THE DAY THE WORLD STANDS STILL PART II
So what do an iconic 1950's sci fi movie and a child's toy have in common? If you're preparing for the National EAS test, the answer is "A lot". As we learned from engineers Watt Hairston and Al Kenyon during FEMA's most recent webinar on preparations for the National EAS test, a hula hoop may be just what you need to improve your AM radio reception. Google the term "AM Loop Antenna+hula hoop" and the results include the instructions showing you how to be the first on your block to build a low-cost loop antenna from a hula hoop that will significantly (at least according to Watt and Al) improve your AM signal reception. It's one of the steps that are critical to a successful National Test because most Primary Entry Point stations in the country as well as at least one of the Local Primary stations in most Operational Areas are AM radio stations. If your station is going to spend three minutes of valuable program time on an EAS activation that everyone will carry, you want to be sure that your station has the best audio quality.
Unfortunately, you're starting with a couple strikes against you--the audio daisy chain that begins in the White House includes phone lines and AM radio stations and may take several "hops" on the way to your station. So start by examining the audio you get now in EAS tests from your Monitoring Assignments. Are the signals dependable and reliable? Is the audio clear enough to understand when you rebroadcast it? Are you receiving that AM signal with a bare wire that has the electronic characteristics of a coat hanger? When your station first added EAS equipment, was the cost such a burden that there was no interest in adding quality receiving equipment or antennas and nothing's changed since then? If so, then this is the time to finish that project and make sure that after the National Test, people aren't talking about how badly it sounded on your station.
Don't forget some of the basics--things like is your equipment plugged in and actually working. Don't laugh--we're still hearing stories about FCC agents and ABIP inspectors who find equipment that isn't powered up. Make sure everything is properly grounded and the antennas are connected to the receivers. If you use external receivers, check that those are plugged in, turned on and tuned to the appropriate stations.
Next, consider your Monitoring Assignments. Is your equipment set to receive tests and activations from the stations listed in the Nevada EAS Mapbook? The Mapbook is available on the Nevada Broadcasters Association website at http://www.nevadabroadcasters.org/. Click on the EAS link at the bottom of the page and scroll down to EAS Mapbook of Monitoring Assignments. If you cannot receive the stations you are assigned to monitor, contact me immediately at nevadaeas@charter.net.
After making sure your equipment is set to monitor the correct stations, check the quality of those signals. Are they reliable and clear? Do your logs indicate that you receive every test and activation as indicated by the EAS Weekly Activity Report? Your EAS logs are the first and best indicator of whether your station will be able to receive and rebroadcast the National EAS Test as well as any Presidential level activations.
Next, check the website for the manufacturer of your EAS equipment. You will find service bulletins, information on program updates and retrofits for your equipment there as well as the manufacturer's recommendations for configuring your equipment to receive the National Test. Originally there were 11 manufacturers who made EAS equipment. FEMA has collected samples of these units and is testing them in a lab environment to see how they react to the EAN event code that will be used for the National Test. These tests have led to a number of recommendations that now appear on the manufacturers' websites. Review those recommendations for application to your particular equipment.
If you have Burk or HollyAnn units that are no longer supported by the manufacturer, FEMA is also checking these units in their test lab. They will have a report on recommendations for procedures for the National Test on that equipment before the test day. Check the FEMA IdeaScale website, https://nationaldialogue-emergencyalertsystem.ideascale.com/ for new information and their report for unsupported equipment.
Finally, remember that Common Alerting Protocol or CAP will NOT be used in this first National EAS Test. If you have CAP-compliant equipment installed at your station, the test will only use the "legacy EAS" components in that equipment which is pretty much how Nevada and stations in the Nevada EAS Operational Area currently use EAS.
The National Test will be sent with the "EAN" Event Code and the Locator Code for Washington DC, 011011. The Originator Code will be "PEP" for Primary Entry Point stations and the Duration Code will be 15 minutes. This combination of codes is supposed to take over any EAS unit anywhere in the country and run it as long as needed, until the EOM digital tones are sent. In most cases, you do NOT need to program the Washington DC FIPS code into your equipment. However, this is one of the areas where you need to check your equipment manufacturer's website for their specific recommendations, particularly if you operate your equipment in the "MANUAL" mode. Incidentally, while there is a FIPS code for the entire county, it is currently not recognized by the various standards groups so it can't and won't be used in the National Test.
FEMA will issue the EAN activation at the request of the White House at approximately 2:00 PM Eastern, 11:00 AM Pacific. It is expected that a Presidential Communications Officer will actually read the EAS test message which will run approximately two and a half minutes. It will take a couple of minutes for the message to render into the PEP system and then launch to the Local Primary stations and the Participating Stations. This means it may a little after 2:00 PM Eastern, 11:00 AM Pacific, by the time the test reaches your station so wait for it! Continue your normal programming until the EAN comes in and takes over your EAS equipment and with it, your programming.
With the EAS tones before and after the message, the entire test should run approximately three minutes. This will stress the "seize and control" capability of the EAN Event Code, the only EAS Event Code that does not have a two minute time limit. It is important that you or your operator allow the End of Message signal--the three short data bursts--to play out before switching back to normal programming. Do not attempt to end the test yourself. It may not be easy to do this because the person reading the message may pause or hesitate in their reading. But FEMA assures us that the EOM will be sent.
The test message will be in English and will not be available in any other language. Foreign language stations particularly will need to prepare their audiences for the test because there will not be any way to override the test audio with a translation.
There are some variables in EAS equipment that is operated in the "MANUAL" mode, so the recommendations from FEMA and the FCC as well as the equipment manufacturers are that your equipment should be set to the "AUTO" mode. Your equipment should be programmed to filter out the activations you do not want to carry on your station. Remember that anytime your station is operating in an "Unattended" mode, your EAS equipment should be set to "AUTO" to automatically forward any tests or activations. If your EAS equipment is normally set to the "MANUAL" mode, or you toggle back and forth between "MANUAL" and "AUTO" and you plan to set it to "AUTO" for the National Test, you should still check your manufacturer's website for updates, retrofits and recommendations.
If you are going to remain in the "MANUAL" mode for the National Test, be sure your operator knows how to forward an EAS activation. Again, the operator must allow the End of Message signal--the three short data bursts--to play out before ending the test and switching back to normal programming. This may be difficult to do if the audio message has a lot of pauses in it, so the operator must pay close attention to the test.
An EAT--Emergency Action Termination--will not be sent as part of this test. The use of the EAT in conjunction with an EAN is outlined in the FCC's official EAS Handbook as a way to notify National Non-Participating stations which must go off the air if an EAN is issued, that they can return to the air and resume broadcasting. In fact, you should NOT follow the procedures in the EAS Handbook. We have known for years that those procedures were incorrect, if not impossible to follow. While the FCC still requires that you have the Handbooks, Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau Deputy Chief Greg Cooke stated in the last FEMA webinar that stations should ignore the procedures in the Handbook and that the FCC will issue "Day of..." instructions prior to the test.
While the audio message for the National Test will use the phrase "This is a test" repeatedly, the use of the EAN code means your EAS equipment will automatically generate a crawl that indicates there is a national emergency. TV stations and cable, satellite and Internet TV operators are all asked to prepare a graphic or slide that reads "This is a Test" to cut down on the confusion and concern that might arise from the crawl, especially among the hard of hearing and deaf. So don't rely only on the crawl that your equipment, even the new CAP equipment, will produce during the National Test. We know when and what time the test is coming so you have time to put together a nice looking graphic that perhaps includes with your station logo and to have the staff on hand to make sure it gets on the air during the test. This is a particularly important procedure for foreign language stations because the National Test will be in English. Foreign language stations should make sure that their Test graphic is in their broadcast language.
In addition to the PEP network, the National Test will be sent to NPR's "squawk" channel and from there to most NPR stations across the country. This is critical in Nevada where our NPR stations and their translators serve as Local Primary 2 stations. This means the test will reach rural area stations that might not receive a reliable signal from a PEP station. This is not expected to cause duplicate tests at stations that monitor both a PEP station and an NPR station. However, this scenario is being tested at FEMA's lab, and until we know for sure what will happen, stations are advised to have a knowledgeable person on hand who can manually cancel any duplicate tests that might be received by stations that monitor both a PEP and an NPR station. If a duplicate test occurs and you can't stop it from going out, we are being told that sending a Required Weekly Test (RWT) in the duplicate EAN activation will cancel the test.
According to Touchstone's Gary Timm, writing for AwareForum.org, stations which normally monitor a PEP station (KKOH in Reno and KDWN in Las Vegas) may see PEP RWTs on their EAS unit logs in the months leading up to the test. These should be logged as usual but nothing else needs to be done and you don't need to make any programming changes in your equipment. It's just part of the preparations for the National Test.
Earlier this year, FEMA asked to conduct a statewide EAS test in Nevada as part of their preparations for the National Test. Manny Centeno of FEMA's IPAWS office says that this will give them a chance to rehearse their preparations. The test will also give us a chance to see where there might be reception issues in Nevada. The "Nevada mini-EAS Test" will be conducted on September 26th, at 1:00 PM our time. It will be launched from a bridge ENDEC in FEMA headquarters (Mt. Weather) and specifically directed to PEP stations KKOH and KDWN. It will carry the Event Code "RMT", the Locator Code "032000", or "All Nevada", the Originator Code "PEP", and a Duration Code of "15 minutes." The AFSK will be encoded so that it is understood only by the two Nevada PEP stations and it will be sent in Protocol B. The test will be just like any other Required Monthly Test and it will include a brief audio message pre-recorded by a broadcast professional informing the public about the upcoming National Test.
Stations in the Nevada Operational Area should make sure that their EAS equipment is programmed to receive activations with the "All Nevada" FIPS code, 032000. That also applies to stations in eastern California who are part of the Nevada EAS Operational Area.
The Nevada Broadcasters Association and FEMA will both have staff monitoring the progress of the Nevada mini-test. FEMA will bring equipment with them to Las Vegas that is capable of simultaneously monitoring 16 radio stations and 8 TV stations. The NBA will have a telephone conference bridge with engineers and emergency managers across the state to follow the progress of our mini-test.
With all these cautionary notes, updates and changes, it is particularly important that engineers, Chief Operators and technical staff pay attention to the latest news on the National Test and the Nevada "mini-National EAS Test." FEMA is conducting a series of webinars on test preparations. The audience for these webinars has grown from a couple hundred for the first event to more than 800 participants in the most recent session. The topics are centered around the various steps stations need to take to prepare for the tests. The next webinar is set for Sept. 30th. These discussions are helping FEMA build a "Best Practices" guide for stations to use for the test. FEMA is expected to publish the guide on Oct. 3, 2011. But you can start your preparations now by reviewing the previous webinars that are archived on the IdeaScale website at https://nationaldialogue-emergencyalertsystem.ideascale.com/ and making sure your equipment is properly set up, programmed and operating in compliance with Part 11.
You will also find information on the National Test and general EAS topics on the Broadcast Warning Working Group website, the EAS Forum, at http://eas.radiolists.net/ where you will find articles, a place to comment and ask questions about EAS and an email listserv in which you can participate.
The Broadcasters Desktop Resource at http://www.thebdr.net/ provides information not only on EAS but other aspects of broadcast engineering.
Internet publications like Radio World and the NAB Tech Check also provide current information about various developments in EAS. Online editions are available free.
Please contact me if you need more information about the Nevada mini-Test or the National EAS Test or all things EAS.
Adrienne Abbott, Nevada Chair, SECC nevadaeas@charter.net |
