Coastguard scrambled as set-top box sends SOS

[muckshifter]

oops ...

WHEN Mary Donaldson arrived home from the cinema she found two officials outside her door. One was holding a large antenna. They told the pensioner and her friend that distress signals from ships at sea had been traced to her house. Lifeboats and air-sea rescue helicopters had been launched on several occasions but coastguards had drawn a blank. Nothing was found ... except that her house was the source of the signals.

Full Story here

 

[V_R]

She added: “I don’t think I’ll be getting a new one. I’d hate to cause any more bother”

What are the chances of that, LOL

 

[ChristopherP]

I saw that a couple months ago on BBC News... very funny!

edit: ok, one month ago today : http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4614598.stm

 

[Anon_F]

Scramble

The story first appeared on local news a few days ago, but has now reached the nationals.

At RAF Kinloss The Aeronautical Rescue Co-ordination Centre (ARCC) tasked local HM Coastguard to conduct a search, The RNLI launched two boat's, one inshore and one all weather, the local Royal Navy Search & Rescue Sea King got scrambled also. Only when they got tasked to search near the harbour did anyone get a bit worried as the call on the “May Day” channel got weaker the further out to sea they got!

Eventually it dawned on the rescuers that something was up, local Police got involved and the freeview box has been detained. No one seems to know what has gone wrong. It’s the second time that a freeview box has done this; I think there was a case like this last year.

 

[TriplexDread]

Yea glad u mentioned tht. Was gonna say it was mentioned last year dont knw if this is the same story tho

 

[Ian]

That is really funny and such a strange co-incidence at the same time!

I've got no idea how it can put out a signal at that exact freq, what are the chances of that!

 

[TriplexDread]

Maybe just a lack of communications between manufacturers and governing bodies I guess.

It wouldnt surpise me if certain peoples and companys got a stern telling off and fined because of the incident

 

[kingnathski88]

odd question, but the company that manufactured the boxes, will they get charged anything? or anything like that?

 

[TriplexDread]

All depends of the circumstance I guess and the results of the investigation

 

[kingnathski88]

my main reason was asking was they said it cost about £20,000 to do the 1 search or something
​

 

[TriplexDread]

Yeah I would think at least that!

I bet if you do some searching around the reports would be available for public reading, Purely due to the fact it was all tax payers money that was spent

 

[muckshifter]

odd question, but the company that manufactured the boxes, will they get charged anything? or anything like that?

No, they will not be charged with anything ...

The "freeview box" is a receiver only ... it is not designed to transmit, however, any receiver, if modified, can be used as a transmitter. A fault developed and it started to transmit.

That particular frequency is due to be changed anyway to comply with the EEC.

 

[Anon_F]

No charge

I don't think the company concerned will get fined, but may have to change the settings on the freeview box's they sell,if this happens again.

However the Royal Navy will see it as a good job done, they got airborne and commenced the search quickly. The RNLI as a charity will put it down to the fact that mistake like this happen, they of course got a good bit of public relations by appearing on both the local & national news, which may result in some new members from it.

More info on the RNLI at www.rnli.org.uk