EAS activation

[dumber than a box of hair]

One might wonder whether activating EAS would have actually made it *more difficult* to get information to the public?

I don't know how things are wired in the Boston area but hereabouts (and in many other places), when an EAS is issued it automatically overrides ALL channels on cable TV. Including the local news operations like WBZ-TV. You lose a minute or two's worth of the detailed information & images available on TV in favor of a grey screen with someone reading a single paragraph of text.

It probably wouldn't have been a bad idea to activate EAS **on the 162MHz weather radio only**. To get the attention of those who *don't* already have their radio/TV on. Although I have my suspicions the system is wired in such a way that isn't possible.

_________________________________________________

It's a no-brainer to me. If your mailing address is in X County, and there is a storm warning or etc. for there, you should get an alert. If you're not in X County at the time, so be it.
I believe the White House is working in co-op with Homeland Security to develop a system where every last one of us gets an alert in the even of a national emergency like 9/11.
I don't see that as a privacy issue. I see that as using the existing technology to provide us information in a quick and efficient way.

Please, no..

I don't see a privacy issue but I do see an issue with "crying wolf". At least around here, Amber Alerts are issued statewide and regardless of the hour. Which means if you can't turn them off, you will be awakened at 3am to be informed of an emergency that you likely can do absolutely nothing about. Is the perp really going to drive through a rural county 400 miles from the crime? Is a sleep-deprived commuter likely to get in a wreck? IMHO #2 is more likely...

I've had to throw out an otherwise good weather radio because it predated the CAE code & I couldn't mute it.

Mobile alerting is a good thing but it needs to be voluntary & configurable.

They could have the National Weather Service issue the alert, even though it's not weather related. Issue it as a tornado warning so that the weather radios will turn on. Besides, the residents of Watertown should have treated it like a tornado, and hid in their basements, because there was an active shootout, and bullets can easily pierce walls.

No, no, no, a thousand times no. "Crying wolf" is exactly the point.

A system like EAS, if over-used or misused, loses whatever trust the public has in it. It will cease to be a viable method for short-fuse warnings to the public of imminent danger to life if the public's impulse is to ignore it. In certain places in the US, most notably the tornado belt in the midwest, failure to heed EAS warnings gets people killed.

It is patently stupid to send out EAS weather alerts when there's no severe weather, just to get people's attention. No one will ever trust EAS ever again, for anything, and the Amber alerts (cited above) are a perfect example. Unfortunately Amber alerts have become a political issue that no one can seriously oppose without being accused of not wanting to protect children.

 

[N1WVQ]

Wikipedia's WGU20 article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WGU-20. There's also the Conelrad site: www.conelrad.com. If you put WGU20 into Google, you'll get an image of Perki the Puppy!

 

[nd2023]

EAS is only useful in situations where two conditions are met:

• Things are moving VERY fast, and word must be gotten out within the next 15 to 20 minutes. 60 at most.
• The information to be disseminated is of a type that some people might not consider "urgent".

You forgot #3: A situation where there is a known, imminent danger to life or property.

This is exactly the same discussion that was gone over, ad nauseam, on message boards after 9/11. There were good, valid reasons NOT to activate EAS on 9/11, just as there were last Monday.

What about Friday evening after the all-clear was announced. Someone went outside in Watertown and found someone hiding in his boat. Surely that must have been a time to immediately alert everyone in Watertown to stay inside.

 

[TheBigA]

Surely that must have been a time to immediately alert everyone in Watertown to stay inside.

You don't use mass media to close down a small area. They had a huge police presence in that area within minutes, and were able to lock things down as quickly as any radio alert. That's where it's more efficient to do it in person. If all the sirens didn't get you to stay inside, certainly the gunfire afterwards would do it.

 

[WLYNWAZNgm]

Digital EAS can be fed from several different levels -
including the State level. I feel that EAS activation was absolutely
justified in this situation. I am baffled as to why it was not activated!

 

[4CX1000A]

How many lives would it have saved?

EAS is useful for things like tornadoes, but not helpful in situations like last Friday's, I think.

It is, moreover, entirely useless at a national level. There is no conceivable situation that would ever justify a national EAS activation, save one: a coup d'etat.

 

[NHRadio]

. There is no conceivable situation that would ever justify a national EAS activation, save one: a coup d'etat.

What about a missile or nuclear strike on the US? Or a coordinated 9/11-style terrorist attack?

 

[TheBigA]

What about a missile or nuclear strike on the US? Or a coordinated 9/11-style terrorist attack?

The fact is they didn't use it on 9-11.

 

[NHRadio]

I know. I was on the air that day. Never figured out why they never activated. Maybe W couldn't find the button ;D

 

[TheBigA]

Maybe W couldn't find the button ;D

Ha! He was in the air.

 

[NHRadio]

I know he was. I'm sure Air Force one has the capability to activate the EAS, or at least order it to be activated.

 

[reelyreal]

I know. I was on the air that day. Never figured out why they never activated. Maybe W couldn't find the button ;D

They never activated because the media was getting the information out as fast as it was coming in. There was no new information that could be provided directly from the President, and when he was in a situation to speak, everyone was already there and hooked up.

EAS is great when people aren't already on high alert and paying attention. If "the big one" is coming from North Korea, hit the EAS.

 

[aaronread]

To do what? Let us know it's gonna splash down somewhere 1000 miles west of Hawaii? ;D

But you raise a good point: EAS is the successor of EBS, the successor of CONELRAD.

CONELRAD (for CONtrol of ELectromagnetic RADiation) was about denying Soviet high-altitude jet bombers, armed with nuclear warhead-tipped bombs, a means of easily using major AM stations as a way of easily navigating to major cities/targets.

Tangent: think about how fantastically obsolete that is, but it was an era that predated ICBM's, GPS, and FM.

The point was, and technically still is, that EAS exists for the The White House (via FEMA) to seize control of all the broadcast airwaves to disseminate critical information in one big hurry. The kind of hurry that matters when ICBM's are flying, since most of those can reach the USA...assuming they CAN reach the USA...in about 30 to 40 minutes. Despite the speed at which news media can move at these days, they're still not quite THAT fast when it happens outside of normal "broadcast business hours" for radio & TV (call it 6am to 10pm, weekdays).

Of course, given how weak the daisy-chain system is for EAS, I highly doubt an real EAN about "the missiles be flyin'" would make it to most people in time.

 

[CTListener]

To do what? Let us know it's gonna splash down somewhere 1000 miles west of Hawaii? ;D

But you raise a good point: EAS is the successor of EBS, the successor of CONELRAD.

CONELRAD (for CONtrol of ELectromagnetic RADiation) was about denying Soviet high-altitude jet bombers, armed with nuclear warhead-tipped bombs, a means of easily using major AM stations as a way of easily navigating to major cities/targets.

Tangent: think about how fantastically obsolete that is, but it was an era that predated ICBM's, GPS, and FM.

The point was, and technically still is, that EAS exists for the The White House (via FEMA) to seize control of all the broadcast airwaves to disseminate critical information in one big hurry. The kind of hurry that matters when ICBM's are flying, since most of those can reach the USA...assuming they CAN reach the USA...in about 30 to 40 minutes. Despite the speed at which news media can move at these days, they're still not quite THAT fast when it happens outside of normal "broadcast business hours" for radio & TV (call it 6am to 10pm, weekdays).

Of course, given how weak the daisy-chain system is for EAS, I highly doubt an real EAN about "the missiles be flyin'" would make it to most people in time.

Given that you have to be listening to a radio or watching TV to get the message, a whole lot of people aren't going to get the message directly no matter how sturdy the chain is, unless it's from a neighbor who IS listening or watching and runs over, bangs on the door and screams, "The f***in' Koreans are nukin' us! Get in the f***in' basement! I'm not f***in' kidding!" Fortunately, neighbor-to-neighbor emergency communications aren't subject to FCC fines.

 

[dumber than a box of hair]

They never activated because the media was getting the information out as fast as it was coming in. There was no new information that could be provided directly from the President, and when he was in a situation to speak, everyone was already there and hooked up.

According to FEMA, they never activated it because the extent of the threat was unknown at the time and there was no sense alerting the entire nation, or even New York and Washington, over attacks on three buildings. Using a system like EAS at a time like that would have resulted in needless panic.

 

[TSBench]

This whole thread is becoming the equivalent of discussing the best 8-track player to buy.

The US, and the world, now gets its initial news reports from their cell phones, and I think a case can be made that the marathon bombing was the first domestic “smart phone event.”

Watching the crowds arrive at the local MBTA station after the bombing, everyone came out the doors either watching, reading, or calling on their phone, while on the way home to catch the video on television. Radio was the prime news purveyor only to folks actually driving automobiles, and a non-factor to those at home, except for those, perhaps, without access to a television, cell phone, or computer. For pedestrians and commuters, radio was a minor player, and even those listening to it were getting it from their phones.

For the foreseeable future, and probably beyond, the solution for getting information disseminated instantly isn’t EAS, or reverse 911, or weather radio. Like most things, there will be "an app for that.” And those apps and features are where the smart technology money will be spent.

Regards,
TSB

 

[robotique]

Wasn't a system developed in the early 1970's (but never implemented) call "Perky" that would have used signals from longwave radio station WGU-20 (around 190 Kilohertz) to turn on TV's and radios to warn people of Emergency Broadcasting System activations??

"Perki" was the dog mascot. That was pretty much the idea. WGU-20 was the prototype, and there were to be several stations around the U.S., including proposed stations in Maynard, MA and Gray, ME.

Here's some audio:

https://soundcloud.com/shortwavemusic/wgu-20-1973-final-mp3

The ID guy who starts off "Good Afternoon..." sounds like Dracula!

 

[CTListener]

Wasn't a system developed in the early 1970's (but never implemented) call "Perky" that would have used signals from longwave radio station WGU-20 (around 190 Kilohertz) to turn on TV's and radios to warn people of Emergency Broadcasting System activations??

"Perki" was the dog mascot. That was pretty much the idea. WGU-20 was the prototype, and there were to be several stations around the U.S., including proposed stations in Maynard, MA and Gray, ME.

Here's some audio:

https://soundcloud.com/shortwavemusic/wgu-20-1973-final-mp3

The ID guy who starts off "Good Afternoon..." sounds like Dracula!

WGU-20 was one of only three voice signals I could ever pick up on the North Shore as a teenager on my Zenith Transoceanic. The others were "LQ" in Lynn (382) and "TUK" on Nantucket (193), longwave weather beacons. The steady ID'ing of Morse Code beacons popped up on other frequencies.