[EAS] Don't mess with 1216/EAS

[Tom Taggart]

Barry posted the most recent list of violation notices:

http://transition.fcc.gov/eb/FieldNotices/

Look at Brahmin broadcast--one of the citations was for
monitoring the wrong LP-2 station.

Our present (2007) WV state plan is somewhat of a joke. Has
the wrong call sign for one of our FM's (changed in 2004),
and there's no monitoring assignment at all for one of our
stations.  The previous plan had us monitoring two different
LP-1's --logical on paper because one of our stations is 25
miles away in a different operational area--but not
necessarily in practice because the studios are combined. We
still monitor that other LP-1..interestingly enough the last
RMT arrived at our studio from that station a full minute
ahead of the transmission from the local station we are
suppose to monitor.

Under the current plan our assigned monitoring station--a
Class B, is not listed as either an LP-1 or LP-2.  The LP-1
is a Class A and the LP-2 a daytime AM (60 watts at night).
At least they are in the same cluster.

The state EAS committee is a closed group--consisting on the
broadcast side of folks from the largest radio group in the
state & some TV buddies in Charleston.  They just
laboriously crafted a new state plan--sent in last year
about this time--without anyone considering CAP.
Incidentally--that new plan--I was able to get a brief look
t it before they grabbed it back--still had the call sign
wrong on our one station. 

Years ago we were inspected--by a real field engineer--not
these anal clerks they send out nowadays. At the time we
were monitoring another station--not the designated
relay--because that station was having trouble with their
Collins 20 & were off-then on-then off. We were also
monitoring an Ohio station--a Class B at a state university.

At that time Charleston NWS had poor coverage of our
area--if a front was coming from the SW we'd get the severe
weather warnings--if it came from the west or NW, Columbus
would send out the warnings. Hence we would get severe
weather bulletins a lot of times from that university
station, not WV NWS EAS.
Plus the university radio station was manned by the TV
engineers, who, having little else to do beside watch Sesame
Street, would religiously run EAS tests.
Not so our assigned monitor at that time.

Did we get cited? No. General attitude? Whatever works.

The FCC seems not to be interested at all in any emergency
warning system, except as a means to terrorize private
broadcasters, and fatten up their fine collections. With the
botched roll-out of new EAS rules--e.g. the text to speech
prohibition, and citations like this and the one for the bad
EAS test in California, it is clear they have no interest in
working with the broadcast community.  My inclination now
would be if I were cited for monitoring the "wrong LP-2"
would be to sue the state EAS Committee (for negligence, for
one thing.) They are volunteers, not state employees, hence
their immunity is questionable. Would probably not get
anywhere, but would stop anyone from volunteering in the
future.