[BC] EAS alert tones in movie preview ad

[Rich Wood]

------ At 10:13 AM 11/9/2010, Barry Mishkind wrote: -------

>I believe there is an issue there in that it devalues the attention 
>signal as to its importance - already a problem in many 
>ways,  especially when stations do their weekly test by just running 
>the data bursts and nothing else.

As has been mentioned here, the tones are not attention signals. We 
part company on the issue of identifying a test. I believe that's 
what devalues what little value EAS has. We've conditioned listeners 
to consider the noise to be a test, not a threat. I'd want the tests 
to be as inconspicuous as possible since they have no relevance to a 
listener and simply, allegedly, determine if the system is working. 
We only need an alert when there's a real emergency.

I haven't checked the rules so I'm not sure if an announcement is 
required when a test is sent. It's crying "wolf."

Rich

>There has been at least one post I've seen that indicates the sounds 
>in the spot are EOM tones, and as such, I would think most receivers 
>would ignore them. Still, for those that hear them, they could well 
>wonder if they missed something. Hence the devaluation of the tones.
>
>At 08:01 AM 11/9/2010, Craig Bowman wrote:
> >I do not have the ability to decode the data bursts in my head so it is
> >just slow baud rate data to me.  If they do not contain valid header
> >information or are not formatted properly are they an alert tone or
> >simulation or noise?  Now, if your EAS receiver forwarded the alert
> >because of its validity there would be an issue there.
>