EAS Test today

[Chip Fetrow]

Now you are catching on!

The problem is getting the audio from the President to all of the NWS  
offices so they can feed the transmitters.  Of course that problem  
exists for the Primary Entry Point (PEP) stations.  The method used is  
so 1980, a telephone conference bridge!  It appears the main reason  
for the biggest failure of the test was misconfiguration of the  
bridge.  This bridge has been described as a bunch of telephone line  
couplers.  I've never worked for a PEP station, but I wonder how they  
take control, and how they prevent people dialing wrong numbers, or  
even predictive dialers, from getting into the system.

Back in the days of CONELRAD, we used AT&T Long Lines.  One was a  
conditioned Broadcast Loop of at least 100 Hz to 5 kHz frequency  
response, flat to +/- 1 dB and less than 1% distortion.  Another loop,  
a control pair to turn the transmitters on and off.  Under CONELRAD,  
Control of Electromagnetic Radiation, all TV and FM stations would  
leave the air and some AM stations would stay on.  The stations in the  
bottom half of the band retuned the transmitter to 640 kHz and the  
stations in the top half retuned transmitters to 1240 kHz.  Audio was  
fed to all of them, but in one area, only one transmitter was on at a  
time.  Because of changing signal strengths and audio processing when  
switching between stations it made listening interesting.  I have a  
recording around here of a test.  The purpose of changing the  
frequencies and transmitter locations was so Soviet bombers couldn't  
use our transmitters as navigation beacons.  ICBMs made CONELRAD  
pointless -- but it worked, and sounded fairly good, unlike  
Wednesday's test, which sounded bad in DC, but couldn't even be  
understood in the midwest, and had no audio at all in the west (in  
general terms).

So, today, when we could easily connect to not only the PEP stations,  
but to EVERY broadcast station using a VSAT dish, we don't.  Now, I  
don't want that to be the ONLY way the stations get information, but  
it should be ONE way.  The second way, which really won't fully work,  
would be some sort of robust connection to the PEP stations, like T-1s  
since conditioned broadcast loops are so difficult to have provisioned  
today.

We have something coming, CAP, or Common Alerting Protocol, which will  
allow the President and authorized officials to communicate with the  
public in times of emergency via AM/FM/TV, plus telephone, e-mail,  
text messages and anything else they can think of and find the money  
to fund.  This is part of the Integrated Public Alert and Warning  
System (IPAWS) project.  Sadly, the basic way this is going to be  
rolled out is over the public Internet, so in a real emergency it  
isn't going to work like a test, or work at all.  There are companies  
marketing IP over satellite directly to broadcast stations and are  
telling them that it will solve all their problems.  No, it only  
solves one problem, and that is that the majority of transmitter sites  
don't have decent internet connectivity.  It might as well be Wild  
Blue as the FIRST MILE is over the public Internet.

One could suggest that a T-1 can be ordered up to pretty much  
anywhere, but the stations don't want to pay for it.  Many stations do  
have T-1s between their studio and transmitter, but that is frequently  
done on RF links, like Motorola Canopy, which has very little excess  
capacity after the audio is carried, or whatever the (typically) one- 
way Mosley product which isn't even 1.544 Mbps.  Of course, the  
station could put in a second RF link, but no one wants to spend money  
on it.  It may work when tested, so why pay to make it work in an  
actual emergency?

Then, more of the country and the public is covered by AM radio than  
FM, and TV (well, I will reserve my rant on DTV for some other time).   
AM stations are not healthy.  For one thing, the noise floor is so  
much higher today.  People are moving to FM only.  Many markets have  
very little English on AM, or it is English directed at Americans by  
foreign governments, like the former WAGE, now WCRW in Leesburg, VA.   
Even WMAL has begun simulcasting on FM in the DC market.  I was  
indirectly responsible for two AM stations -- neither threw off a  
profit of over $1000 a year.  The high performer was right around $800  
for two years, and I bought them a $4800 remote control, though it ran  
the FM too.

With low profits in medium and smaller markets, these stations cannot  
afford to set up another link in order to bring in IPAWS.


However, one state is doing it right, Washington.  The state police  
gave up a radio channel for EAS.  Washington has several round robin  
microwave systems for their Public Safety radio systems, mostly on  
high-band.  Emergency Managers have access to that network and may  
direct EAS Alerts via it, using completely packaged tests or alerts,  
including S.A.M.E. data.  This even gives them the ability, via the  
FIPS Codes to alert specific areas in the state.

Washington also uses the typical Daisy Chain system used everywhere  
else, but do it well.  I even got permission to monitor one of my FOUR  
monitoring assignments via Dish Network.  The really cool thing about  
that was not only could I pick up the TV station on the other side of  
a big mountain, Dish had a broadcast only package that was $5/month.   
The other assignments were a radio station (normal), NOAA Weather  
Radio (many do), and the Washington radio channel (very rare).

Virginia is supposed to do something with their new 700 MHz Public  
Safety radio system that will allow Emergency Managers in Richmond to  
alert the entire Commonwealth.  Well, they cannot get the system to  
work right, it is millions of Dollars over budget and the law suits  
are flying.


Allow me to present some possible emergencies and the downside of  
using one technology:

Imagine a solar storm that takes out communications satellites.  If  
the system is satellite based, we have no system.

Imagine a HEMP event over the US.  Once again, no more satellite  
communications, but most radio stations will be off the air, but not  
all.

If it is only Internet based, another 9/11 type event could take down  
some of the system.  Yes, I know the Internet is fairly robust and  
self-healing.


There are EAS receivers with SAME capability available, but they cost  
MUCH more than the old receivers with the dual-tone decoder.  Don't  
buy a dual-tone only unit as it will drive you nuts.

http://www.tftinc.com/products/datasheets/eas911i.pdf

http://www.sjgov.org/oes/EASvendors.htm

The bottom line is, we are on our own.

--chip


On Nov 12, 2011, at 1:46 AM, tacos-request at amrad.org wrote:

> Message: 4
> Date: Fri, 11 Nov 2011 22:40:36 -0500
> From: wb5mmb <wb5mmb at pobox.com>
> To: Chip Fetrow <tacos at fetrow.org>,tacos at amrad.org
> Subject: Re: EAS Test today
>
> So the one system that already exist that would alert you while you
> were asleep with the TV and radio off is not part of the plan. OK I
> am sure the bureaucrats can come up with a good reason for that.
>       Sandy
>     WB5MMB
>
> At 10:29 PM 11/11/2011, Chip Fetrow wrote:
>> NOAA Weather Radio was never part of the plan for the EAN (Emergency
>> Action Notification).  I believe there is a NOAA transmitter in  
>> Nevada
>> which does relay EANs though.  My guess is that it is one of the
>> privately owned transmitters.
>>
>> Once upon a time, NOAA was the method the government would alert the
>> public of a nuclear attack, but that was dropped several decades ago.
>>
>> --chip