[EAS] Some thoughts

[ed.czarnecki at monroe-electronics.com]

If I might gently suggest, I think one thing we should be careful of is taking attributes of one system as a universal.  

Some states are indeed relying on text-only CAP EAS dissemination, with text-to-speech generated by the CAP EAS unit remotely, in a manner outlined by Clay.  

Other states are seeing emergency managers use voice (as MP3 file), which is processed by the CAP EAS unit.  If the audio file is missing/damaged, the CAP EAS unit then goes to text-to-speech.

Using text to speech to enforce uniformity between the text and audio portions of the EAS message is certainly one solution.  But there are other parters (governors/designees, for example) for whom voice is highly desirable.

Nevermind the idiosyncracies of text-to-speech in multiple languages!  As Larry Eslack mentioned, Michigan is apparently looking into Arabic as a possible language for EAS messaging - that would certainly by "interesting" as text-to-speech...

Edward Czarnecki, Ph.D.
Senior Director - Strategy, Development and Regulatory Affairs
Monroe Electronics, Inc. / Digital Alert Systems
ed.czarnecki at monroe-electronics.com

www.monroe-electronics.com
www.digitalalertsystems.com

-----Original Message-----
From: Clay Freinwald [mailto:k7cr at blarg.net]

In response to Tom - Voice is an obsolete means of communication, compared> with text messaging and cable TV crawls. I understand. However we must acknowledge that we are in a world that interconnects text messaging. EAS is no longer just a Broadcaster thing. We have - Highway Signs, and all means of hand-held gizmo's that are now involved with the distribution of emergency messages. I agree that Radio is an audio medium and TV is 50% an audio or voice distribution system. The big imperative here is to have the Voice Message bethe SAME as the Text Message. This is exactly what we are doing here in WaState. The text message is 'read' by the EAS box at the Radio or TV station...at the TV station, that SAME text message provides the crawl. For the firsttime both the Crawl and the voice message are providing the same information. Something not possible with the oldlegacy EAS.On the input side - Emergency managers are inputting their Emergency Messages into a computer - Using Text. We tried and tried to get them to use voice messages for close to 15 years and it proved to be extremely frustratingfor a number of reasons - Thankfully we are moving awayfrom that era.Time to get on the train Tom !Clay Freinwald _______________________________________________This is the EAS Forum Discussion ListPlease invite your friends to join our Forum!http://lists.radiolists.net/mailman/listinfo/easAnd, remember the main page: http://eas.radiolists.net