[EAS] Today's FEMA webinar

[Richard_Rudman]

Here are some VERY brief highlights from today's FEMA IPAWS webinar. Please feel free to add your own observations. This is by no means a full account of the webinar. For anyone who missed it aND wantS to view the event,  it will be posted. 

1. First ever national live code EAN on 11/9/11 at 2 PM Eastern will be a benchmark for existing EAS that will be used to measure progress as CAP and other changes are implemented.

2. It will not be a pass/fail test according to FEMA's Manny Centano.

3. No element of CAP will be tested as part of this test.

4. More webinars are scheduled as we get closer to the test.

5. A best practices document will be issued so EAS participants can verify that they are as ready for the test as possible.

6. In the Alaska tests, audio quality issues ranked high on things that need to be addressed and corrected. Hum and other problems related to bad grounding were noted.

7. The need for AM outdoor antennas, AM receivers that can accept an external antenna, and other ways to mitigate AM propagation problems for PEP reception were addressed and will be in the best practices document when it is issued. 

8. More Alaska lessons learned: Stations using radios with internal antennas and that could not be locked on the proper frequency for PEP station reception (according to local plans, of course) 

8. While not mentioned during the webinar, the need for proper follow-through when weekly and monthly tests are not received to correct problems should be included in everyone's pre-EAN test checkup. Merely logging that a test not received properly in not enough.

9. The webinar did mention that stations need to follow through with test originators when discrepancies are noted, but the role of local plans (everyone needs a copy at their EAS control point(s) for FCC compliance) needs to be in everyone's pre-EAN test check list.

10. The issue of cable override came up. Short answer: Despite as NAB's Kelly Williams mentioned, that the FCC allows stations to work with local cable systems to prevent local override, some cable systems equipment cannot do selective override. Resolution for this issue may come in a revised Part 11.

11. The FEMA IPAWS Ideascale website continues to be a resource we can all use to contribute our thoughts:

http://tinyurl.com/3tgv5o5

Regards,

Richard