[EAS] EAS time stamp usage

[Sean Donelan]

On Tue, 20 Dec 2011, Harold Price wrote:
> Thanks for the pointer.  I'll get that corrected in the manual, those
> version numbers refer to pre release version of old 1822 ENDEC (June
> 1996).  All grey ENDECs since 1997 (and all Sage Digital ENDECs) ship
> with Strict Time on.

Although they may ship that way, I wonder how many boxes are still set 
that way? For at least the last 10 years, one of the standard customer 
service answers to time problems was advice to turn Strict Time off.

http://www.broadcast.harris.com/servicesandsupport/sage/endectips.pdf

Alert Ignored time expired. This message can indicate several issues
   a. The Originating EAS equipment's date/time is not correctly set.
   b. Your Endec's date/time is not correctly set. This data includes the
   time zone or UTC setting, 5 for ET, 6 for CT, 7 for MT and 8 for PT.
   Check your settings.
   c. The Alert's valid time was not correctly programmed by the
   Originator.
All these issues can be avoided by setting the Endec's Strict Time
setting to NO.

It may have been intended only for bench testing, the setting may be
more widely used now.  I don't know how the configuration option is
internally implemented, just increases the "fuzz" or ignores the 
timestamp entirely.