[EAS] Comments on Bill Rucks posting

[k7cr]

Some comments on Bill Rucks recent posting (or a portion thereof) 
First of all - Nice to see another old-guy on the list.
Bills remark and my comment following 

Clay Freinwald

 
> I believe that the latest version of EAS has got to be near the top 
> of a list of unnecessary federally unfunded mandates.  Second only 
> slightly to the whole Part 90 rebanding mandate.

CF - Understand your point of view.   It depends on where you are
in the process perhaps.   Here in Washington State we are well under-
way rolling out our own CAP based system, therefore, I see light
at the end of the tunnel where you see an on-comming train.

> Perhaps the President still needs a way to tell us that Soviet Bear 
> bombers are crossing the North Pole 

CF - Come on Bill.....When was the last time EAS was used on a 
national level ? ....Like never.
 
> We all know that disasters are predominately LOCAL.  And there is no 
> carrot or stick to encourage local participation in any form of 
> EAS.

CF - Agree on this one.   I am hopefully that GMC will become the 
rule and this will suddenly move EAS to the 'it works' category.
The ability of EAS to really work at the state or local level is directly 
proportional to the amount of work expended to make it be so.
Therein lies the problem.   Knowing that it will work, because 
broadcasters must carry the message will elevate EAS to near the  
top of the public warning 'tool-box'.

>  If this is so 
> important that broadcasters are mandated to participate why is 
> cellphone carrier participation optional?

CF - Love it !!!!!! 

> I see lots of reasons why in theory and on paper CAP is a great idea 
> -- I like it ! -- but in implementation there is a significant amount 
> of disconnect with reality.

CF - I agree 100%.    It takes a lot of work.   

> How does one expect an IC to send a CAP message from his vehicle at 
> the scene of an incident?  

CF - I would never want an IC to send an EAS Message from a vehicle.
This is a good job for the folks in the dispatch center, EOC etc.

> Maybe he has Internet access and maybe he 
> is provided with the hardware to do it and is trained to do it.  Then 
> tell me how the IC will format a .wav and .mp3 file and send that, too.
 
CF - CAP provides for this, however, I believe that 99% of the public 
warning messages need to be originated in Text.   Text can drive
Cellphones, highway signs, TV crawls etc etc.   The best part is 
Text can drive a text reader that can create voice...AND (even better) 
the text message will be the same as the voice message.   This is the 
way our system here in Washington State works.

> We may remember what text to voice sounded like with NWS Perfect 
> Paul.  Was that acceptable?  No, they had to dump Paul and upgrade 
> the whole system.  

CF - Bill, with all due respect, you seem to be stuck in the past.  
Paul was retired.   Our EAS system here is using a test reader that 
sounds very good.   

> Now take an English Perfect Paul and feed him 
> Spanish text.  ?Que pasa?  Even more fun to watch, feed him Mandarin 
> or Hunan.

CF - The hard part (as NOAA has learned) is to get the reader to 
properly pronounce local names - We have Squim and Puyallup...
Want to take a crack at those?

> Has anybody fed a text to speech converter with the sample CAP texts 
> floating around?  What did it sound like?

CF - I just sent a copy of an actual Washington EAS Message to Allen 
Sklar.  Allen, time to speak up.
> 
> In general, free form text is very hard to automatically convert to 
> intelligible speech. 

CF - It's very hard to go the other way.  Speach recognition has 
come a long way however.

>  That's why the NWS changed to a system with 
> pre-recorded words and phrases.  They had the benefit of a limited 
> number of words and phrases.  CAP doesn't.

CF - Huh ??   How come we are doing it here in Washington State?
> 
> My thought right now is to set the audio file time-out at 0.1 seconds 
> and default to only SAME burps.  If text to voice conversion is not 
> mandatory I'll skip that feature.

CF - I agree.   We only have about 1/3 of our stations converted thus far
(found out about 3 more new ones today) in the mean time we have to, 
at some point, convert CAP to SAME and depend on conventional 
relaying to get the word spread.   As time goes by, more and more 
stations are buying the new stuff and with that fewer stations are 
getting the SAME message.   Hopefully the FCC will make good on 
their promise to require CAP capable boxes in all stations soon.
> 
> Another point.  A few months ago I made a CAP presentation to the 
> Northern California chapter of APCO.  At the end one question was 
> asked by a dispatch supervisor with a very panicked look "Who is 
> going to pay for the training for my dispatchers to do this?" 

CF - Washington State, thus far, has trained personnel in all 39 
Counties on how to generate CAP messages.  We are just getting 
underway, and, so far, the reactions are very positive.

>  My 
> answer was that in the perfect world the message would originate from 
> an IC on the scene.  The next question came from a guy in the fire 
> service.  "Who is going to pay for the IC training necessary to do 
> this?  And provide the necessary connectivity and hardware?"
 
CF - This is where I don't agree.  I see the IC telling dispatch that 
an EVI or SPW is called for and let them do the work generating 
the message.   Cool thing about our system is that the message only 
needs to be generated ONCE and it goes to everyone and everything
This is what IPAWS is supposed to be all about.

> Maybe when the economy was booming there might have been money to 
> spend.  Where are those guys going to find the money to fund 
> CAP implementation?

CF - Money for anything is a problem right now.   I'd hate to be in 
California.  Perhaps the folks in my home state should travel to 
North Dakota (where they have a balance budget) and learn a 
few things?

>.  Who knows what will be mandated if/when the FCC issues an NPRM 
> and goes through the whole rule making process.  Maybe in 2013 we 
> might know a little more.

CF - Let us pray.
 
> It is clear to me that APCO and SBE are in the middle of this without 
> a lot of support from the ends. 

CF - Headline for Bill - SBE has just about completely dropped out of '
this process.   Trust me, I chaired the SBE EAS Committee for 10 years.
This is one of the reasons for BWWG - Someone needs to be speaking 
up.   Hundreds will be reading this conversation- That's good for everyone.

 Until Mayors and County Supervisors 
> and Governors support AND FUND emergency public information there is 
> no point in fine tuning the system.  And until the entire 
> communications industry -- not just broadcasters -- participates in 
> it I expect push back from local government.

CF - It does take a village (someone did say that) 
 
> I have serious concerns about Governor Must Carry.  The FCC is 
> prohibited from dictating what programming goes on a radio or TV 
> station.  The President signs a finding each year excepting him from 
> the law.  It has never been tested.  My amateur reading is that the 
> Communications Act of 1934 does not support "must carry" of any 
> kind.  I would expect and encourage a legal challenge to this and I 
> expect the challenge to win.

CF - I don't see the President using EAS, however I do see the States
using it and, by so doing, making EAS very much a more viable 
public warning vehicle.
> 
> I will now get off my soapbox.

CF - Keep the box handy Bill - Old men should be listened to.

> Bill Ruck
> Curmudgeon
> San Francisco
> 
> PS.  One of the new CAP / EAS boxes being heavily pushed by vendors 
> today has a fatal hardware flaw.  The OEM computer and power supply 
> has a tiny SCREAMING fan.  It is extremely annoying in a radio 
> control room with a live microphone.
> 
> 
> 
> 
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