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National EAS test

B

Bengalsfan

You have got to be kidding me.

"The Commission requires periodic tests of EAS on the state and local level, and now it’s asking for comments on doing a national test, every year."

The feds living 20 years behind the times. The EAS was not activated for 9/11 and about the only time it gets activated here in Northern Kentucky is for weather events. I do not understand why the FCC is holding onto this already antiquated system.

Thoughts?
 
I don't see the point of a national test. If the EAS had been activated on 9/11 I honestly don't know what we, the citizenry would have been instructed to do. Report to the nearest fallout shelter?
 
The Commission also proposes that every station in the country to report the success or failure of the EAN test within 30 days after it is sent.

After the KWVE fine (later reduced to a "reprimand"), the handwriting is on the wall. No longer makes any sense for any station owner to allow his station to be either a PEP or relay, the risk is too great. Imagine what would happen if the state PEP has a studio power outage just as this national EAN test rolls out--with this Commission they might as well send the license in the next day.

Once the "voluntary" EAS system collapses, maybe the bureaucrats will get the message.

(KWVE is a non-com, but serves as a state relay because it is near a nuclear plant. Confused board op accidentally sent an RMt instead of a RWT, then did not send an EOM. Commission fined the station $5K; after every state EAS chair complained they canceled the fine, but still sent a reprimand to the station. See cached story here:

http://www.thebdr.net/articles/fcc/rules/KWVE.html )
 
After the KWVE fiasco, I would have immediatly pulled out of the EAS system. There is no way I would remained exposed like that just for messing up a test. That's the reason we have tests!

I don't understand why they are coming up with this 13 years after the EAS system was enacted. Did someone at the FCC think this is a way to raise revenue by fining those who mess up the test?

Rob, as I understand it, the wire service test under the old EBS system wasn't a national test per se. It was just those outlets testing their system.

Bottom line, like I said, the EAS system was antiquated almost as it was being rolled out. Even more so now. Even the former FCC chair, Michael Powell said that the EAS system was "scooped" by the news outlets during 9/11. Other than weather emergencies, it's next to worthless. Yet the FCC has put it and the insipid public file as their top mandates.
 
So we do a national test. Then we file the reports to the FCC that we didn't receive it because the LP station is too far away and has interference or the audio was unintelligible or you name it. Then we get a big fine every year for not being in compliance of a system that has never worked reliably and never will.
 
ncradioeng said:
So we do a national test. Then we file the reports to the FCC that we didn't receive it because the LP station is too far away and has interference or the audio was unintelligible or you name it.
Click to expand...
Or the LP1 station is being trashed by IBOC hiss from an adjacent station.
 
This is a Notice Of Proposed Rule Making and 30-day request for replies.

Regarding the 9-11 mis-information; the normal commercial news channels were operational during this period and there was no need or justification for National activation. There exist specific conditions for National activation in Part 11.

Like it or not, the current on-air EAS platform is all that is available or will be for some time to come. The current endeavor is an attempt to finally make it as reliable as possible. The only way to find out if it works is to test it end-to-end and due to the vastly different ENDEC implementations and individual interpretation of FCC Part 11, not all encoders and decoders were created equal. 

In the development of the current EAS there was NO group test of the individual manufacturers equipment, NONE.  In many of these systems, it is possible to inadvertently exclude the EAN or filter it out so that the EAN does not pass through where the RWT or RMT’s do pass. Not a good situation and that has to be corrected before anything else.

Look for EAN “HOT CODE” National testing as much as quarterly and as little as yearly.

Regardless of what you hear, over-the-air radio broadcasting is still by far the most robust form of communicating with the masses before, during and after a crisis, not to diminish alternative methods of alert distribution.

There has NEVER been a National test of the system......
 
Well, after some years of trying, the RMTs seem to get passed along fairly well. Somehow though, I think the first few National tests will be on the order of what we used to call a 'Chinese fire drill' (Mostly because the full term cluster...... isn't allowed here).
I look for some problems at the outset, most based on the caveats Walt sets forth.
 
Watt Hairston said:
This is a Notice Of Proposed Rule Making and 30-day request for replies.

Regarding the 9-11 mis-information; the normal commercial news channels were operational during this period and there was no need or justification for National activation. There exist specific conditions for National activation in Part 11.
Click to expand...

Participating stations are only required to pass RMT and EAN. If normal communications channels make the EAS system unneeded, then the EAS system as a whole is unneeded as it's currently set up. I get text weather alerts to my cell phone faster than the EAS system can react here.



Like it or not, the current on-air EAS platform is all that is available or will be for some time to come. The current endeavor is an attempt to finally make it as reliable as possible. The only way to find out if it works is to test it end-to-end and due to the vastly different ENDEC implementations and individual interpretation of FCC Part 11, not all encoders and decoders were created equal.
Click to expand...

Then why have we not been doing this all along?


In the development of the current EAS there was NO group test of the individual manufacturers equipment, NONE. In many of these systems, it is possible to inadvertently exclude the EAN or filter it out so that the EAN does not pass through where the RWT or RMT’s do pass. Not a good situation and that has to be corrected before anything else.
Click to expand...

Not in the EAS boxes I have set up in the past. Which ones will 'inadvertently' allow you to exclude the EAN?


Regardless of what you hear, over-the-air radio broadcasting is still by far the most robust form of communicating with the masses before, during and after a crisis, not to diminish alternative methods of alert distribution.
Click to expand...

True. It's just too bad nobody is listening anymore.
 
In part, the current EAS system also provides a “network of last resort”. There is nothing wrong with receiving warnings and alerts via other varied means, cell phones included and these are excellent means of distributing WARNINGS. You must realize though, these as-well-as other IP based devices, are very fragile and subject to MANY single points of failure, not good in a post event worst-case scenario world. Any system has to build from that platform.

Why the system has not been tested up until now? There exist a million and one “excuses” but there is not one good reason as to why it shouldn’t be tested now.

In some systems you do indeed have the ability to build a filter that excludes the EAN, others not. I can’t name names but do a little research. The first CONUS "exercise" will reveal this and other issues accurately described by “Little John”.

Where listenership is indeed down, it does not track the revenue curve that is really causing the pain. The ability to listen to radio is still there in LARGE dominanting numbers. Reference the NE blackouts and costal hurricanes.

Best,
w/
 
Plenty of people are still listening. We had a giant windstorm in Sept 08. Power out up to a week, cell service sporadic, roads closed. Everybody was listening
 
If what I read was true, the annual national test will replace the RMT's. If that happens, the paperwork tiger called EAS just got more manageable. The downside is if a given point in the daisy chain fails, it will be 12 months before you find out if your corrective actions were successful.
 
It just replaces the RMT in the month the national test is done. But, with two months notice, how do you know which month you don't have to run that RMT? If you have already run the RMT for the month that the EAN happens to be issued, are you still required to run the EAN since you don't have to run two relayed tests in a single month? It seems we need to know which month the EAN is scheduled so the state issued RMTs can plan not to run one that month. The paperwork is only going to go up.
 
Run the box in automatic. Then it will forward whichever shows up, RMT or NAT. If you use an automation system (who doesn't) put a logic card in the workstation(s) and let it give a closure whenever a stopset is running, which closure you can use to activate the holdoff in the EAS box. This will preclude stepping on a paid segment. Wanna really be fancy, let the EAS box stop the automation at the end of the stopset and trigger the forward, then let the end of the forward restart the automation. Then you don't step on anything. We let them run over music elemsnts cos no one has yet had the time to sort out the commands to do the whole schmear. Now alls you got to do is teach the jock/boardop/gerbil to clip the EAS tape to the log, and note in the proper line whether the tape says "RMT' or 'NAT'.
I believe our Sage boxes won't let you skip forwarding a NAT. I don't remember on the TFT, it's been several years since we had them where I was. Never messed with the Holly - Anne.
It's goinna be interesting, anyway.
 
This topic reminded me to look at the EAS handbook for Indiana.

There's several flaws in the EAS plan. For example:

My region is served by "state relay" WWBL-FM. They are supposed to monitor WBZ 650 Nashville (Yes, Watt, if you read this, that's what it actually says!) and WZZQ-FM. WZZQ has been dark for the best part of a decade, and "WBZ" is not often received during the day (as far as I can tell).

And there's 2 or 3 areas of the state that don't have a station serving as an LP-1.
 
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