The FAILED EAS EAN Test Tuesday

[Chip Fetrow]

We have had a system that was supposed to notify the public in the  
event of a national emergency since 1950.  There have been three  
different systems, the first was CONELRAD, which was COOL.

CONELRAD was replaced by the Emergency Broadcast System, which was  
followed by the Emergency Alert System, which is what we have today.

Tuesday at 2 PM Eastern, the system was tested for the first time  
ever.  It was what is called a "Live Test" in that it actually used  
the REAL header information of a real test -- thus no equipment knew  
it was a test.

Well, broadcasters had over six months prior notice of the test.  All  
kinds of patching was done, including some really heroic efforts by  
National People's Radio (NPR) to make sure the test got through to  
everyone.  NPR has a "Squawk Channel" which they use to notify  
stations of -- well, anything.  For example, they used it to let  
stations know about 9/11 coverages and changes to their operations to  
cover the news.  NPR made their Squawk Channel available to every  
broadcaster for the EAS EAN Test.  Now, imagine that.  We were  
patching MASSIVE HOLES in the system for just one test by using this.

Even with over six months of preparation and National People's Radio  
offering up a satellite channel to make it work, if failed.

Many broadcasters are calling it a disaster, but it really wasn't.   
Yes, it didn't work, but isn't that the point of a test?  We now know  
the system is very sick and needs attention.

I hope everyone has NOAA Weather Radios because that is really the  
only way the public is going to be notified of anything.

Funny thing is, I was watching it in DC and it kind of worked.  Yes,  
of course I didn't hear the first of the three SAME data bursts, but I  
heard the next two.  Comcast did not buffer the audio message as they  
should have so the beginning of the announcement was missing.  It also  
ended early.  DC radio stations seemed to all get it.  Heck, it  
started in DC.  However, it didn't work anywhere else.  Many stations  
got just dead air to re-transmit.  Imagine how that sounded three  
stations or more down the chain!  HUMM and NOISE.

I have yet to figure out the reason, but it turned out that stations  
monitoring each other didn't have their EAS equipment stop repeating  
stations which monitored them, so we got "feedback."

http://seven.pairlist.net/pipermail/sbe-eas/attachments/20111109/cbb81ced/attachment.mp3

Of course the whole thing is a joke because other than NOAA Weather  
Radio, no consumer has a device that will actually alert them off of  
broadcast radio and TV.  If the TV is ON, it is fine, but if the TV/ 
radio is off, no one will ever be alerted.

It is REALLY sad, especially because RDS, Radio Data System, can  
easily alert us, and will even turn on radios which are turned "off."

However, CONELRAD was very cool.  FM and TV went off the air, and AM  
stations in the program retuned to 640 or 1240 kHz, then switched on  
and off to provide a continuous audio stream from different  
transmitters.  It was tested a few times and while the audio quality  
from the different transmitters was ODD, it was easy to listen to, and  
actually worked.  Of course, some transmitters were unhappy working  
well off frequency.  Even recently, many transmitters had two crystal  
sockets and a switch but both sockets had the station's actual  
frequency crystal in the socket.  Of course, many new transmitters are  
PLL.

Hey, I feel really safe.

--chip