[BC] Re: RE: That Guy at the PAB who inspected Dana Puopolo'sStation

[Jerry Mathis]

Dana--were you not there when the station was inspected? It sounds like you
weren't. If the station was your client, why not? I sure would have been.
These inspections are scheduled in advance (at least mine was) so I planned
on being there to answer anything the inspector asked.

With a complicated EAS system that wasn't obvious about how it worked, I
would have expected to personally explain and demonstrate it.

--
Jerry Mathis

On 3/4/09, Matthew Lightner <matt at lightnerelectronics.com> wrote:
>
> Mr. Puopolo,
>
>        The fact is the station in question was not in compliance with Part
> 11 rules because many of weekly tests were missing. Maybe it was due to a
> technical problem, maybe the operator didn't log them, but it was not in
> compliance. The logs showed a test from the LP1 one week, the next week
> maybe a test from the LP2, the next week not any tests, etc. So the
> received
> tests were very sporadic. The EAS log had nothing explaining why the tests
> were missed. Also many of the events were expired when received due to the
> clock being off on the EAS unit. If the FCC walked into this station they
> very well would have issued a NOV.
>
>        As far as the local Pennsylvania studio streaming up to
> Massachusetts then back down to the transmitter in PA, I guess I was
> misinformed. I looked for a local EAS insertion device at the studio and at
> the transmitter site and did not see one. I did not go any further with
> this
> since the above issues needed corrected before I could pass the station. It
> was not made clear to me at the time that the local studio that is very
> close the transmitter site, streamed from PA to MA then back to PA.
>
>        So was my suggestion that your client install a local EAS unit
> wrong? I'm looking for the opinion of other engineers on the list. As an
> ABIP inspector, I am required to inspect the EAS system. How for sure did I
> know the system was setup to automatically interrupt the program chain
> without driving over 6 hours to the location of your ENDEC in MA to see if
> it was setup correctly. If a FCC field inspector came to inspect your
> station in PA, would they send someone to MA to inspect the EAS? Primarily
> the suggestion was made to install a local EAS due to the history of the
> EAS
> logs. Something was wrong that caused tests to be missed from both the LP1
> and LP2 on many occasions. If the logs were fine, I would have consulted
> others to see if it was ethical for me to certify a station for ABIP
> compliance without physically inspecting the EAS equipment.

<snipped for brevity>