“An Air Force search and rescue alert was trigged by Chris van Rossman’s flatscreen Toshiba television set. 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, Ore., 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 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.”
Clearly the teev was emitting something either on 243 or 406 MHz, the frequencies covered by SARSAT satellites. How is a good question. A little rough on Chris to threaten him with a monster fine. (Thanks to Britnews