[EAS] Getting rid of the daisy chain

Mon Nov 28 09:13:36 CST 2011

Mike,

You can't have it both ways IMO. Either the broadcasters are apart of
the system or they aren't. If you want government takeover of the EAS
or any variant going forward, then so be it. The FCC can mandate us to
use it, or they could make it a volunteer system. I submit however
that doing so would be very detrimental to the industry as a whole.
Nobody but us broadcasters like us. The FCC would rather auction off
the spectrum for a quick buck, the government sees more value in
broadband and cell services than us, etc.

Again, we test the daisy chain system weekly (at least you should be!)
without flaws. When the feds attempt it, they screw it up. The system
works, just not at the very top. (and it might after they fix whatever
went wrong) Abandoning the system seems silly when it does, in fact
work.

Now that being said, if you want to have advancements for
advancements' sake, then so be it. Again, are you going to mandate
everyone get a dish and aim it at a particular bird? Lets use
government reasoning here. Washington DC would hover over 67W/AMC4.
Problem is, people in California can't see 67W, let alone alaska or
hawaii. Okay, we figured out that problem, lets use a different
satellite. How about 105W/AMC15...

How about if you want to use satellite for distribution, use someone
like DirecTV, or DishNetwork. They have infrastructure. They pay for
the capital, the government would just simply cut a check for uplink
rental and call it a day.

Oh, but both those carriers are going to want a business subscription
from every broadcaster in america to pick it off, thanks for adding to
my bottom line for an unfunded mandate.

Using IP, while subject to backhoe fade and the like, will get to
where you need to go... Here's how i'd design it.

State/local governments have infrastructure. Here in MN, there's a few
thousand miles of government fiber connecting all the state
universities. Put the CAP servers there, in a round-robin DNS fashion
and this keeps the "hitcount" down to a minimum. Instead of each
station in america polling a federal box in DC, it only polls locally,
and only a few hundred hits at that. Divide that by 3-4 servers at
various locations, and you're getting maybe 30-50 stations per site at
a time polling the servers. Of course the servers would have to "sync"
eachother via some means, and have a "Network 21" configuration
(multiple gateways to the world), but this would be the most efficient
way of doing this. The feds would still be a PEP, but let the state
servers (maybe 100 servers, 200 tops) poll for the feds messages,
instead of making me pay for the bandwidth, make them.

It's a fairly simple "bottom-up" topology. It's also the exact reverse
of what the CAP system is today.

Nobody in washington cares about a missing child in Montana. People in
Montana care about the missing child in Montana.

And believe you-me, after the EAN test, EAS will not be a supplement
for CAP for very long. Congress and dumb politicians alike will use it
as an excuse to replace the system going forward.

--
Alex Hartman

On Mon, Nov 28, 2011 at 5:09 AM, Mike McCarthy <towers at mre.com> wrote:
> What you forget Alex is ground conductivity.  Where a 5KW station might
> cover a whole state in North Dakota, a 50KW low band station might only
> cover 50 miles in an area where the conductivity is a 2 or less.  The
> daisy chain has got to go.
>
> I resubmit and agree with the prevailing group the local relay system
> needs to be created and maintained by non-broadcast or government
> entities. Even single hop relays like we have here in Illinois have
> problems in certain areas of the state which use class A FM stations for
> the relay and have HD stations on either side of them close spaced.
> While I'm not the least bit enthused with IP connections feeding a
> distant uplink provider, satellite never the less offers the best point
> to multi-point distribution with any semblance of audio quality. A SCPC
> VSAT uplink local to to the EOC offers the best reliability (then the
> satellite becomes the weakest link).  Confidence testing of the link
> would then be more practical if the distributed pool of RX's also phoned
> home like the IPump.  But one can dream...
>
> Also, the problem with general internet reliability isn't where most
> people think it will be.  Instead, for most stations and head-ends, it
> will be the so-called last mile, the local service loop between the CO
> and the user.  Wireless IP is not any more reliable as the provider's
> NOC also needs to connect to the CO or the web's backbone.
>
> End user's un-hardened links are more prone to back-hoe, rodent,
> lightning, or flood water fade than failed back-bone or link to a state
> EOC or data-center with hardened facilities. The shorter the loop to the
> CO, the higher the probability of reliability of course.  Only if the
> services come in by diversified physically different routes, providers,
> and mediums will that issue be greatly reduced. It's no different than
> the links to our transmitters. However, 99.999999% of all facilities out
> there don't have this level of redundancy available and virtually no one
> outside of metro downtowns have real multiple provider options other
> than cable TV being the alternate. And their facilities often parallel
> those to telco and are equally maintained (poorly).
>
> There is no one solution which fits all modes of hazard. And no one is
> less expensive or risk prone to implement from originator to end user
> than another both in terms of capital and operational expenses.
>
> And let's not forget, most of the time, EAS is used as a door-bell, a
> call to action wake up prior to an event.  It's that 0.01% of the time
> which needs an alert during an event that the stresses of the system
> will show.  And even then, it's one in a million that something will be
> more than local let alone entire state level.
>
> MM
>
> On 11/28/2011 2:16 AM, Alex Hartman wrote:
>> 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
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> This is the EAS Forum Discussion List
>>>
>>> Please invite your friends to join our Forum!
>>> http://lists.radiolists.net/mailman/listinfo/eas
>>>
>>> And, remember the main page: http://eas.radiolists.net
>>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> This is the EAS Forum Discussion List
>>
>> Please invite your friends to join our Forum!
>> http://lists.radiolists.net/mailman/listinfo/eas
>>
>> And, remember the main page: http://eas.radiolists.net
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> This is the EAS Forum Discussion List
>
> Please invite your friends to join our Forum!
> http://lists.radiolists.net/mailman/listinfo/eas
>
> And, remember the main page: http://eas.radiolists.net
>