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Digi-box sends out SOS to coastguards

  • 14-02-2006 11:09AM
    #1
    PaddyFagan
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,146 ✭✭✭


    Hi Folks,

    Thought this might be interesting...

    I'm sure someone with more technical skills than me (Watty, Tony anyone) can explain a probable cause?

    Paddy
    --
    A digi-box has sent a SOS signal to coastguards.

    Lifeboats were scrambled as the signal from Mary Donaldson's Freeview box went out on a wavelength used by ships in distress.

    It was picked up 600 miles away by rescue co-ordinators at RAF Kinloss in Scotland, who alerted coastguards near her home in Plymouth, Devon.

    Teams spent three hours scouring 20 miles of coast before the signal was traced to dry land.

    Mary, 67, arrived back from a cinema trip with a friend to find two men outside with a huge antenna.

    According to The Sun she said: "It was extraordinary. My friend thought I hadn't paid my television licence."

    An Ofcom spokesman said: "Digital boxes are not meant to transmit signals."

    It is not the first time the boxes have sent out freak signals. Last month, a coastguard helicopter scoured Portsmouth harbour for two hours after another box sent a signal.

    From http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_1723455.html?menu=news.quirkies


Comments

  • #2
    bauderline
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 899 ✭✭✭bauderline


    I am not sure, but I would think that a back end of a horse is involved in this story. The six hundred miles away bit really clinches it for me.....


  • #3
    watty
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 32,451 ✭✭✭✭watty


    Its a DTT box, not a (sky) Digibox.

    The Irish DTT system does actually use the box transmitting for interactive ordering etc instead of phone line on TopUp TV/ Ondigital or on Sky.

    This is an old story posted here before. The box was taken for examinition and we never heard any more.

    The signal may have been received by Satellite.

    The ISS can be communicated with at low power and I have contacted Aberdeen from Limerick with 5W and Dundee with 3W both on VHF. More than 600 miles?

    Still it could all be a load of cobblers.


  • #4
    L1011
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 72,401 ✭✭✭✭L1011


    watty wrote:
    Its a DTT box, not a (sky) Digibox.

    The Irish DTT system does actually use the box transmitting for interactive ordering etc instead of phone line on TopUp TV/ Ondigital or on Sky.

    This is an old story posted here before. The box was taken for examinition and we never heard any more.

    The signal may have been received by Satellite.

    The ISS can be communicated with at low power and I have contacted Aberdeen from Limerick with 5W and Dundee with 3W both on VHF. More than 600 miles?

    Still it could all be a load of cobblers.

    Someone on Digitalspy I think did the maths and the frequency it was transmitting on is along the lines of the thirteenth harmonic of on of the frequencies used in PAL transmission. Seems his aerial would have been connected to the RF out modulator on his box...


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