[EAS] clarification please

[Barry Mishkind]

At 12:11 PM 4/23/2011, Clay Freinwald wrote:
>They have obviously approached this differently - The DAS is a sophisticated
>box, to be sure.  We have a number of them in this area.  For instance, it 
>is my understanding that Belo has standardized on them for all their stations.
>
>Big area of concern is where stations have different or unique coverage and 
>where coding for an area not served etc would be an issue.  In these cases I 
>always recommend separate boxes per station.

        That is something that I think needs to be made 
        clearer.  I wish we had been able to do the 
        info session we talked about, as it seems to me
        the software should cover any differences in coverage
        or CoL issues.

        Furthermore, the Part 11 NPRM, which increasingly looks
        like the bureaucratic "fix" is in, should take the time to 
        address the idiotic way locations are handled now. We can
        only hope that cooler heads prevail and this is not 
        rushed through just to get it done. The lack of real dialog with
        the industry is troubling.

        In fact, no matter how current products handle 
        multiple stations, I'm sure there is room for improvement,
        especially in making things clearer and easier - to avoid
        the constant errors we continue to see 14 years after
        the current boxes were put into the market.

        It sure would make sense to be able to program 
        software for any of the various permutations, and 
        make it clear to the user - with a full screen, large
        type display - what the station is, what the alert is,
        and what the area is, before launching. 

        Do you hear that manufacturers?  FULL SCREEN,
        LARGE FONT, SIMPLE SUMMARY, BEFORE the 
        alert/test is launched.