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Distress Signal Emitted By Flat-Screen TV
pinqkandi writes "CNN is a running a story on an Oregon college student's flat-screen Toshiba TV which was releasing the 121.5 MHz international distress signal. He was unaware of the issue until local police, search and rescue, and civil air patrol members showed up at his apartment's door. Apparently the signal was strong enough to be picked up by satellite and then routed to the Air Force Rescue Center in Virginia. Quite impressive - luckily Toshiba is offering him a free replacement."
It turns out it got stuck on the Lifetime network, so it really was in a state of distress.
I'd originally read this on CNet a while ago.
And the (CNet) article points out something of relevance - with so many new devices and what not, our radio spectrum is increasingly becoming very muddled and interference a lot more commonplace. I wonder if existing regulations would do, or if new ones be required.
Something to think about.
And I wonder how powerful that signal must have been to have caused such interference. Either that, or the receiving satellites must be having one hell of a resolution capability.
The latter also provides some food for thought - if their satellite equipment is sensitive enough to find out interfering signals from a Television set, wonder what else they can (and do) eavesdrop
What kind of Tempest attacks do take place, I wonder. Satellite Van Eck Phreaking?
~adjusts tinfoil hat~
So, I guess the TV was tired of the mess?
"So if you need to transmit an international distress signal then stop by any local store and turn on a Toshiba flat-screen TV. We should be able to locate you in a matter of minutes."
You can relax now. The aliens aren't coming just yet.
. . . this is the last time that guy is a smartass to the salesman at Best Buy when buying a TV, though!
The TV probably gained sentience and realized the crap that was being fed to it. It responded in the only way it knew how.
Yeah, this gives me an idea for a new TV feature. Whenever you lose the remote control, it sends out a destress signal until a search team shows up to find it. Now that's service!
The Dude abides.
Big deal. Now, if that had been a free, unencrypted feed of the Spice or Playboy channels...
Cheers!
Ehttp://eugeneciurana.com | http://ciurana.eu
You've gotta wonder what that guy was doing to that poor TV. (and whether the teletubbies were involved...)
...he was watching way too much reality television.
Warning!
This television will send out a distress signal to authorities whenever any program catering to an IQ of less than 80 is viewed. This includes games shows (Jeopardy excluded), reality shows, Spongebob Squarepants, and the CBS Evening News with Dan Rather.
No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow. - Cmdr. Susan Ivanova
I had a similar problem with my toaster emitting moorse code signals.
He shouldn't have been forcing the poor TV to play "Survivor".
It's well known that certain hardware hacks for Dishnetwork receivers emit this same frequency.
What a coincidence that a college student (no money) would be doing something technical (education) to get TV for free.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
so is this going to happen to more and more tvs? or just some oddity.. the article isnt clear..
"Please Help! My plasma is burning out! I'll need to be replaced in 2 years!"
see what happens when a college kids TV doesn't get enough porn....poor thing probably just needed a little debbie does dallas
This sounds like something is wrong.
He did not get fined, at all?
They did not confiscate the TV.
Toshiba is giving him a new TV, for FREE?!?!?
I smell a conspiracy!
We just spent $10K+ on in-house EMI equipment, to mitigate the costs of having an outside lab help with troubleshooting.
You have to do it if you make any kind of electronics, but it's a big burden for small manufacturers.
It'd be nice to have the choice of saying "this passes" vs "this probably passes". Current FCC/CE regs require everyone to meet the spec, and this is a bit onerous IMHO. It locks some innovative small companies out of the game.
http://www.navcen.uscg.gov/marcomms/gmdss/epirb.ht m
Animah S/V Solaris
...stop trying to be funny. It's only getting lamer in here with every attempt. If this story had any potential, it doesn't now.
Sorry, just telling it like it is.
I call BS...
College students can't afford flatscreen TVs
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Nothing to see here
CNN is a running a story on an Oregon college student's flat-screen Toshiba TV which was releasing the 121.5 MHz international distress signal...
In other news, a man's 4-door sedan was emitting the 1.21 jigawatts necessary to power the flux capacitor. Christopher Lloyd was unavailible for comment.
It would be cool if it didn't suck.
....he probably needs a new couch now. Most humans would hershey their couch with that many "troops" showing up at their door.
Corvallis Gazette-Times has more details and a picture of the guy posing with his TV. Apparently, he mostly watches public broadcasting and has acquired a taste for all the quality children's programming it provides, especially "Arthur".
Another fine way for the authorities to enter your home without a search warrant. It's hard to argue that the invisible, undetectable signal wasn't enough cause to enter, or to argue about it at all. I'm sure that messing with that beacon frequency would be considered a serious threat to national security, so you wouldn't want to be the one they blame for doing this.
So we are supposed to trust companies to use their judgement and ethics when slaping a "This device probably meets federal EMI regulations" sticker on a device. I feel better already.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
Toshiba TV which was releasing the 121.5 MHz international distress signal.
Thats a feature and should be used in the advertisements.Probably a red button in the remote that says "press me"..
fifteen jugglers, five believers
It scares me that it took them almost a year to get the distress signal. Remind me never to get lost at sea.
Free Flat Screen
yeah, that's what i thought to myself when i read it a few hours ago on fark. great original content guys. might as well pull things a few hours after they get posted to the AP wire.
And if you would've read the entire article, Toshiba is going to replace his TV with a new one.
'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'
The problem is Toshiba did not 'willingly' transmit the signal, they just screwed up. If the guy kept the TV on after he found out that it was transmitting a distress signal, he would be the one who was 'willingly' transmitting a false signal, not Toshiba.
Of course if Toshiba did something negligent they should get in trouble as well...but so far there is not evidence of that. They are also replacing the TV...so while it was an annoyance, I'd say the fact that he gets a great story to tell outweighs the hardship of going without Survivor for a couple of days.
Yeah, but not everybody is a vindictive basta... oh hell, I know I'd do it too if a huge corporation would be footing the bill.
Condemnant quod non intellegunt.
He was probably watching an ad with an image of new currency, and the TV detected the anti-counterfeit pattern. :-)
Another vote for avoiding personal responsibility. No, the way the law is written, the equipment operator is responsible for what gets broadcast. Not understanding the equipment that you own and operate is not an excuse for you to violate the airwaves, sorry.
There is lots of off-the-shelf equipment that you can buy that is capable of causing interference with your neighbor's TV reception. Guess what, you are responsible regardless of who made it, what it says on the sticker, what tests it passed, or anything else. If you turn it on, then its your problem; and that's exactly how it should be.
Can you really blame the TV for sending out an SOS? Be fair to it.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
With new efficient "green" lighting technology, how long will it be until some closet pot grower's grow lamps call for the troops? Dude...
Remember the deal about the sodium lights that interferred with some form(s) of 802.11?
In Soviet Russia, The TV Distresses YOU! ....oh wait...
for(i=0;i<200;i++)
{
snare.hit();
snare.hit();
crash.hit();
}
He was watching the presidential debate!
I, too, was wondering about the specifics of this "international distress signal". Getting lucky (google) with "121.5 Mhz" gives the following link which specifies a relatively simple AM signal with less than 100 mW radiated power! That's not much these days, and I'm rather shocked (har har) that it's taken this long for a device to accidentally trigger such a search. Anyway...here's the URL...
http://www.cospas-sarsat.org/Beacons/121Bcns.htm
So what if I bought a device thats purpose was to generate this signal, and say I was having a heart attack and activated it. Is this a legitimate reason? I mean where I live you usually have to wait 10 minutes or more on hold to get through to 911.
Surely it is illegal to use it for reasons like this, right?
Nah, it's probably better for him if he kept his TV turned off.
Your tinfoil hats
Worst first post.
Evahh.
This type of incident makes you wonder about what other types of leakage goes undetected, and how many people are exposed to unwanted and/or unhealthy amounts of EMF.
And this was a TV set - where this type of leakage shouldn't have been happening in the first place. It makes you wonder what about the high-frequency wireless sets out there.
Does anyone know how one can possibly check one's own environment, easily and/or cheaply?
Maybe he is a fellow slashdoter, had a woman in his room didn't know what to do and rigged up the TV to send for help?
If a one-time expense of 10k is too much to bear than are you paying your employees at ALL???
If 3 people, each paid 30k/year work in this in-house lab and you can find a way to increase their productivity by 5% [by not having to deal with outsiders for troubleshooting], then you will reclaim the cost of the lab in 10/(3*30) years, or about 1.3 months.
If you can sell things that "probably pass", then what is the point of anyone going to the extra expense of guaranteing that it always passes? What is the point then for even having regulations to "always" pass in the first place?
Parent is suggesting anarchy as a cheaper business practice and is therefore a troll. Even scarrier, parent seems to run his own business -- for now.
I sure wouldn't want to invest in your company.
The guy bought the TV at MacGyvers yard sale.
Did anyone check inside the TV?
Maybe it was legit!
I didn't actually check the above link, but the story is at CNN. I don't think /. has managed to kill CNN yet, so this could very well be a bogus link. I would stay away.
Was the TV showing Capt.Taco's appearance on
The Screen Savers?
I would cry out in distress if I had to watch that bullshit too...
I'm certainly glad that it was detected and responded to. I hope the spectrum doesn't get too messy and create this situation often, but it does show that someone is paying attention when there is a cry for help. (Thinking out in the ocean here).
"CNN is a running a story on an Oregon college student's flat-screen Toshiba TV which was releasing the 121.5 MHz international distress signal"
Thank GOD it wasn't coded to signal an artillery mission or nuclear strike on his position...
-insert obligitory terrorism reference here-
You need a FREE iPod Nano
Reminds me of any of Michael Marshall Smith's stories with the intelligent machines. I remember one memorable quote about how the main character got rid of his coffee machine.
"I used to have a coffeemaker like everybody else. You tell them where the coffee beans are, and how to use the tap, and it's ready whenever you want it. But through a design error the hole the coffee comes out of is rather closer to the machine's posterior than you would hope, and after seeing the little biomachine squatting over a cup, grunting with effort, I tend to sour on the idea of a hot beverage. When it goes wrong, as they invariably do, the result tastes very strong indeed."
"And then I visited Wikipedia
Yeah, because it would be simply _unbearable_ to go without television for a couple of weeks.
What the hell are you thinking? The unit was broadcasting the International Distress Signal for fuck's sake.
TV:"Oh, please God.. I can't take another episode of "Survivor" and I'm so sick of "The Surreal Life" these days.. help me!"
According to news.com.com: The television had just exceeded its warranty. My guess is the guy didn't buy the extended warranty and had to tell someone about it (those guys at Best Buy?)
Civil Air Patrol? I thought they just guarded the parking lot at air shows.
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.
[...]
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.
Why did they expect to find a boat/plane in a apartment building?
^^
...my toaster cracks SETI blocks... ;)
Karma: Good. I'm hoping in the same way as pizza is 'good'...
Langley: Forgive me, FCC, but I am receiving numerous distress signals.
FCC : I don't doubt it.
The reason for non-interference isn't to protect the manufacturer, it's to protect the public. What the holy blue devil makes you think this burden should be waived for small companies?
.... I'll start up a gas station, and since I'm a small company, I can dispense with all those silly safety regs. I'll put stickers on the pumps "You should probably not smoke around here."
Let's carry that concept on thru
Or I can start selling homemade cars, put in some cheap airbags made of a CO2 cartridge and a mousetrap on a hairspring for a trigger, along with a "probably works" disclaimer. That should do the trick.
Geez buddy, get a grip!
Infuriate left and right
They told me the sedan I bought could emit 1.21 jigawatts, but when got it home and took it out of the box I found out that the flux capacitor wasn't included.
paintball
Just a little something to keep in mind - all it takes is one (faulty) popular model putting out EMI interference to fuck up an entire range of the spectrum into unusability. So yes, I STRONGLY support keeping tight screws on EMI interference, because you can't rely on Corps to be ethical and act responsibly if it weren't legally mandated. And, as the Netgear NTP issue so eloquently demonstrates, even after you tell a company that they are doing harm and need to stop, they might not necessarily do it.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
for the love of frosted flakes
--- "End Of Line" - MCP
"...stop trying to be funny. It's only getting lamer in here with every attempt. If this story had any potential, it doesn't now."
Of course it doesn't. They told him to stop using the TV.
What I wanna know is how a college student has a plasma TV. Aren't college kids supposed to be poor? Whatever happened to the trusty 13"er with bad reception?
IWARS.
People, in general, disappoint me. Politicians even more so.
A new monitor from Dell that outputs an ear-bleedingly loud 10khz whine?
It turns out that those government satellites are monitoring our TVs. Luckily, Toshiba sells tinfoil hats for closeup viewing.
--
make install -not war
"Why did they expect to find a boat/plane in a apartment building?"
I can't resist.
Maybe it was a seaplane?
All your TV are belong to us...
And, if it is a "Class A" device, the manufacturer warrants that it will not interfere in a residential environment. (Though, many electronic devices sold for residential use are "Class B", requiring the operator to take corrective action if they interfere, and letting the manufacturer off the hook. Yes, this is a simplification)
I stand by my position: the manufacturer should be liable by virtue of their likely warranty that this won't happen. Yes, even if people die, because the device is operated. (And the manufacturer should be held accountable for the resulting wrongful deaths.)
If this were not the case, the manufacturer could just "walk away" from the defective unit, leaving the purchaser with a $5k-$15k television that they can't watch -- it still performs as a TV set, after all, and isn't "defective" with regard to it's primary functionality.
What should happen is that Toshiba should immediately come to terms to compensate the owner for the inconvenience in exchange for an agreement to not operate the set until a replacement is delivered. A rational settlement would be the cost to Toshiba if they had to compensate those expected to suffer because of the continuous operation of the set. So, if there was an expected 0.1% chance of $100,000,000 wrongful death suits, Toshiba should offer $100,000 and a repaired or replaced set in exchange for an agreement to not operate the defective one.
The simple replacement of the set is, IMHO, insufficient.
You could've hired me.
I was talking to this girl the other day and her boyfriend had ended up in jail with an 8 year sentence....because he make a mistake when building a radio or somethen along those lines. I guess thatever it was that he did, was ended up intefering with local police radios. From what I gather it was unintentional but he still got locked up. It's good to have faith in the system
Everyone should have to pass.
The point is to make sure that devices don't interfere with each other. This won't happen if some people are allowed to not pass.
Suck it up. Your competitors are incurring the costs too. And the public reaps the benefits by having devices that work pretty well.
I ask, why should you be allowed to sell a device to my neighbor that might interfere with my devices? Just so you can save a few thousand dollars?
No thanks. Everyone should have to pass.
he diddnt have a TiVO...
Not that it bothers me much, but it really sucks.
Of course, this points out one of the problems with the idea of so-called "internet everywhere"...when every elctronic device is connected to the net, what happens when one of them freaks out and starts saturating your ISP's bandwith with ill-formed packets?
ttyl
Farrell
CAN-CON 2019 - Ottawa's only book oriented Science Fiction Convention! October 18-20, Sheraton Hotel, Ottawa, Canada h
I think you're wrong about the B v. A. I remember FCC ads in old computer magazines about "why it's better to get a B than an A." Older computers, suhc as the first 486 laptops, were only class-A rated and many magazines noted they were not for residential use.
Pure speculation, but I could just picture this causing the problem, and when the authorities show up, buddy ditching the smart card, then saying "ummm, errr, it must be the TV, yeah, that's it!"
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
Your post says "parent is troll"
No, I was quoting his subject line.
and calls the poster of the parent post "a pinhead".
OK, you got me on that. But would you disagree?
Look, $10K is peanuts.
For some, yes.
I have an oscilloscope that costs that on my desk.
Nice scope. Mine samples at >3gs/s and cost a lot less. Maybe you got ripped off?
If you can't afford it, rent it from rentelco. If you can't afford to rent it, charge more for your product. If that won't work either, then we'll just have to do without your product.
You must be a geek, not the business guy. Have you looked at renting vs buying this kind of equipment? It's not like renting office space.
It simply doesn't make sense to allow companes to not pass the regs. What would be the point of the regs then?
Are you going to address my arguments, or just suggest that the whole thing makes no sense? I think I might have a point... care to refute it?
ToshibaBird 1 go!
ToshibaBird 2 go!
ToshibaBird 3 go!
The frequency of the NTSC color subcarrier (the TV color system used in analog video standards in North America and Japan) is defined as exactly 5 MHz times 63/88. That works out to 3.579545454.... (infinitely repeating 54's) MHz. The horizontal scanning frequency is then defined as a 2/455 times the color subcarrier frequency. That works out to 15734.26573426.... (infinitely repeating 573426's) Hz (very nearly the original monochrome horizontal frequency of 15750 Hz). This is where the problem lies. 121.5 MHz divided by 7722 is exactly the same frequency as the horizontal in an NTSC color video signal.
The 7722nd harmonic shouldn't really be that strong, right? Usually not. But the harmonics can get to be very strong overall even at such high orders when dealing with modulating the high voltages needed for the horizontal sweep. There should be some low pass filters that prevent that from getting into the VHF range. But if the filters are absent, or were incorrectly installed, or were damaged somehow, and if some wires formed some resonance near 121.5 MHz (like wires going out to cable, speakers, etc) ... a wavelength of about 2.47 meters or 8.1 feet ... it is possible that harmonic, and a bunch of others near it, could be enhanced and radiated.
The local oscillator in the tuner is a remote possibility. But it would have to be tuned to be receiving a video carrier at 75.75 MHz based on the common satndard of 45.75 MHz for the IF stage in the tuner. But there is no TV broadcast on that frequency in the US ... though I could not rule out there being something on that frequency from a cable system. Still, it wouldn't be an expected place for a TV to tune to. But if the TV has a non-standard IF frequency, the local oscillator getting on 121.5 MHz by some expected channel could be possible. Those leak a lot and it's how the snoops can tell what channel you are tuned to by spying on the RF emitted from your house.
If just this one TV had the problem, then apparently it must be a manufacturing defect or shipping damage (or maybe user damage or tampering). If it were a design problem, I'd sure we'd hear more about it. That probably rules out the CPU clock frequency.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
"An Oregon man discovered earlier this month that his year-old Toshiba Corporation flat-screen TV was emitting an international distress signal." So I assume that in all this time, there were actualy rescues backlogged and they finally got around to him. The part about intentionally emitting, what a joke. Must be a GNAA thing.
(I was not the AC you responded to, but thought I'd reply)
See, the unfortunate thing is that startups are not easy, and the initial investment is really really high. You do have a point - and a very valid one at that. However the fact that it can be abused, and the fact that it could cause more harm than good in the process is why those regulations are in place.
Look at it this way - already all our equipments are made by the lowest bidder in some cheap factory off China or Taiwan.
There is nothing to prevent Toshiba from hiring a bunch of smaller new companies to be exempt of this, why should they spend more and follow the rules when you, the smaller company, do not have to? It would result in more chaos.
The problems that these could cause are genuine - when the equipment in a hospital goes haywire because some of interference from some kid's CD player, killing some poor guy. Imagine those situations and imagine the consequences for the manufacturer and users in terms of damages -- legal, monetary and what not.
You must be a geek, not the business guy. Have you looked at renting vs buying this kind of equipment? It's not like renting office space.
True, but you can have an arrangement with such organizations for providing you with access to such equipment -- at a price, ofcourse. It's not easy, but it is possible. Another thing to do is to tie-up with educational institutions (for instance, my University has an arm to help out startups).
You had said elsewhere that you were not a startup anymore, but a Multi-M$ business. In which case, I'm sure you could help out the smaller businesses in this field by providing them with access to your facilities at a subsidised price, and the like. That way, you win and they win. You get the goodwill (and maybe a stake, and some cash) while the startups get access to facilities and your expertise.
I think that is probably a better solution, especially since the consequences of non-certified equipment can even be fatal.
Well this happened to my set also when I was a kid. The signal was audio tho. After a while we figured out my kid sister had somehow got inside the TV. Long story short, some midget lady came over and pulled her out somehow and she was full of buggers. So we dunked her in the tub. Anyway, the whole house imploded and we moved to a high-rise apartment where troubles soon followed.
When it popped up did it emit e or t.
(Boy Scouts paid off... when we practiced we used to joke: Was that an H or four E's?)
Get your Unix fortune now!
..because he thought that the RIAA had finally caught up with him...
And you thought the MPAA broadcast flag was just going to stop honest devices from recording!
This could be the start of a whole line of consumer electronics that call the Feds whenever you try tamper with their DMCA components.
Xix.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
Why do you think they currently react to "emergencies" like this leaking tv? Because if they don't someone could die.
Rescue services have to respond to every call even if they know it is false. Because if they guess wrong peoples life are at stake.
They also can't just send a clerk on a moped to find out because if it is real that would loose time.
It says a lot about politicians that in these days of cutbacks no-one is doing anything to cut down on the money wasted by deliberate false emergcengy calls. Send the kids to a few months of re-education. Post 9/11 it should be easy to label them as the terrorists they are.
And no I never made a crank emergency call as a kid. There are just somethings you don't do.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Distress signals emit you!
I might buy a toshiba flat screen tv in the hope that it releases a 132.7 MHz international playboy signal !
"The Minions of Satan, I mean Time-Warner Cable"
I'm not directed this to you, so please don't take offense. But its comments like these that I hear often that basically state that cable companies are evil and greedy. I'm not saying you're saying this, but for the most part that's the kind of flak I hear about TWC.
What most people don't realize is that paying for the fiber and coax, installing it yourself, and maintaining it costs major money. And trust me when I say Mother Nature causes havoc on our network (slow modems, disconnects, poor reception, macro blocking = very irate customers). Also, TWC does NOT make money on TV stations. Where we do make our bread and butter is on the recording features and on-demand access, but also on the Road Runner subscriptions. Other then that, your local cable company in large cities are nothing more then a conduit for capturing content from satellite and piping it through your home. Also, lets not forget the employee and leased equipment expenses as well that customers are having to pay.
I'm not saying TWC isn't a profitable business, because it is. But it's not like we are making hand-over-fist either. There is competition in Austin, and we know it....which is a good thing for the customer as a whole including myself. But please, would people stop this 1980s concept of cable companies being a monopoly!
Life is not for the lazy.
You are an idiot.
And the competitors in India and China don't have this certification rubbish.
Any and all electrical and electronic equipment in the US is subject to regulations, whether they are manufactured inhouse or imported - to prevent unwanted and potentially harmful interference.
bureaucratic goverment drones like you impose a mountain of useless paperwork on small businesses.
I happen to be the owner of a small business myself, and I find the regulations to be quite useful and justified, they're the reasons we do not have a million conflicting parts and standards out there.
But a small business is killed by such stuff.
Yes, and people are killed if there were no regulations. Would you rather have someone die because an CD-player interfered with their pacemaker interfered, or would you rather help small businesses "prosper".
Btw, the reason China is providing cheap stuff is because they have little or no laws on labour condition and blatantly practice harmful trade practices like under-pricing. I guess if we could make you work in a sweatshop for 20 hours a day for a pittance, you would be happy?
Get your facts straight before talking through your ass.
It's truly sad that the /. crowd still can't figure out the different between FLAT SCREENS (CRT still just no round) and FLAT PANNEL (LCD or Plasma...plasma is a huge wate of $$$ imo btw).
Or something close enough for practical vote eavesdropping.
Or maybe even a little UWB?
at least in the Metro Washington (DC) area.
It is WFDC (Telefutura), which is a Spanish
language station.
Of course, considering our current state of
"Political Correctness", it could well be a
pirate station operating at full broadcast
power without any legal interference from
the FCC.
FCC Enforcement Bureau Field Activity and Actions
Getting locked up you have to be a persistant wanker. The FCC would rather take lots of your money before they lock you up but they will lock you up.
If you don't like what I write don't be a CS and mod it down. Refute it.
Yea I can't spell. So what is your point?
LOL! That's the sort of mistake you see all the time on the fucking halfwits who get tattoos.
- "These signs look cool, what do they mean?"
- "Uh... 'Wisdom and Real Ultimate Power'."
- *drool* "Cool!!!111" *proceeds to brand himself an idiot for the rest of his life, and pays for this privilege of being unique - just like all the other idiots*
"I had a TV (also by Toshiba, coincidently) that would crash when it showed the local community channel."
My TV (a Panasonic) has a similar problem with DVB (i.e. terestrial digital tv) in the UK. It will sometimes lock-up and I have to power it off completely in order to get it to work. I presume it's either due to poor transmission error handling or bad coding when handling the interactive menus that can be broadcast with DVB.
I'm interested because the story doesn't say where or how the signal was being generated, whether by the signal amplifier in the television or by the imaging system itself. And if the thing can be picked up by a civilian satellite in orbit then I'd like to know more about how it was being generated.
Some people are talking on this site like the thing was a CRT, but was it?
-FL
Not that I've tried it or anything, though. (yeah, right)
Dear aunt, let's set so double the killer delete select all
Both boats and planes can be placed on trailers, taken home, and shoved into a garage as desired.
#include printf("[Yeemp: deekoo~tentacle.net]\n");
Flawed Routers Flood University of Wisconsin Internet Time Server
Bush doesn't have to think for himself, Cheney does it all.
"Hmm. I am to metaphor cheese as metaphor cheese is to transitive verb crackers!"
if your TV gets Slashdotted?
I have gas, but my car uses petrol.
I flew Search and Rescue missions for WASAR for a few years. It's usually very difficult to locate a downed plane based only on the 121.5MHz ELT. How ironic they managed to locate this guys TV...
His Mom bought it for him.
Best Slashdot Co
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.
Were they still thinking that while driving around the college neighbourhood trying to pinpoint the signal?
"Oh my gosh, it looks as though there must be a small plane or boat in that college building - and its in distress! Send everyone in immediately!"
You create your own reality - Leave mine to me.
Hmmm, maybe it wasn't his TV. Some of the older illegal satellite TV decoder cards cause a signal to be radiated on that frequency.
s t. nsf/en/sf05757e.html
http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/epic/internet/insmt-g
and I quote:
"In another case, the interfering signals led Search and Rescue personnel to believe that an aircraft had crashed. They immediately launched a search and rescue mission that was not only costly and unnecessary, but it tied up critical limited resources that might have been needed at a real crash site elsewhere."
By morning, we had narrowed the signal to an apartment, and later to a point on the wall of the apartment where the TV was located."
Not only they found which apartment it was, but also the exact wall!
I am wondering what else a satellite can do! :)
The signal is picked by satellite, but that only gives a general location. Civil Air Patrol volunteers will track down the exact location using portable receivers. It is a very difficult and time consuming operation, especially in an apartment building within a residential area.
"TWC is not a monopoly."
It is a local monopoly if there is no local competition.
"I might have made a tactical error in not going to a physician for 20 years." -- Warren Zevon
Actually, I believe it's the "Air Force Resource Command Center", not "Air Force Rescue Center". Gotta keep the news accurate here on Slashdot, don't we?
"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts...for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang
Nice excuse... AVR boards used to hack DishNetwork emit that same frequency... hmmmm.....
And how is this thing the size of a coin going to generate enough power at >100 GHz to achieve communication with a satellite? Sounds kind of sketchy to me.
Rescue services have to respond to every call even if they know it is false. Because if they guess wrong peoples life are at stake.
Depends how well you "know". If an alarm has been going off all day, yeah, you have to respond with someone, but you send the assistant chief in his vehicle so it isn't too bad.
At least for the fire department, the number of false alarms easily outweighs the number of real calls. They even dispatch alarm system calls differently. The vast majority of "alarm system" calls are false alarms. Fortunately the owner is often able to be reached and there's a recall while still in route. When a "dwelling" call goes out (supposed to be reserved for someone actually seeing a residential building on fire), it's more like half the time.
In some jurisdictions the fire department charges a fee to every owner of an alarm system. And a number of jurisdictions charge an additional fee for every false alarm. But the "cost", for the most part isn't an actual cost. Sure, there's gas and wear and tear, but the true cost is in the delay and reduction in manpower if a real call comes in at the same time. Get two or three false alarms at the same time in some small towns with limited manpower and you're going to be calling for mutual aid all over the region. Now get a motor vehicle accident in one of the places coming to help respond to your false alarm and you're sending the truck handling the cover station as your first response which likely has no extrication tools on it.
And no I never made a crank emergency call as a kid. There are just somethings you don't do.
Even worse is the kid who pulls the fire alarm at the school, because any response to the school here automatically involves a mutual aid call to two nearby towns.
the tv is calling for help. someone has been watching too much tv.
Lizard "Never let them set limits on your mind!"
If you're gonna whoop ass you need some good ass whooping tools. As a child of 'duck and cover', shit like this isn't scary at all.
When I want to 'bug' someone, wireless is last on the list.
1)just sidle up and listen in
2)hire someone who is a confidant of the person you want info from
3)hire someone who works for the person you want information from and is privy to it.
In industrial espionage, the easiest way to get information is to entrap a worker by paying him some seemingly large sum for some seemingly trivial bit of information. From this point on, the pay goes down and the quality of the info goes up as you've now got the stick (loss of job and reputation plus possible criminal prosecution) as well as the carrot.
Also, SOP for FBI in gathering personal information that would normaly be denied to them by privacy act(s).
I had a strange & creepy problem with my TV last night going off and on repeatedly for no apparent reason. Struggled with it for about 10 minutes before realising that i had accidentally placed something on the 'ON' button of the remote control.
It'll probably be no surprise to most people that the major costs of your cable bill are the content on the various channels. ESPN is apparently a huge cost to offer -- they charge way more than anyone else. The answer would be to offer channels a-la-carte, an idea I personally like. But then there'll be screams of pain when people find out how much it costs to get their sports fix. So we have the current "bundling" scheme, where the costs of the high-dollar channels are spread amongst the lower cost channels (Lifetime, We, Home Shopping, etc).
Chip H.
Obviously the TV thought it had been stolen. Did the cops check for that?
This would seem to make the charges, that Mr. Bush wore "a wire", bulky enough to show through his suit, hard to believe... Just a thought.
Even if he did it would be in the small of his back, not up where the buldge was. You can conceal all kinds of things there under a suit jacket.
This was a thin bullet-proof (or reducing) vest, and you saw the back point where it zippers up. The pictures shown on the Sunday news clearly show the "buldge" extending down the back, like the rib of a vest around the zipper.
Occam's razor applies.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Or lack there of that earned the rath of many consumers and myself included years ago. Honestly I have no complaints against TWC, I'm a RoadRunner user. But years ago I used to have TCI, and their customer service was abysmal. I went out and spent a couple of grand to get a big dish just so I wouldn't have to deal with them. It wasn't the money at all, just their attitude. And it's kind of stuck with me since then, and I've been a dish user for years now.
Hm. If only Mr. Howell had been a gadget freak, perhaps they all would have been rescued...
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
http://www.comporium.com/
If you want to do wiring yourself, here's what you should be looking for:
Hope that helps
After the TV displayed Bush and Kerry as the 'Best of the Best'
America has to offer for its leadership,
the Toshiba A.I. Chip broadcast the international distress signal.
What is so suprising about that?
Yea, i found out about this when I was working for TWC-Greensboro, NC. We had maps of the amount (hopefully none/little) leakage over the areas, and places that had to be fixed. Apparently we would have huge fines and shit would hit the fan (and then the wall) if we had leaks.
I didn't even know there was such a thing as leaks, I was just working doing installs and setups for their business internet, but i was the nosey guy in the office who asks what everything on the wall is, and what it's for.
Tibbon
tibbon.com
I, for one, welcome our plasma help-seeking overlords.
I don't get it.
was in China and rather than relay the signal, the satellite came crashing to earth on top of the man's house. The government found him, too.
I was recently given a TV by a friend, who had upgraded hers.
I very rarely watch tv, as I find few shows are a reasonable quality. When I do watch TV, the new tv occasionally crashes. When it crashes, it simply switches off, and won't restart for long periods of time (even after unplugging for several minutes). I wonder if it's a software thing?
Are TV's really this prone to poor programming practices?
It sure would be interesting to know why the TV in the article was emitting that frequency... an extra solder bridge? Poor programming? Malfunctioning display?
I guess the picture was still fine, or the owner would have returned it earlier, right?
How many other domestic devices that are FCC compliant, with the little 'rf safe' type stickers generate stong RF like this? I've often wondered about mice and motherboards, because I have occasionally run across a computer where the speakers pick up the digital signal from the encoders in the mice. So when the mouse is moved, you can hear a clicking sound from the speakers.
Big deal. My Toshiba HDTV was emitting the 1.21 jigawatt international time travel power level and turned into a '56 black and white Westinghouse in a faux oak cabinet.
Please donate your spare CPU cycles to help fight cancer and other diseases
And no I never made a crank emergency call as a kid. There are just somethings you don't do.
Friend of mine has two elder brothers. They used to live in Asia, where the emergency services... err... aren't very reliable. So when they moved back to Canada this guy had no idea about 911 or emergency services. His brothers started teasing him (in the way elder brothers do) and he got slightly upset so they told him if there was an emergency he could call 911.
O: Emergency Services, please state the nature of your emergency.
J: My brothers are teasing me... :-|
So what did you do?
Did you call up Toshiba?Did you get a replacement? [ may be different model ]
Why does yahoo do this
When I do watch TV, the new tv occasionally crashes. When it crashes, it simply switches off, and won't restart for long periods of time (even after unplugging for several minutes).
I had a TV set that did the same thing. Eventually, I found a loose screw holding the circuit board to the frame, and after tightening the screw, the problem went away. I believe that this screw was an important ground connection, and the heat caused the board to shift enough to break the connection.
A dingo ate my sig...
Yeah, I remember when they first turned the thing on and it started emitting the distress signal. Didn't a government helicopter land right in the middle of the football field trying to figure out what was going on?
Anyway, you can still see a good portion of the screen from the interstate if you're in the right spot, enough to get a good idea of what's happening on the screen (even from five miles away). If you were at a higher elevation, you could probably get a full view; I've spotted some roads winding up some of the taller mountains that would probably fit the bill.
The screen is 107-feet by 30-feet.
If I remember correctly from my CAP (Civil Air Patrol) days, 121.5 is the "test" emergency freq while 121.6 is the actual "live" freq. (Any cadets reading this, please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong - it's been a LONG time).
Most aircraft are fitted with a small transmitter (about the size of a pack of cigarettes) that will start squaking on certian conditions. Sometimes a hard landing would be enough to set one off.
Back in the day (late 80's), SAR (Search and Rescue) teams used a device called an L-per which was basically a reciever mounted on a large hand-held directional antenna. The operator would go to the appoximate location of the crash, determine which direction the signal was coming from and then move about a mile in a perpendicular direction. The op would take another reading and repeat the process one more time, triangulating the position of the downed aircraft.
Of course now they probably have fancy-schmancy wiz-bag computers to do all of that for them.
Any other CAP members out there?
C/FO Martin Dinstuhl (Ret.)
Alpha Flight Commander, 144th Air Rescue & Recovery Squadron
TN Wing
The crew is awakened from hibernation to be terrorized and slaughtered by some creature, and later the signal turns out to be a warning, not a distress call.
121.5Mhz is used in Emergency Locator Transmitters (ELTs) that go in civilian aircraft. When the aircraft crashes (or even has a hard landing every once in a while) it starts trasmnitting. The military uses 243Mhz (harmonic). The transmission is picked up by SARSAT (search and rescue satellite) and then the relevent emergency services resources are called into action.
There actually IS a frequecny for international distress calls (which i don't remember off hand) but it's not 121.5Mhz or 243Mhz. It's illegal to broadcast a distress call on those frequencies. If you use one of those hiker distress thingies that they sell in catalogs don't be surprised to meet a frustrated CAP ground team and an angry Sherrif.
"Let him go, Ralph. He knows what he's doing." --Otto Mann (simpsons)
DISTRESSFUL?
Maybe an alien crossed as subspace or temporal rift/wormhole or quantum singularity and ended up in the TV. Impressive.
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Personally, I think he should be able to leave the TV on as much as he wants,
Of course the manufacturer has to make good on the problem. That's not at issue. What you are saying is that the operator has NO liability. He/she can just go ahead and recklessly operate interfering equipment even if it causes deaths! That's irresponsible.
Nor does one have to broadcast outright fabrications to be guilty of misleading viewers. It's the stories Fox (and MSNBC, and CNN, etc...) *don't* air that contribute the most to their reputation for having a slant to the right, IMHO.
"Creativity is allowing ones self to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep" - Scott Adams
Unfair at Any Volume: Fox News Channels' Unbalancing Act
by Shaun Richman (from The Torch, Spring 2001)
Rupert Murdoch's Fox News Channel is the current buzz in TV journalism. Riding high in the news ratings and unsettling the venerated CNN and the more established MSNBC, Fox News has established a reputation for brash and exciting, in-your-face conservative news. Murdoch's experiment in openly biased TV journalism has been rewarded with a loyal fan base and surprising clout in Washington. But the success of this right-wing news media organization, which cloaks itself in buzzwords like "fair and balanced", raises some troubling questions about meaningful political balance and diversity in television journalism.
Rupert Murdoch was very specific about his picks for his Fox News team, and it shows in their credentials. His choice of network president was Roger Ailes, a veteran of CNBC and MSNBC, who spent his earlier career as advisor to Presidents Nixon, Reagan and the senior President Bush. The network's high-profile anchors, Brit Hume, Catherine Crier and Neil Cavuto were well-known conservatives at the major news networks. Crier, in fact, began her career as a Republican judge in Texas, a job description that impossibly inspires less faith in "fairness" than "Fox News Anchor."
The network's clear star, Bill O'Reilly, is an arch-conservative who made his career on the sleazy tabloid show Inside Edition. Murdoch also found room for Fred Barnes and Bill Kristol, the gruesome twosome of McLaughlin Group-ers who hail from Murdoch's own conservative journal, The Weekly Standard. Other hires include Tony Snow, a syndicated columnist and former chief speechwriter for Bush the elder; syndicated columnist Monica Crowley, a former assistant to President Nixon; Newsday columnist Jim Pinkerton, a former staffer for Presidents Reagan and Bush; John Podhoretz, editorial page editor of the New York Post and a former Reagan speechwriter. Notice a pattern? And, oh yes, the network hired Bush cousin John Ellis as an election analyst and "number cruncher," who spent much of election night on the phone with his cousins, the governors of Texas and Florida, and was responsible for Fox News Channel's being the first to declare George W. Bush winner of Florida's electoral votes.
The slogan, "We report. You Decide," is Fox News' laughable effort to hide its right-wing agenda. Rupert Murdoch "has never been known for giving balanced news in his newspapers or broadcasts," counters author Ben Bagdikian, whose book, The Media Monopoly, was the first to call attention to the troubling trend of media mergers -- nearly twenty years ago! "If he has had a religious experience, we have yet to see the results."
Actually, Fox News doesn't claim to be balanced in itself. They insist that they're simply a counter-balance to the rest of the industry's obvious liberal bias. "Bias + bias = balance" goes the defense, and it's one that socialists should subscribe to. Better an open bias than a covert agenda. Europe excels at this, with a diverse ideological media that covers the spectrum from socialist to liberal to moderate to conservative to fascist!
But exactly what bias does Fox claim to balance? The mainstream media's own neo-liberal, pro-business politics? Hey, what a coincidence! That's Fox's bias too! Give them credit. Fox sure does a good job of fostering the impression of a vast difference. "Finally both sides are being presented," gloated Fox News chief, Roger Ailes to the Washington Post, "Al Gore liked the old system where only side was presented."
Thank goodness for that Punch and Judy show we call the two-party system! Without it's cheap Democrat-bashing, what would make Fox News Channel special? No wonder Fox's "balancing act" has won a fan in Senate Republican leader Trent Lott, who proclaimed after the election controversy, "During the past two months, if it hadn't been for Fox, I don't know what I would have done for the news."
The problem with Fox, howev
How freaked out would he had been if he was watching some pirated DVD at the time the cops showed up?
------------- I didn't know she was your sister I swear!
All of these tales have been discredited as urban legends.
what if they busted down the door and he was watching porn?
OT I know, but the CBS bashing is a bit much considering their record vs fox on real reporting. Besides, according to the CMPA, main news networks were more postive toward kerry, but all networks were negative toward bush over the past month. And Fox was 5 to 1 negative toward kerry. Of course, if you want faux news, read fox's summary of the report that says they are fair and balanced.
Fox version
Official study
The study found abc to be the most balanced, but it didnt actually discuss the quality of the evaluations.
--------
The Fox News Difference
Fox News Channel was about as negative towards Bush as the broadcast networks, but Kerry's evaluations were negative by a five-to-one margin. There was little difference in the evaluations of party- and campaign-based partisan sources, but Bush fared over four times as well as Kerry among non-partisan sources.
Sharp has announced plans to produce a backpack-sized version of their big-screen TVs for hiking and other outdoor sports.
Perfectly Normal Industries
As a phone tech support guy, I got a call from someone complaining "whenever I try to use my laptop to dial up the company computer, the police show up at my front door."
Turns out the guy had gone to a hotel on business. Getting an outside line required dialing 9-1, then the desired phone number: 1-800-...-.... Upon returning home, the unmodified dialer dutifully dialed 9-1-1-800-...-....
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
Just wait till BPL (Broadband Over Powerline) starts crapping on ELT and other government emergency frequencies.
Sigh...
I was listening to an interview with some 911 operators on NPR. They said they get a hell of a lot of calls along the lines of "I lost my TV Guide. What time does Seinfeld come on?"
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
Yes.
The manufacturer warrants the product and thus should be responsible for those deaths.
The manufacturer should either not provide a blanket warranty or enter into an agreement so the owner does not operate the equipment until it is replaced.
You could've hired me.
No more everquest suicide, their screens will save them. :p
Fucking tool!
The word is 'lose', not 'loose'.
Such ignorance in a native speaker is
inexcusable and must stopped.
-FL