FAULTY TV BOX SPARKS pounds 20K CHOPPER RESCUE

A pounds 50 TV digibox in England sparked a pounds 20,000 rescue operation when its signal was picked up as an emergency - 650 miles away in Scotland.

An RAF helicopter was scrambled after the signal from the digibox at a house in Portsmouth, Hants, registered as a distress call at RAF Kinloss in Morayshire.

The frequency used by the digital set top box is identical to the one dedicated to emergency distress beacons.

The beacons are carried by ships, yachts and planes and are activated when they come into contact with water, sending a signal that identifies the vessel and its location. Instead the signal came from a house in Portsmouth where a man was engrossed in the telly.

As an RAF helicopter based at Leigh on Solent searched the waters off Portsmouth harbour, the man carried on watching TV oblivious to the chaos sparked by his digibox. The signal was picked up by satellite and reported to the rescue coordination centre at RAF Kinloss on Thursday where it was identified as a military distress signal.

The centre ordered coastguards in Portsmouth to scramble a helicopter which spent two hours in a fruitless search.

A spokesman at RAF Kinloss, which handles nearly 2,000 rescue missions a year and last year saved 1,295 lives, was unrepentant about the cost of the false alarm.

He said: "If a signal is broadcast on that frequency it is responded to. Normally the beacons are complemented with a distress call, but we could not take the chance and a Coastguard helicopter was scrambled.

"We contacted Ofcom, the communications watchdog, and they investigated the signal."

Ofcom later confirmed that it was not a distress call from a sinking boat or ditched aircraft, but a dodgy TV digibox at the Portsmouth home of a very embarrassed TV viewer.

"It was not the fault of the man watching TV, of course, but we have taken the box away for tests," said the RAF Kinloss spokesman.

"There are clear laws on what frequency these boxes can use, and we suspect this was a malfunction.

"Although they are set-top receivers, they do give off a low- level signal that can be picked up by other receiving equipment.

"But this is the first time we have had a digibox call up the emergency services though."

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