[EAS] Getting rid of the daisy chain

[Alex Hartman]

Not pointless, not at all actually.

The daisy-chain system, IMO, does work, it's just poorly implemented
and politics got in the way.

A 5kW AM station on 540 can cover an entire state (and then some)
which is highly efficient. Whereas the FM counterpart *might* get 30
miles on a good day in flat country.

The SCA usage is an interesting concept, but with a low injection
level, and then requiring the use of SCA receivers, that'd get
cumbersome quickly. (which frequency would you use? How do you dictate
it? etc) Distance then becomes an issue too. 100kW flamethrower at
1500ft in flat land with only a 5% injection is only going to cover a
marginal area, requiring many more "repeaters" in the chain system.

You can advocate satellite, which does work, and is pretty efficient,
but not everyone uses it, or uses the same one. Also, what about a
massive solar flare-up, that could potentially knock out some of those
satellites? Or a rogue satellite floating around blocking out other
birds? Of course you'd have to build in some redundancy, but this does
still have drawbacks. Like those in Alaska who have to have 20m dishes
just to see DirecTV?

No, i do believe the "KISS" method is  required here. Keep It Simple,
Stupid. However, the Government is involved, thus this will never
happen. ;)

I do however believe, that if CAP and the Internet function were
reversed (meaning letting everything stay at the local/state level and
the feds were nothing more than a PEP, not the "master") it *could* be
a viable solution. However, it also has many drawbacks.

It's really a lesser of two evils here. Which one has the least amount
of penalties?

--
Alex Hartman

On Sun, Nov 27, 2011 at 3:36 PM, Edwin Bukont <ebukont at msn.com> wrote:
> I have been advocating for this for years.  But its not going to happen because without the main channel daisy chain, some fear the reduced prominenace of AM 50kW PEP stations.
>
> When I brought this up back in 1996, I had notable people in this biz in my face, asking specifically, "What about the AMs?"  The fear is they won't be recognized as a viable emergency communications resource and will suffer at the regulatory level.
>
> FM stations could easily participate in a daisy chain by using their SCA.  AM cannot.  Thus we remain with the main channel daisy chain.  I got an excellent response from the FCC, NOAA and Maryland Emergency Management when I demonstrated how to do so for Southern Maryland.  My successors however took it down.  I have always wondered why.  Some recent events have convinced me that the problem is so far up the food chain at FEMA that this discussion is pointless.
>
> Edwin Bukont CSRE, DRB, CBNT
> V- 240.417.2475 (DC/Baltimore)
> V- 615-357-7390 (Nashville)
> F- 240.368.1265
> ebukont at msn.com
>
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