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Pinging sound, so just practically speaking, it makes no sense to have both of these things in the water. you have to designate time to one or the other. >> i know they are looking on the surface, tom, for debris. they've been looking for a month, if you will, at least two and a half weeks in this area, the southern indian ocean, they haven't seen or spotted anything. so my own sense is, based on what i'm hearing from experts, they really are relying on the two hours and 15 minutes of pinging that they heard. they think this is the area they are going to be most likely to find something. >> no...

Alongside the "haixun 01." it appears that area has been rolled out for now and we're now concentrating further up to the northwest. just immediately to the west of where the "ocean shield" detections were. >> which leads me to believe, commander, that the chinese pings that were detected were careerly coming from something other than the two black boxes than the malaysian airliner. but you're still working under the assumption that the pings were authentic coming from the flight data and cockpit voice recorders. is that your still working assumption? >> that is still the working assumption, y...

That angus houston gave last night, that they are -- they carry all of those signatures. but mike, are you concerned that there's no debris floating in this area? because this is like, you know, finding the needle before you find the haystack, really, if this is, indeed the black boxes. >> no, it doesn't concern me. given that we're 30 days into this, i wouldn't expect to see surface debris in this area. but having spent enough time now, and having acquired the signal twice, which i think is very reassuring to us, that we pick a signal up and then we manage to reacquire the signal on a recipro...

With surface debris is very small. as authorities say, miracle do happen. >> let's compare the chinese pinger locater as opposed to what's being used on board the "ocean shield." a tow locater. >> what the chinese are using is a system designed to be held by divers, so very shallow water. you sort of aim it in the direction that you think the ping might be located. it's very directional. >> so in a situation like this, that's a little risky to be using that for such a gigantic area. >> right. the manufacturers have told me it's barely -- operating right at the range of what is possible. it's o...

That is designed to operate at depth. the deeper you are, the better quality of signals that you can expect. and secondly, it's being heard twice by people who are highly trained and actually trying to get the effect that they got. so it's a tremendous achievement when you consider that to get to this very spot to deploy the tpl has taken an awful lot of work by the people in the back room. it's nothing short of miraculous. >> yeah, and i think it was you who said that it was going to take a bit of luck. and maybe a number of people said that, that it was going to take a bit of luck considerin...