[EAS] CAP Converters

[Richard Rudman]

Some personal views and opinions: 

Governor-mandatory is not officially in the rules yet. It was one of many elements the Commission asked for Comments on as they look at the Part 11 rewrite. Some parties recommend against it. The jury, as they say, is still out.

Another issue has to do with what the existence of CAP Converters will do to the progress of a migration to CAP-EAS supported by a combination of wired and unwired ways to distribute the messages. I am of the opinion that we need to have a "sit-down" with FEMA and the FCC to work out a CAP-EAS migration plan, hopefully in our lifetimes. I was one of the people who thought initially that preserving legacy SAME EAS might be a good thing. I will now admit, in hindsight, I was wrong. Yes, we have to have legacy EAS for a while longer, but I'd like to see it go away in my lifetime. (My age is north of 60)

I have sympathy for people who bought CAP Converters thinking it would save them some money. Everyone will eventually have to migrate to CAP-EAS, and the legacy boxes won't last forever. 

Not a huge deal, but people with CAP Converters will have to expend time and energy reviewing logs from both their converter and their legacy EAS box. 

Final thought: One would think that any EAS stakeholder who has had to deal with all the wonderful features of the thermal printers in legacy boxes would want to run, not walk, to their preferred vendor to get a new stand-alone CAP-EAS box.

Richard Rudman
The BWWG
CA EAS SECC Vice Chair

On Nov 15, 2011, at 3:51 PM, Jim McKinnon wrote:

> These comments make at lot of sense, especially the governor's message code,
> (yet to be decided, if one will exist) which is why I bought a new CAP
> capable box back in early 2010