EAS

[pclover]

I was not aware of this. Which states, and what is the specific requirement?

I know that locally, in the Palm Springs, CA, MSA most if not all stations have stopped running weather alert as they were incessantly "activated" by alerts for areas as far off as the Arizona border or the High Desert up to Barstow, all of which are irrelevant here and tended to both frighten people and then make them ignore valid alerts.

At least a reddit post claimed in Ohio you must relay Flash Flood and Tornado Warnings. I can't find the exact clause anywhere tho.

To solve the alerting for too wide of an area the National Weather Service came up with the idea of partial county alerting but i don't think it works for broadcast radio Partial County Alerting

Perhaps it could be adjusted for your projected coverage area.

It's not used in many places.

 

[davideduardo]

At least a reddit post claimed in Ohio you must relay Flash Flood and Tornado Warnings. I can't find the exact clause anywhere tho.

To solve the alerting for too wide of an area the National Weather Service came up with the idea of partial county alerting but i don't think it works for broadcast radio Partial County Alerting

Perhaps it could be adjusted for your projected coverage area.

It's not used in many places.

Interesting. I was not aware of either the Ohio regulation nor of the "partial county" alerting.

Our Riverside Country is nearly 5 times larger than the state of Rhode Island, so it runs from the eastern side of the LA metro to the AZ border... about a 3 hour freeway drive. It has at least four separate distinct climate zones. Alerts for one area are irrelevant for others which are far away.

 

[PTBoardOp93]

At least a reddit post claimed in Ohio you must relay Flash Flood and Tornado Warnings. I can't find the exact clause anywhere tho.

That Reddit post is mostly wrong.
Participating in the EAS weather & civil alerts remains optional in Ohio. However, if a station chooses to participate, they must relay a minimum set of 20 warning codes under the Ohio Association of Broadcasters EAS plan. Five of the 20 are the ones the FCC requires for testing (3) and presidential alerts (2). Four are weather/environment related (flash flood, tornado, earthquake, wildfire), and the rest are issued by civil authorities.

Source: Ohio Association of Broadcasters EAS plan, 2020 revision, pp. 4-9

To solve the alerting for too wide of an area the National Weather Service came up with the idea of partial county alerting but i don't think it works for broadcast radio Partial County Alerting

Correct. The EAS predates partial county alerting. EAS messages encode SAME codes, which are county level codes.

Implementing partial county alerts in EAS is basically impossible for several reasons:

1. The install base of weather alert radios wouldn't support it. I'm thinking of those in private homes and offices, which would be made obsolete.
2. Weather radios do not know their precise location, so determining whether to alarm or not is a challenge. With county-based alerts, it's intuitive to Uncle Ed to select his state (Kentucky) and county (McCracken) once and be done.
3. The data rate of the EAS headers is quite low (520 bits per second), so encoding an arbitrary polygon with the appropriate redundancy is a technical challenge. This is a side effect of Shannon's Laws.
4. Broadcasters generally cover larger areas than 1 county, so even if the alert doesn't cover their core city, they'll usually choose to transmit it anyway.

That's really horribly policy. It appears some states have laws that force this.

I'm not sure I can agree that it is bad policy. For example, most TV stations do not air EAS alerts verbatim. But they do usually relay the information in another way. And all radio stations I worked for relay some weather alerts via EAS.

 

[fybush]

The OAB can certainly *recommend* what broadcasters do or do not relay, but neither the OAB nor the state of Ohio have any regulatory control over what broadcasters actually must relay.

That's entirely a federally regulated matter. Broadcasters are licensed only by the FCC, not the states.

 

[Cold Coffee]

Today my area will have severe weather. Tornados are likely. Let's hope they didn't fire the guy who would set off the EAS. We will be monitoring the TV weather people just in case. I am also a ham and we will send out spotters.

 

[vchimpanzee]

I was in McDowell County when I went to the mountains several years ago. I was still on WMNC in Burke County but I got an EAS about a severe thunderstorm with large hail in McDowell County. I had seen the dark clouds but minutes later hail was falling and I had to get off the highway. It wasn't large hail, but driving was difficult.

 

[DOGDOG]

The EAS system has devolved into a mess. There are alerts for just about everything like police action in a certain area that you you should avoid, avalanche warnings, lost dog alerts (just kidding on that one.) Here in Florida the state plan lists primary stations that have been gone for several years. I have tried to call and email the Florida Association of Broadcasters who handles the EAS plan for the state numerous times with no response.

One station that I know of delays alerts until they are in a spot break. Not real helpful if a tornado warning comes in at the beginning of a 20 minute music sweep. I mean, lordy, we don't want to tell people they should take cover in the middle of Hootie and the Blowfish.

Remember, a giraffe is a horse designed by a committee.

Absolutely correct! Unfortunately the current generation has no understanding of what a REAL EMERGENCY is and if in some cases one of those people has respinsibility for an EAS alert, you cN be guaranteed it is goi g to be misused and what was an excellent concept and actually was used properly for years will turn to garbage.

 

[Don CT]

Around here the system is really only used for Amber alerts.

 

[bobdavcav]

I've only heard Amber Alerts, weather alerts, and the occasional flood warning.

 

[Will_H_69_9]

in the Dallas area, we have the EAS activated by 2 Cumulus owned stations, 820 AM (as also simulcasted on 93.3 FM/HD1 & KPLX 99.5 HD2) WBAP & 96.3 FM/HD1 KSCS. KSCS often relays all alerts from the EAS that was originally done live on WBAP, when ever it's a weather alert, most of the time, Brad Barton the chief metrologist of WBAP does the EAS alert related to weather complete with full details of where the storms will hit, and for the Amber Alert ones, they often do it live with a reporter from WBAP reading the alert, and they have a special Siren sound that they use after the EAS attention tones to get people's attention,

This is said Amber Alert Siren sound WBAP uses for Amber Alerts:

here's a example of a WBAP Amber Alert EAS:

and here's a example of a WBAP severe weather EAS:

 

[dumber than a box of hair]

The bottom line in all this is: It's up to each state to determine how EAS is used for state and local tests and alerts. State EAS plans which have been approved by the FCC are binding on stations within the state (see 47 CFR §11.21), and detail station monitoring assignments, procedures for emergency officials, EAS state and local originating stations, and transmission and relay of the Required Monthly Test (RMT). This is why you've seen widely varying participation in EAS at the state and local level. Every state's plan is different.

As Scott Fybush has noted, states and local entities have no jurisdiction over the general federal-level requirements, which include immediate transmission of the National Emergency Message (EAN), immediate relay of the National Periodic Test (NPT), relay within 60 minutes of the Required Monthly Test (RMT), and logged reception of EAS activity from at least two stations per each state's approved EAS plan. It is, however, up to the individual stations which EAS codes (other than those in the proceeding paragraph) will trigger an automatic interruption of programming for state and local emergencies (see 47 CFR §11.52(d)(4)).