[EAS] CAP, Text to Speech, and April 23

[Mike McCarthy]

Harold and the group of manufacturers, a plea......

Everyone seems to forget it takes time, sometimes lots of it, to impliment
repeated and closely succeding updates in multiple locations not in close
proximity to each other, nor visited with any regularity. This is one
reason our boxes are sitting in storage some 6 months after they were
bought. We can't justify the labor costs to repeatedly update the boxes
across those remote locations. The costs really add up quickly between the
miles/gas costs, time in traffic, and ultimately on site preparing for and
doing the deed.

Now while there will be the comment to do so remotely, I've heard far too
many horror stories about that process failing and a trip to the site
becomes a matter of greater urgency with the box having become
inoperative, a compliance risk, and unable to send severe weather alerts.
Plus there are all the firewall issues to contend at sites we don't own
and are merely begging the IP service. As such, remote updating is a risky
and perilous  use of time.....

Of the 8 boxes we bought for our group, I have a couple 3644's going into
remote locations not visited often by engineering types. One site not much
at all. As such, anything we do with our rollout scheduled for mid-June
will need to be a one shot deal. We can't keep going back and forth to
remote sites for bi-monthly (or more frequent) firmware updates as Harold
aludes here.

I recognize things are variable/in-motion (some more than others) and
you're doing what you can to pin the tail on the bucking donkey's behind
(polite metaphor). The CAP update and all things surrounding it is an
unfunded mandate and the repeated firmware updates along with the
intermitant fixes only drives salt into the wound for those who have
already deployed their gear into their far flung locations. I'm already
too busy as it is to reach most places even monthly.  And I'm expected to
do this how many more times after June 30? Can I have a stable and long
living version to upload by June 1 instead of another iterative update
right after NAB?

Please guys...give our odometers and fuel bills at $4.50/gal. a rest.

Rant mode off....

Mike McCarthy
Chicago

>
> Looking ahead, all about June 30, for Sage users.
>
> You will need to be receiving CAP messages by June 30.  We will have
> pre-release of the IPAWS enabled ENDEC software out this week.  After
> everyone is back from the NAB show, we'll make that release available for
> general use.
>
> At that time, we'll include the instructions for setting the IPAWS url.
>
> Harold Price
> Sage Alerting Systems