When I first saw the headline for this story I thought it was probably a joke, turns out it wasn’t. Seems a year old Flat Screen monitor was emitting a signal at 121.5 mhz. For those of you that do not know their are satellite in orbit that look for a 1000 HZ warbling tone at 121.5 and 243.00 mhz.
This guys flat screen activated the SAR satellite system and activated the ground rescue forces. They found him and where pretty surprised to see a flat screen monitor to do this.
I want to put this into perspective. Usually SAR transmitters need to transmit from 3 to 20 watts to reach the satellite. Signal strength is degraded through walls so this monitor must have been extremely defective. I have done RF radiation leak checks on all sorts of equipment and can tell you that some of the stuff I have tested I would be afraid to sit in front of. I may just fire up a spectrum analyzer and sweep the components in my own home just to see what type of components have the least shielding. [CNN]