UK STB sends out SOS
A digital settop box in the UK recently pulled off a feat that is said to have odds of "far more than 14 million-to-one" when it somehow broadcast an SOS distress signal on the very channel that the Royal Airforce uses for emergencies at sea. A Moray-based helicopter spent two hours searching the Portsmouth Harbour area for the supposed "distressed vessel" before ground-based techs at telecom regulator Ofcom were able to trace the signal to a malfunctioning Freeview box located on dry land. Thankfully for the owner of the box, it sent out a mayday as opposed to broadcasting the international signal for "step up, yo," in which case he/she may have ended up suffering the full wrath of the British war machine.
[Thanks, Tom]
