[EAS] Best and Worst of New CAP EAS Rules

[Adrienne Abbott]

Pardon me, I'm only up to Page 72, but in going through the R&O
explanations, it looks to me like the FCC is stuck in the '50's. They still
think the "daisy chain" is the basis of most EAS transmissions. It's kind of
like the FCC wants to use new technology, but they don't want to depend too
much on it...and they don't think we should either! They talk how the
data-rich CAP messages can't be sent over-the-air and thus there is a need
to continue with legacy EAS. The FCC apparently sees the daisy chain as the
best and most reliable way for warnings to get from one station to
another--even though the message is being sent from the originators to all
stations over the Internet. We all know how fragile the Internet is,
especially when a disaster affects infrastructure and utilities. It looks to
me like the FCC seems to think the Internet is going to hold together long
enough for a message to get out to some stations but not to all stations,
especially the ones in the more remote areas, so that is apparently the
reason why they think there is a need for continuing to use SAME technology.
I haven't seen any references to Local Primary stations as originators of
emergency messages but I have read a lot about how the CAP technology
belongs to the Emergency Management community. The message apparently is
that the Internet and new technologies are good enough for emergency
managers but you can't really trust broadcasters with it because they might
confuse people. Huh?
Adrienne 

"Radio burps, it cries, it needs to be fed all the time, it requires
constant attention, but we love it." Jim Aaron WGLN 

-----Original Message-----
From: eas-bounces at radiolists.net [mailto:eas-bounces at radiolists.net] On
Behalf Of Harold Price

And because the result of a CAP message with no audio is pretty meaningless
for  radio, I think the FCC will give it more consideration - though the
outcome is never guaranteed.

The FCC is correct - bad text to speech could leave some part of the public
wondering what is happening.  This needs to be weighed against not having
the alert at all.  The FCC can only go with what is in the record, that is,
all the comments people and organizations file.  They didn't know, because
it wasn't in the record, how much the message originators were counting on
using TTS.  To put it mildly, the record is now being added to.  The FCC
will take a look.

Harold