Reminder: National EAS Today - Sep 28 @ 2:20pm EDT

[Eat News 4738]

This test was indeed conducted differently. The 2011 test was coded to send as a full-blown Emergency Action Notification, which is what the real deal would use (the term goes back to the old days of the EBS in the 60's). This year's test was coded as a National Periodic Test, which is treated a bit differently. Both tests were fed into the Primary Entry Point network of radio stations (which also goes back to the 60's - mostly clear channel stations originally, now there are many others too), which started the daisy chain relay of rebroadcasting down to each individual station and cable system.

 

Some of the problems from the 2011 test were due to a misinterpretation of FCC regulations that led to some manufacturers designing their equipment to not rebroadcast EANs shorter than 75 seconds. Others were due to a malfunction at the national level that created audio feedback in the message. This test was mostly meant to check if those and other issues were remedied. It was absolutely not optional in any way, shape or form, though in some areas only the PEP actually aired the test.

 

A full report on the results is planned to be released in 2017 or 2018 after the FCC and FEMA inspect and evaluate each PEP station.

 

The Wikipedia entry on the EAS is very informative on how things work.

 

So has FEMA or the FCC decided that stations running delays are OK in this "daisy chain">

I assume KFI was a CPSC-1 station, but when you run a 55 second delay does that matter down the line...add another 7 seconds for the next station...and so on....

[LoadStar 363]

So has FEMA or the FCC decided that stations running delays are OK in this "daisy chain">

I assume KFI was a CPSC-1 station, but when you run a 55 second delay does that matter down the line...add another 7 seconds for the next station...and so on....

For the purposes of a test, yes, the delay doesn't affect anything. It still proves their EAS equipment received the alert and was able to re-transmit it with the correct data header and message.

 

EAS equipment is configured to monitor at minimum two radio stations in the area, and optionally several others, including NOAA weather radio. In addition, for the last few years, the equipment is also connected to the Internet and receive alerts that way via CAP (Common Alert Protocol.) In the event one station may delay relaying their alert, the stations downline will receive the alert from one of the other sources.

 

The equipment also is configured such that if the relay is not initiated before the timeout, it can proactively relay the message itself. This is configurable depending on the type of message on the EAS equipment.

[news89 467]

Here is video of both WJW and WEWS national EAS Test. WJW by far was ready had crawl going during the EAS test. WEWS had the crawl briefly and station audio wasn't muted like a normal test.

 

[Viper550 268]

So apparently WKTV had this happen the same day. Staff called it a technical fault, but there were conspiracy theories because the New Jersey train crash happened the next day.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dui0RN8iWGs

 

Th

[LoadStar 363]

So apparently WKTV had this happen the same day. Staff called it a technical fault, but there were conspiracy theories because the New Jersey train crash happened the next day.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dui0RN8iWGs

Do we know this really happened? This person seems to be using this video to push people to visit his facebook page full of election wingnuttery, as best as I can see. I didn't see anything there about this video, but I'll admit I didn't dig too far down. It would be rather easy to fake this sort of thing, and use it as excellent link bait.

[Viper550 268]

Actually I've seen multiple videos of it, and given that WKTV actually commented on it, it's confirmation that it did happen (Snopes marked it as true too).