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Natl. EAS Test: Feds To Temp Cut Off TV, Radio 2 pm Nov 9

Wow, Bob.

You really take this stuff seriously?

It's frightening to see the level of paranoia and fear on display in the comments (but then, it is Glenn Beck's website, so there's a certain level of self-selection in place here.)

There's been talk of doing a national test of the EAN code since at least the second Bush administration. There have been a couple of regional tests of the code (Alaska, then Nevada) this year. What happened then was exactly what will happen November 9: the EAN code was sent, the stations whose equipment was working correctly broadcast a short "this is a test" message, and normal programming returned within 3 minutes.

No "government takeover." Nothing about "Obummer and his scary Muslim friends" (to quote some of the less rabid of the commenters here - the more rabid ones would get this thread sent to TIO in a heartbeat). Just testing a system that's been in place, in one form or another, as far back as Conelrad in the 1960s. If I'm not mistaken, the announcement that's made on November 9 won't even use President Obama's name or voice, in part to alleviate concerns about whipping up paranoia among the Blaze crowd. (And how silly is it that anyone at the FCC actually had to waste time worrying about what the reaction would be to doing the test at 2 PM - a time chosen specifically to be during business hours and outside drive time in all US time zones - just because that also means the test will run during the top-hour news break in Rush Limbaugh?)

And despite another commenter's concerns that "they've known about this since June and have been keeping it hush-hush," it's been the lead story in almost every engineering trade journal (including The Radio Journal, which I edit) for months now.

But the great thing about paranoia and conspiracy theory is that you can't prove a negative. When 2:03 PM on November 9 rolls around and the test is over and everything goes back to normal - as it will - you can bet your tinfoil hat and fallout shelter that these same commenters will be explaining that it's just the way THEY wanted it...so that when the "REAL takeover" comes, it will be a surprise. ("Which is why you should call Goldline right now...")

(Oh my...and here I thought I'd read all the way to the bottom of the comments on Bob's link, only to find there's SIXTEEN MORE PAGES of breathless, ALL-CAPS paranoia to go. Yikes.)
 
Mr. Fybush, you have it right on and your comment about this matter is much more eloquent than mine (which was "who gives a **it except for broadcast technicians?").

Which brings to my mind something curious - do people actually tune *away* from a station when it is having any kind of EAS activity?
 
If you've ever heard the old clip of the guy from WOWO who had to go on the air and
vamp for nine minutes while they tried to figure out why Civil Defense had issued the
non-drill alert, this program would make some sense to you.
 
It's the typical fearmongering-for-dollars that everybody from Glenn Beck to Harold Camping have made steady and profitable careers out of.

First it was Clinton who was the big bad scary boogeyman to these paranoid nut jobs, now it's Obama. Two more Democrat presidents down the line and they will STILL keep trotting this conspiracy theory crap out, pretending like the rest of us can't already see a pattern. But the same brainwashed fools will still believe it. And the $$$ rolls in.......

The bottom line is nature more than anything will necessitate the need for a national EAS. We have (cue "O Fortuna") the Yellowstone supervolcano, the New Madrid fault, West Coast earthquakes. Or any weather anomaly (or byproduct of any of these.) And NOBODY knows when they can happen (and hopefully not simultaneously.) But nature is a cruel mistress.....

THAT will call for some kind of coordinated system faster than any imaginary conspiracy.....
 
I like Glenn Beck far more than I like our current president. That said, the national EAS test is a necessary thing and I am surprised that this is the first time that it's been done. In a real, genuine, emergency (i.e. NOT an Amber Alert), government agencies need to be able to rapidly get information out to the public. Yes, we test this all the time on a local level - but what if it were a national emergency? That's what this test is for.

Yeah, pithy comments about it being an Obama campaign speech are amusing. But they're also nonsense. I'd hope that such tests are conducted as often as necessary - no matter who lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
 
I was surprised to learn that this was the first true nationwide test, but I do recall seeing a test on WPMI-TV that was in effect for the entire United States in November or December 2001. Would it be possible for a statewide test to be "in effect" for the whole country?
 
Question:

I'm a DXer.....Can I tune my radios/TV's and hope to hear a station outside the USA (I'm close to the Bahamas & Cuba, and maybe other islands) during this time?

And, if so, how long will our radio/TV stations be off the air?

cd
 
No one will be truly off the air-they'll just be running the EAN from 2:00 to 2:03 or 2:04. Oddly, NOAA weather radios are incapable of running this test because an EAN requires a minimum of 2 minutes, which is longer than the weather radios can handle.
 
The Feds have announced that they are cutting the test to 30 seconds in duration, and they appear to
even be wavering on that a bit. Local law enforcement is expressing concern about "anxiety" amongst
the population.

If Orson Welles were alive today I guess he'd be doing a simulated EAS test?
 
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