Flat-Screen Toshiba Broadcasts On Guard

Planes in trouble broadcast on Guard. Boats missing at sea broadcast on Guard. Warplanes intercepting wayward pilots over temporary no-fly zones broadcast on guard.

Chris van Rossman's flat screen TV broadcasts on Guard.

For some reason, the Corvallis (OR) college student's Toshiba has been broadcasting on 121.5 MHz, prompting a massive search for a downed or sinking... television.

"These sorts of alerts are not uncommon, but usually happen in airports when someone has accidentally activated a transponder," said Benton County (OR) emergency manager Mike Bamberger. He went to Rossman's apartment accompanied by local law officers and members of the Air Force, ordering him to stop broadcasting what, for all the world, looked like emergency calls. "Most of these are false alarms, but we check them out anyway. 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."

Of course, the warranty on the television had just expired. Toshiba had no comment about why the 20-inch TV-DVD-VCR combo unit was issuing a distress call.

Maybe it didn't like what van Rossman was watching...

FMI: www.fcc.gov