[EAS] LPFMs and EAN

[Tom Taggart]

Been out running around all day.

With the original concept that the LPFM's would simply
sign-off in a national emergency, they were allowed to have
units that were decoders only, without the ability to send a
test or other message. 

Some LPFM's just bought units like the Gorman-Redlich, which
were both encoders-decoders. I've recommended this since the
G-R was just about the same price as the decoder-only boxes
made by others. Some folks hooked these full-fledged EAS
boxes into the program line so they could relay the usual
weather related emergency traffic. Some folks just hooked up
the printer.  Either way, they will receive the test, though
the later stations won't relay the test.

Since it is just a test, probably would not be required for
the LPFM to sign off, just make sure they had a record that
they got the test, (e.g.--the print out), so they can report
success or lack thereof to Washington.

I haven't seen any of the "decoder only" EAS boxes, so I
don't know if they have provisions for a program interrupt.
One would assume they would, but...  Still, I assume the
decoder-only units would also have some sort of logging
provision would would indicate whether the EAN/test was
received.