the channel that makes contact feel "off"
Troeltsch broadcasts the datum and refers to Hal as a ‘close source,’ which strikes Hal as odd and somehow off in a way he can’t quite name.
Context
Hal idly names a smell, and the moment it passes through Troeltsch's broadcast idiom he is converted into a "close source" — a casual human remark re-encoded as newswire, and the re-encoding is what feels wrong to Hal without his being able to say why. The channel doesn't just carry the datum; it estranges the person it came from.