Aside from it hasn’t worked… Over the last several, the FCC has released no fewer than five proceedings regarding EAS. To date, few, if any meaningful changes have taken effect. The stated purpose of the Emergency Alert System (EAS) is to:
- provide the communications capability to the President to address the American public during a national emergency.
- may be used by state and local authorities to deliver important emergency information, such as AMBER alerts and weather information targeted to specific areas.
Seems pretty straight forward. Local weather emergencies would seem to be the most likely reason for EAS activation, followed by things like Amber Alert, chemical spills, evacuations, etc. To meet those ends, the FCC mandates that radio (traditional and IBOC), television, cable, wireless cable, direct satellite TV, and satellite radio participate in some way or another. So far, it seems like a fair idea. Then comes the implementation, which is flawed. To start with, EAS still relies on a daisy chain relay system designed during the 1960′s for CONELRAD. The over the air monitor assignments of other broadcast stations are the only mandatory information sources in the system. Other, more relative local sources such as the national weather service, local government and so forth are optional. Next, the most used and most useful part of the EAS, local and state level alerts are completely optional. Very little or no information is provided to local government agencies on how to access EAS in the event of an emergency. Then the issue becomes one of un-maned stations. The initial EAS message goes out over the airwaves, which takes about 2 minutes at most, then it’s back to the music. No amplifying information, check back for more information when it becomes available, etc. Nothing. It has occurred in several cases where a radio show is voice tracked, complete with a weather forecast, which is the opposite of real time weather warnings. If one happens to miss the initial EAS broadcast because they were listening to another station or whatever, well, too bad. Finally, the National Weather Service itself over activates. One line of summer time thunderstorms passing through the area can trigger 10 or even 20 EAS alerts. Over activating, with the same digital tones (rrrrrrannk, rrrrrrank, rrrrrank) followed by the EBS tone then some computer generated voice just gets annoying. To summarize:
- The national EAS has never been tested, who knows if it will work
- The EAS relies on unreliable over the air daisy chain relays for it’s mandatory monitor assignments
- Local and State level EAS (including weather related alerts, something that could be really useful) is optional
- When connected to the NOAA weather radio system, the NWS over uses the EAS activations
Here is an idea: For at least ten years now, the idea of a CAP has been batted around. It seems like a good idea, lets do that. Get rid of EAS, send emergency information to everyone’s cellphones or whatever and stop fining broadcasters for missing a monthly test. The weak link in the EAS is the broadcaster’s themselves. History has shown (over and over again) that the current crop of radio station owners cannot be bothered to meet even the simplest of their public obligations. The FCC has shown it is only interested in collecting big fines for a missed EAS tests, not actually making the system work. The system is broken. As terrestrial radio (and TV) goes terminal, the public will still needs to receive emergency information, the CAP idea can fill this requirement. It is time to pull the plug on EAS once and for all.
I tend to agree with the moderator. Back in the day (1960), I remember CONELRAD and the test that was done of the system locally. Leased telephone lines went from Wisconsin State Patrol District headquarters to each participant. In Milwaukee, WTMJ (620), WFOX (860), WOKY (920) had transmitters capable of 640 kHz.. WISN (1150), WEMP (1250), WMIL (1290), and WRIT (1340) were assigned to 1240 kHz. The test went well and lasted for about 1.5 hours. Signal strengths varied as well as audio quality each time a new station keyed up, but the system seemed to work. FM as well as TV was exempt, and were supposed to go off the air with instructions where to tune an AM radio for further information. Of course, AM was king then. Today with all the media fragmentation going on, it might be better to re-think what seemed to work back in the day without the transmitter switching. Maybe two dominant high-power stations on both FM & AM bands could be chosen rather than require everyone to participate. It would be easy to run a propagation study as to who the selected stations would be, and would relieve the small licensees from regulation. Also, today there appears to be a lot of extraneous stupid messages going out on EAS. A child abduction alert went out lasting about 5 minutes, and I believe this to be insane. What’s next, the pollen count? Governments are out of control these days with wanton spending and power grabbing. The network of AM TIS (Travelers Information Stations) has grown wildly around here wasting a lot of energy with puny signals and some of the worst audio I have ever heard and they happen to be exempt from EAS as I understand. I say, turn them off, as I cannot believe anyone is getting any worthwhile information. And all of the expensive nationwide overhead electric signs funded from Bubba, are rarely effective because they aren’t updated fast enough to cause any less traffic congestion. Another huge waste of U.S. taxpayer dollars. In 2008, I put a low power FM on one of my towers and they had to purchase three of these cheap (crummy) Dayton receivers for a dominant AM, a secondary AM, and a 162 MHz. NOAA station in the area. Having everybody go off the air in a real emergency except the chosen (or volunteer) dominant stations to me makes more sense, and CAP would be easier to administrate with fewer stations along with the monetary (and regulatory) relief to the small stations.
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