Re: UFO hits satellite, 90% of pagers fail

Gregory Alan Bolcer (gbolcer@gambetta.ICS.uci.edu)
Wed, 20 May 1998 12:32:41 -0700

I was going to post something this morning about how I had
to get gas for my truck at Chevron and the pay-at-the-pump
terminal wasn't working so the clerk had to go through
5 separate paper and computer transactions just to make
the sale which usually happens in one fell swoop at
the pump. Pulling out of the station, they are talking
about the pager service and the satellite. At the end
of the story they add in that 5400 Chevron stations have
their point-of-sale service down. They didn't say if it
was related or not, but seemed to imply that it was.

Shades of Y2K. 8-)

Greg

> Hot off the boob tube...
>
> 90% of the pagers in the United States are now dead because the primary
> satellite has spun off its orbit. They estimate it will take several
> hours to realign the antennas to another satellite (used by the other 10%).
> Police and emergency services folks have been warned not to rely on
> service until things get normal again. The satellite also carried
> broadcast feeds for some of the TV networks.
>
> The theory is that the satellite was hit by some "unknown flying object",
> causing it to break geosynchronous orbit (or at least spin+wobble in
> a way that breaks communication).
>
> .....Roy