[BC] Usefulness of EAS

[Jerry Mathis]

On Tue, Jun 12, 2012 at 11:01 AM, Glen Kippel <glen.kippel at gmail.com> wrote:
>How does EAS alert everyone at 3 a.m.?

And that, folks, is the nub of it. Until everyone has a device that can sit there and monitor for EAS alerts, and turn itself on and sound the alarm, EAS will always be limited in what it can do.

I happen to have a Weather Radio that I can program to respond to the EAS Alerts I want it to. It will work at any hour of the day or night, even when I'm asleep. But it is limited to picking up NOAA Weather Radio. Now if we had available a similar device that picked up *broadcast stations*, that would be ideal for us.

Unfortunately, very few people have these. Yes, I know that TFT makes and sells them, as Darryl Parker has informed us on numerous occasions, but, AFAIK, he is the only one selling them, and they are not being sold in the stores where everyone shops (I got my WX Radio at a Lowe's). I think for these to be popular, the individual radio stations would need to promote them.

My local cable company (Comcast) sends over EAS alerts on every TV channel, but if your TV is off, you're not going to see and hear it.

What we need, IMHO, are radios and TV's designed to monitor EAS in some form or fashion, and be capable of turning themselves on and give audible/visual alarms of the EAS Alert. Car radios too. This should be easy to do with today's digitally controlled receivers. We already have car radios that use RDS, and are capable of re-tuning to another station in order to follow a network. If they can do *that*, why can't they do it with EAS?

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Jerry Mathis