Idiot national radio host broadcasts EAS tones

[Weeters 1811]

Apparently, nobody working at "The Bobby Bones Show" has ever been told how the Emergency Alert System works, because last Friday, they caused a minor national panic after rebroadcasting portions of the 2011 National EAS Test, which activated a bunch of improperly set-up EAS decoders at some stations monitoring his affiliates and AT&T Uverse in a couple markets.

 

http://radioinsight.com/blog/headlines/90673/bobby-bones-show-triggers-eas-panic/

 

More proof that the Emergency Alert System is an antiquated piece of 20th-century "technology" that is due for replacement...

[Rusty Muck 4168]

It's also a cheap and stupid promotional stunt for Bobby Bones, whose show on WSIX has been eclipsed by both WKDF and WSM-FM. iHeart will eat whatever maximum fine is levied and no one will be reprimanded.

 

If Bobby wanted to actually be funny, he should have played this piece of audio obsolescence:

[yt]6YRHAro1iTE[/yt]

[cbs2newengland 71]

 

Apparently, nobody working at "The Bobby Bones Show" has ever been told how the Emergency Alert System works, because last Friday, they caused a minor national panic after rebroadcasting portions of the 2011 National EAS Test, which activated a bunch of improperly set-up EAS decoders at some stations monitoring his affiliates and AT&T Uverse in a couple markets.

 

http://radioinsight.com/blog/headlines/90673/bobby-bones-show-triggers-eas-panic/

 

More proof that the Emergency Alert System is an antiquated piece of 20th-century "technology" that is due for replacement...

 

this is news to me. I thought EAS used digital signaling and DTMF tones and primary EAS stations (or public safety officials) to send some tone + digital codes to the secondary stations. I must have been wrong/mislead/lived in a fantasy world.

 

I think the secondary stations and AT&T shouldn't be fined, they were fooled.

 

 

It's also a cheap and stupid promotional stunt for Bobby Bones, whose show on WSIX has been eclipsed by both WKDF and WSM-FM. iHeart will eat whatever maximum fine is levied and no one will be reprimanded.

 

If Bobby wanted to actually be funny, he should have played this piece of audio obsolescence:

[yt]6YRHAro1iTE[/yt]

 

while the jingle worked in the way for people to remember the use of EBS, this simply degraded the authority of the EBS and listeners could possibly not take it seriously. The FCC did the right thing by requiring stations to just do a simple VO or risked being fined by the end of the 70s.

[LoadStar 363]

 

this is news to me. I thought EAS used digital signaling and DTMF tones and primary EAS stations (or public safety officials) to send some tone + digital codes to the secondary stations. I must have been wrong/mislead/lived in a fantasy world.

 

I think the secondary stations and AT&T shouldn't be fined, they were fooled.

 

The header for the EAS alert uses SAME (Specific Area Message Encoding) codes, the same thing that weather radios use. It isn't DTMF, it is "audio frequency-shift keying" (AFSK).

 

The problem was a compound one; The first problem was that the host of this show played a recording of the EAS header, which by default netted him an FCC fine.

 

As I understand: normally, playing the recording of the header wouldn't do much, because the header should have had an expired time stamp, and the EAS equipment should have picked up that it was expired and ignored it. The second problem was that the equipment at the affiliates wasn't properly configured, and proceeded to relay the message as if it were a live, unexpired message. This is probably the reason the affiliates got fined as well, for having misconfigured EAS ENDEC equipment, leading to them relaying the message out live.

[mre29 1340]

Who the heck is Bobby Bones?

[rkolsen 1679]

I think the system is designed well so that if one station goes down another one in area should pick it up and it continues down the daisy chain. I would like to see if they could transition to a non audible type of message in the beginning so that the stations can choose what is broadcast audibly (like presidential messages and severe weather). I know PBS has a project called WARN which uses a signal encoded in the PBS satellite transmission chain to broadcast ALL EAS messages (Presidential, Severe Weather, Amber Alerts and State Messages) to each and every PBS affiliate who then in turn transmit all the messages as a data cast in their DTV feed. Those messages which are transmitted by the PBS affiliate are encoded with a location which then is picked up cell phone towers which will send the alert to your phone.

 

But as I mentioned in the shout box is I wonder how much of a ratings boost WXIA got since AT&T force tuned to the station for viewers in several states.

[Rusty Muck 4168]

Who the heck is Bobby Bones?

He is a former Top 40 jock from Austin, Texas. A newcomer to country music, he was installed as morning host at "The Big 98" WSIX-FM last year. WSIX-FM is the primary FM station in Nashville for the EAS.

 

iHeart has been plopping his show on many of their country stations as a cost-cutting measure, but five or so non-iHeart-owned stations carry the show, too.

 

Bobby also hosts a weekend show on Fox Sports Radio.

[Rusty Muck 4168]

And here's Scott Fybush's take on the whole EAS mess.

[cbs2newengland 71]

I'm still a little lost.

 

So is it illegal to air the EAS tone? Even if lets say a station uses it in a story like a faked out EAS alert? Even if they use a piece of the tone?

 

I thought with EAS, the system was designed to be fully automated, have digital encoding and stuff like that, am I wrong on the latter?

 

I'm actually surprised about this flaw, and will have to research this some more.

 

 

I think the system is designed well so that if one station goes down another one in area should pick it up and it continues down the daisy chain. I would like to see if they could transition to a non audible type of message in the beginning so that the stations can choose what is broadcast audibly (like presidential messages and severe weather). I know PBS has a project called WARN which uses a signal encoded in the PBS satellite transmission chain to broadcast ALL EAS messages (Presidential, Severe Weather, Amber Alerts and State Messages) to each and every PBS affiliate who then in turn transmit all the messages as a data cast in their DTV feed. Those messages which are transmitted by the PBS affiliate are encoded with a location which then is picked up cell phone towers which will send the alert to your phone.

 

But as I mentioned in the shout box is I wonder how much of a ratings boost WXIA got since AT&T force tuned to the station for viewers in several states.

 

What's interesting is PBS designing something that isn't in their traditional scope. As you probably know, PBS is a programming service and those "affiliates" are really just stations paying dues to an operation mostly of hard drives. Well not exactly, but you get my point.

[rkolsen 1679]

I'm still a little lost.

 

So is it illegal to air the EAS tone? Even if lets say a station uses it in a story like a faked out EAS alert? Even if they use a piece of the tone?

 

I thought with EAS, the system was designed to be fully automated, have digital encoding and stuff like that, am I wrong on the latter?

 

I'm actually surprised about this flaw, and will have to research this some more.

 

 

 

What's interesting is PBS designing something that isn't in their traditional scope. As you probably know, PBS is a programming service and those "affiliates" are really just stations paying dues to an operation mostly of hard drives. Well not exactly, but you get my point.

Yes it is illegal to air any party of an EAS tone or anything that sounds remotely similar. They article mentioned $1.9 million in fines were levied against multiple cable networks for airing a simulated tone.

 

As for PBS WARN was a provision by the SAFE act which required the FCC to create a back up of the EAS system using non commercial stations. I believe it cost almost $57 million dollars to set up. I believe the reason why they choose non commercial stations and PBS is because PBS has 375 member stations which probably cover most of the country included the most sparsely populated areas (which commercial stations often ignore). The system only uses about 5Kb of the stations 19.5Mbps bandwidth and the messages reach the cell phone users within 10 minutes.

[10Viewer 319]

Bones has meddled with the primal forces of nature. He must atone. (cue scene from Network).

 

You don't mess with the EAS.

[qunewsguy 376]

Last year the Ad Council put out some PSA's that introduced the WARN system and actually featured the EAS tone in them. The e-mails going out said they had to get special FCC permission to include it and the audio was slightly tone-shifted to avoid any inadvertent triggers.

[cbs2newengland 71]

 

Yes it is illegal to air any party of an EAS tone or anything that sounds remotely similar. They article mentioned $1.9 million in fines were levied against multiple cable networks for airing a simulated tone.

 

As for PBS WARN was a provision by the SAFE act which required the FCC to create a back up of the EAS system using non commercial stations. I believe it cost almost $57 million dollars to set up. I believe the reason why they choose non commercial stations and PBS is because PBS has 375 member stations which probably cover most of the country included the most sparsely populated areas (which commercial stations often ignore). The system only uses about 5Kb of the stations 19.5Mbps bandwidth and the messages reach the cell phone users within 10 minutes.

 

I think being too digital might be a bad thing if a solar flare or something even bigger could KO the communications network. Was talking to someone about the EAS flaw, and maybe the flaw is intentional if something bigger really happened and playing an EAS audio clip could be the worst case use. Maybe this was designed that way. In technology, you have to think of the "you never know" methodology.

 

 

 

Bones has meddled with the primal forces of nature. He must atone. (cue scene from Network).

 

You don't mess with the EAS.

 

Great words to live by.