[BC] Re: EAS

[Jerry Mathis]

Larry,

He DOES care. I have communicated with him numerous times by e-mail, and
maybe once or twice on the phone. His problem is, **IMO**, that he really
has no enforcement powers beyond reporting stations that don't participate
to the FCC. That doesn't win you many friends.

I've had my share of EAS problems. I'm in Tupelo, and also work in Meridian.
Things were bad, but they've gotten better. I've done my share of screaming
and complaining too.

I just went over my EAS logs for the past two years. In 2008, in my
Operatational Area (OA), we missed *5* Monthly Tests. A couple of those were
because our NOAA Weather Radio for this area is programmed out of Memphis,
instead of Jackson. I was told that they were working on an agreement (and a
system) so that MS tests would be broadcast. Sure enough, it happened. We've
gotten two so far. The rest were caused by either stations failing to relay
the tests, or equipment failures at individual stations.

One BIG problem is that MPR (Mississippi Public Radio) does NOT relay their
Statewide EAS tests and alerts over their Network. The State Chair has been
trying to get them to cooperate for years, but this has apparently borne no
fruit. For our OA, there is a daisy chain of no less than 4 stations before
the signal gets here. We monitor an MPR station as part of the plan. But
THEY monitor the LP-1 in this same OA. If the LP-1 doesn't get it, no one
gets it.

I don't know if it's because of my persistence in following up on missed
tests or what, but we get RWT's pretty regularly now. The last RMT we didn't
get was last September, and I think that was because the NOAA weather radio
hadn't yet been set up to do MS RMT's.

--
Jerry Mathis

On Tue, Mar 10, 2009 at 9:24 PM, Larry Fuss <lfuss2 at cox.net> wrote:

>
> I gave up talking to the state chairman years ago.  He didn't seem to care
> either.
>
> LF
>