[EAS] An Open "Letter" to the National Weather Service - now postedon the EAS Forum

[Dale Lamm]

[snip]

During recent severe storms in some parts of the country many of us saw
what we can only describe as "message flooding" -- a large number of
EAS events in a very short period of time -- perceived as excessive and
duplicative.

This can, in the opinion of the BWWG, only lead to a growing number of
those subject to Part 11 choosing to opt out of relaying weather EAS
events. All well within the Rules since local state EAS event relay is
voluntary. 

[end]

Agree there are stations opting to air a small subset of weather-related
warnings. That is their decision.

As an LP1, we don't have that choice. Our state plan says that a NOAA
receiver attached to a decoder input is "encouraged". Only the LP's (and
now FEMA's server) are mandatory decoder inputs.

We (speaking as an LP1) don't know what downstream stations are actually
monitoring, or what the condition of their equipment might be. We have
to assume a role as a redundant relay station for NWS, in case someone's
NOAA weather receiver is inoperative.

If not for that, we would probably only use the full EAS header & tones
for a handful of warnings pertaining to our market (not necessarily the
EAS operational area). Other weather messages would be "talked up" by
the announcers on duty, minus the header and tones.

If NWS ever becomes a mandatory monitoring input (within our state's
plan), we will re-visit our policy.

Dale Lamm
WHBC AM-FM