[EAS] Part 11

[Tom Taggart]

Barry, Richard:

This is the "keyboard" age. Nobody under 30 talks on
telephones anymore.  If CAP is to be integrated into the
various emergency command centers, 911 centers, sheriff's
offices, etc.; then what you will have is a computer &
special software that allows some 20-something
clerk/dispatcher to type up the emergency message.  The
software will then prompt entry of the appropriate county or
city location (or it is pre-programmed in) and she hits
"enter" to send it off.  This message gets posted to some
state emergency traffic web site that the CAP boxes call
home to every so often under the state plan. When the box
sees the appropriate location code it downloads the
emergency traffic.  Then the message gets sent to:

Cellphones, as a text message;
Computer displays in public areas, such as train and air
terminals, or large arenas;
Highway message boards (such as I saw along I-44 in Missouri
last week);
Electronic billboards (even in Parkersburg we have a few
around);
TV cable systems, where a crawl appears on the TV screen at
home; and, oh, that's right--

The Radio station.

Where, of course, this text message is useless unless there
is somebody there to actually read it out loud. A live
announcer? What a concept!!

So the only practical use then of this box for radio is to
use some kind of text to speech converter.  I suppose you
could build in a "bypass" function in the CAP decoder
whereby an MP3 files could be decoded and passed through. 
As someone mentioned, you then need to arrange for licensing
from Fraunhofer to install MP3 decoders.

Besides, why would anyone care if the voice is "Perfect
Paul" or Governor Earl Ray Tomblin reading the 30 second
emergency message?

Granted, this now becomes an argument for new, completely
integrated boxes that combine CAP and standard EAS
functions. But that triples the price.  And, as I mentioned
earlier, there does not seem to be any concrete plans at
this time  to integrate the NWS centers into the CAP system.

Which means for many small broadcasters like me, what would
be a $2500 capital cost (for 2 CAP add-on boxes) suddenly
becomes a $6,000 to $10,000 capital expenditure. For a new
system that, 90% of the time, does nothing more than relay
emergency traffic from an NWS weather radio through the use
of existing EAS protocols.   

That scraping sound you hear is all the feet being
dragged...