Q: Does postal equipment have a difficult time recognizing ZIP codes with the crossed, or European, numeral 7, and does it misdirect much of the mail that includes it? Some of the IRS ZIP codes have a seven, and thousands of people use the crossed seven, and the tax filing deadline is near.
-- Richard Clancy, Suwanee
A: Postal Service Optical Character Reader recognition software does not have issues with the European 7, or the seven with the strike through it, Gerry McKiernan, a spokesman for the U.S. Postal Service, told Q&A on the News. "In addition, if the seven is written by hand and is sloppy, we will use the city/state combination to verify the numerical read," he wrote in an e-mail. "As for IRS mailings, they have unique ZIP codes, thereby further reducing the chances of a read error."
Q: Since Fox owns both Fox Sports South and SportSouth now, why don't they show the Braves games on only one of the networks?
-- Susan Miles, Marietta
A: Fox Sports South has had the broadcast rights to 25 Atlanta Braves games since the mid-1990s, Kate Hart, a spokeswoman with Fox Sports South, told Q&A on the News. "With the rare exception, those games are televised on Fox Sports South on Sundays as part of our 'Sunday Braves on Fox Sports South' branding," she wrote in an e-mail. "When we purchased Turner South in 2006 -- and subsequently reprogrammed and rebranded the network as SportSouth -- we acquired the 80 Braves games that Turner South had been televising." She said the 80 games that the network acquired from Turner South are shown on SportSouth and the other 25 are on Fox Sports South to avoid scheduling conflicts.
Lori Johnston wrote this column. Do you have a question about the news? We’ll try to get the answer. Call 404-222-2002 or e-mail q&a@ajc.com (include name, phone and city).
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