my college days when I started hearing a periodic dinging noise (about twice/second). I asked me professor what it was, and he didn't seem to know, so I walked out to the hall and fired the dinging noise to a large bell labeled "FIRE".
lol. Our leaders:'). I'm going to call the manager and ask the significance tomorrow. I have heard this siren before but can't place the sound. Never at Walmarts though. I wonder if it's a new security being installed. If so, then they really need to train the staff on disaster response.
ping
William Tager had it right and I think it applies here.
"Tager asked, What's the frequency, Kenneth?"
Generally you don't see panic coming from a TV set.
A microwave or a DVD player, maybe, but TV sets are usually calm and level-circuited. Odd, to be sure.
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