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Posted by on April 18, 2008, 8:48 am
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detail. Right now, under federal law, the only EAS alerts any
broadcaster/CATV operator is required to carry are federal
(Presidential or National Information Center). These are the ones
that are sent by FEMA to the 34 or so primary entry points, NPR and XM
radio. Every TV station must carry them or shut down. So it does
very little harm for the CATV not to interupt the TV Broadcaster.
OTOH, since the broadcaster may be doing live captioning, or supply a
live video broadcast, or custom graphics, the CATV may be doign more
harm thant good. The FCC thus allows this to be negotated.
In the real word, few broadcasters don't carry state or local
generated alerts (but they often delay them), and here the issue are
as Neal describes. A CATV operator in the finges of a TV station may
elect to interupt a TV station to insure local alerts are delivered.
In designing the system, the FEMA alerts are passed to the state
primarys, then to local primarys. So the state or local EMA is able
to interject their message with only minimal cooperation from the SP
and LP, and all the local stations have to do to program their endec
to process the alerts. Everything but programming the ENDECs is
allready required, so it is no cost to them to follow the plan.
The LP and SP stations must carry the alerts, most would anyway, but
many accepted a FEMA generator in the past, the retention of which is
contingent on them participating. It's an interesting excercise,
somewhat like herding cats.
Under an upgrade called CAP (Common Alerting Protocal), this will
change somewhat, as state messages will be must carry. Their is some
concern over this being used by the governer just to be heard. Other
states have already put plans in place, with the help of broadcasters,
to allow the Governer to seize the stations for more then the 2
minutes allowed by a EAS compliant alert. (Only State/Local messages
are limited to 2 minutes.)
As far as testing the system, CATV operators must perform the required
weekly (RWT)and monthly (RMT) tests. The RWT can be any time (but
must be varried)selected by the operator. The station must log the
recieved tests (from up to 5 stations) and transmit its test, but
their doesn't need to be any connection between the two. Only the
Header and end of message must be transmitted. The RMT is initated by
(or at the direction of) the state, usually through the SP, and
alternates between day and night (because of the use of so many AM
stations in the chain). Each station must retransmitt the message
within 15 minutes of reception. There is a cool feature on some
Endecs that will retransmitt the alert in 15 minutes if it is not
manually done before then. This is the only test that is required to
contain the 2 tone activation tone from the old EBS system.
Somewhat related to Hurricane Katrina, Alabama, Mississippi, and
Florida are getting new PEP stations. We need it in alabama to replace
the New Orleans station we officially use now. I can't quite make the
connection what this has to do with hurricanes. But the PEP stations
are the daytime weak link in what is usually a robust, if kludgy,
system.
And back to PA, they had their RMT at 0035 today (thursday). Next RMT
will be May 15 at 1005. You cable system could air it hours latter if
stations up the chain delay it. (I said 15 minutes- some states allow
60 minutes in their official plan, the FCC says 15 minutes in their
official instructions required to be in the control room, but I think
the supporting law may allow 60 minutes.)
Patton Turner FAA Telecommunications pmturner@mindspring.com
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Posted by danny burstein on April 18, 2008, 2:38 pm
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pmturner@mindspring.com writes:
>detail. Right now, under federal law, the only EAS alerts any
>broadcaster/CATV operator is required to carry are federal
>(Presidential or National Information Center). These are the ones
>that are sent by FEMA to the 34 or so primary entry points, NPR and XM
>radio.
Anyone know how all this interconnects with the NOAA "weather service"
"all hazards alert" radio network? Those transmissions are
monitored by pretty much every PSAP (public safety answering point,
aka the 911 centers), utility control rooms, etc.
Is there cross-activation of these by the local emergency
authority (either county or governor?).
(I also discovered a couple of years ago, during the BIG
northeatern blackout, that a hefty percentage of these
towers -including NYC-, do NOT have backup power. I also
found out that far, far, too many levels of gov't didn't
understand why this was a concern. The NOAA folk themselves
were and are working on improving the situation).
--
_____________________________________________________
Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key
dannyb@panix.com
[to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded]
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