--- Begin Message ---
- Subject: Give up DXing NOW! Health reasons
- From: radiomatt@xxxxxxx (Radiomatt)
- Date: 12 Apr 2000 05:37:32 GMT
- Newsgroups: rec.radio.shortwave
- Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com
- Xref: news.clinet.fi rec.radio.shortwave:3976
Monday, April 10, 2000
Report: Eavesdropping damaged spies hearing
LONDON (AP) -- More than a hundred British intelligence officers have been
compensated for hearing loss caused by too much eavesdropping on the enemy,
The Sunday Telegraph reported.
A government spokeswoman offered no immediate comment on the report that
staff at the Government Communications Headquarters -- the agency that
monitors global communications -- had suffered hearing loss while listening
to "enemy emissions."
The center at Cheltenham, 90 miles northwest of London, employs some 4,000
people including code breakers, computer experts and linguists.
The Sunday Telegraph said staff blamed inadequate headphones -- which have
since been replaced -- for the hearing damage.
Staff "turned the volume up to full if foreign transmissions were difficult
to understand. Some transmissions were accompanied by constant buzzing and
crackling," the newspaper said.
New headphones, introduced in 1995, came too late for operators who worked at
the center during the height of the Cold War, the newspaper said.
Individual staff have received compensation payments of up to $31,800, the
report said.
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