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WHO REMEMBERS THIS: THE WEEKLY E.B.S. TEST

WLYNgm said:
The "evacuation plan" for metro Boston was something like - everybody get in a car all at once,and get on Rte. 2.

...and when your car (and everyone else's) stalls for good after the first nuclear bomb detonates, place your head between your legs and kiss your butt goodbye.
 
My elementary school in Peabody had a fallout shelter room with barrels of drinking water, chemical toilets, a Geiger counter and the infamous government crackers.
No cots, though. I remember getting yelled when I was caught exploring in there. I've worked in radio stations that were issued radiation detectors in (I think) the 50's.
Found one still in its unopened box once.
And...did anyone else peek in those pink envelopes? Of course, I never did. ;)


WLYNgm said:
and in the high school gym basement they had
20 or 30 moldy cots, and some tins of crackers that had been
there since the Eisenhower administration... Gotta watch out
for those godless, Soviet commies! ;D
 
That EBS test was a RIOT! WGNG Pawtucket used a version of the test similar to this in their Top 40 days.
 
Not EBS these days but EAS, Emergency Alert system, and tonight I heard a "co-ordinated
weekly test" of the EAS on WODS. A few minutes later it ran on WBOQ
 
WEEKLY E.B.S. TEST Transmitter On/Off part of the alert signal

Unfortunately I think I don't remember forgetting all the stuff I used to know :)

I do recollect turning the transmitter carrier off and on for the E.B.S. test as some sort of alert signal to the receiving stations. Something like a "dead air" alarm for the receiving stations. That loss of carrier would turn ON the E.B.S. receiver speaker at the monitoring station. Then they would hear that wonderful TONE and pay attention to the message.

IIFC stations that signed off every Sunday night/early Monday morning for equipment tests would wind up turning on the receivers in all the stations that were assigned to listen to that particular station. On AM the static and DX and other howling would freak out new employees on that shift.

As technology progressed the need for the carrier dump as a triggering mechanism was replaced by devices which decoded the test tone after several seconds and turn on the E.B.S. receiver speaker.

does that sound familiar to anyone?
 
I may be wrong, but I recall the conelrad 640/1240 on/off scheme was the originator of the carrier dump test.
Somehow a "timed" deployment of 640/1240 was to be used to distact incoming Soviet missiles.
Rotating who was "on air" was a deadly game of hoping to outwit the homing devices, that would ideally put the
devices far from major population centers.
 
How many of you recall the EBS false alarm that occurred in 1971 that actually caused an Emergency Notification to happen. This was on a Saturday morning, when kids were home to watch cartoons and radio was "playing the hits". Case in point, good 'ol 1190/WOWO in Fort Wayne, Indiana did what it was supposed to do when receiving such message from the President. What happens here would scare the bejeezus out of anyone, even the WO-WO News Team! Listen (if you dare!).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikL2T743w6c

Not exactly your typical "WO-WO Weekend" (miss that station).
 
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