Before I start this message, I had best give my credentials:
  
Until last December, I was the Society of Broadcast Engineers frequency 
coordinator for Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota.  (I coordinated all 
of the broadcast auxiliary frequencies.)  I was going broke doing it, so I 
had to give it up.  I was also active in the local SBE EAS discussions for 
Minnesota and particularly Ramsey County where I live.  I left the 
broadcasting business as an employer in March of '96.
  
Bill Newman writes in a message to Scott Christensen
 BN> The change in the name is really not doing anything more than 
 BN> it did before. The change from the Emergency Broadcast System 
 BN> (EBS) to the Emergency Alerting System (EAS) is in extent just 
 BN> that a change in names. 
Wrong!  Very wrong!  The EAS system to begin in the next few months (July, I 
believe - unless there has been another postponement) includes digital data 
message bursts as part of the message.  These data bursts include the state, 
county and "1 of 9" sector location in the county where the emergency is 
taking place.  Part of the data is a time and date stamp so that if the same 
message arrives at a broadcast station via different routes it will not be 
rebroadcast.
  
The local EAS comittees are searching for more reliable ways of distributing 
the signals that originate in one of several state or federal agencies.  Many 
of the schemes that are floating around involve VHF and UHF (or 800 MHz) 
distribution systems as one of the methods.  The broadcast station "daisy 
chains" will remain, but there can be *many* routes of distributing the 
information, including, as I said VHF and UHF signals.
  
Part of the holdup of the system is the cost of all the new equipment to the 
broadcasters.  And they don't want to buy new receivers (and some VHF and UHF 
transmitters) till the local committees have decided between paging, NOAA, 
phone, broadcast auxiliary, cable, satellite and other channels for this new 
data distribution system.
  
I imagine that broadcast receivers for this data will also be made available 
to the public.  Whether we can get our hands on data receivers for the other 
distribution channels might depend on whether or not NOAA (which is one of 
the originating agencies) carries these data bursts on its VHF (162 MHz - you 
know the ones) signals.
  
 BN> What I heard that there was some confusion on the names and 
 BN> the needs for using the system. Many thought that it was to 
 BN> be used only in cases of extreme emergency conditions. As it 
 BN> stands now it can be used to alert of any pending emergency 
 BN> or weather condition. There is in the works a way to use the 
 BN> alerting system to activate alert tones in the TV so that even 
 BN> durning the night the TV will alert to a emergency message. 
 BN> It will work somewhat like the fire radios do not to alert 
 BN> the men to a fire call.
  
And on top of that, there has been the scheme of EAS receivers built into 
smoke detectors and other common "emergency alarm" household goods...  things 
like burgler alarms.  You mentioned smart TVs and radios that would turn on 
any time there is an emergency for your part of your county.  (With all of 
the people who can't program a VCR out there, who will program in the county 
info?  Or maybe the TVs and radios will operate on a ZIP Code basis like the 
DBS receivers.)
  
As for the confusion, all you have to do is put a bunch of broadcasters 
together in the same room and you've got that!  
  
I imagine that the system will be activated very much more often since the 
data burst is only about 10 seconds long and contains the addressing 
information and the message.  Also, a station won't have to broadcast every 
message since the VHF and UHF (and other) links can carry the messages to the 
next stations without interrupting programming on "your" station if it 
doesn't impact your county.  Of course, broadcasters will read the 
information on the air after they have sent the data burst if it is for their 
area.
  
 BN> The signals and alerts are already on many of the different 
 BN> scan frequencies now but either special radios are needed to 
 BN> receive it or people are not listening to the frequency that 
 BN> it is operating on. This is something that they are working 
 BN> on. Actually NOAA already transmits an alert signal for weather 
 BN> alerts and actually that is what the new EAS is mainly going 
 BN> to do. 
  
NOAA now sends a "pure tone" to open up simple receivers.  The new system is 
very much smarter than that, and at least around here there was some question 
of whether or not the data bursts *would* be on the NOAA channel(s).  I hope 
that they have "seen the light" since I got out of the loop.
  
There are non-specific emergency designators for everything from nuclear 
accident to weather built into the system.  So, it is much more than a storm 
warning system.
  
If you want to discuss this further, let's take it to SBE or BROADCAST.
 
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