[EAS] EAS Digest, Vol 15, Issue 16

[Sean Donelan]

On Thu, 19 Jan 2012, Clay Freinwald wrote:
> As you know, Washington State is making extensive use of TTS ....And have
> been since October of 2010.   There are a number of reasons why we wish to
> continue....One of the major arguments is that Emergency Managers who were
> reluctant to use EAS previously was because of the need to make voice
> announcements.

Collecting these types of requirements would help a lot trying to decide 
how a system should work.

Nothing in the FCC rules prevents emergency managers using text-to-speech 
at the CAP origination point instead of a "live" recording.  The practical 
effect (after CAP) is originators should always include an audio message 
matching the text message.  Since the audio file is digital, it wouldn't 
have the classic EAS analog inter-station signalling.  Then we're back to
the undefined corner-cases in the rules.  What happens if the audio file 
is damaaged,  not accessible or the station just wants to use its own 
announcers?

Other requirements I've heard

When I was collecting cable local franchise requirements from 40-50 DMAs 
around the country, one of the most common requirement from emergency 
managers was a telephone interface, not just radio, to activate the cable 
EAS override because very few local emergency managers had EAS encoders 
connected to radio systems.

New York State is using its state CAP for traffic advisories.  Most 
traffic advisories won't be aired as EAS messages, but generating traffic 
advisories does give local emergency officials a lot of practice with the 
CAP system.  Which means when there is a catastrophe, they will be more 
familiar with how CAP works.

There are probably many similar concerns, desires, needs, etc of 
lots of emergency managers that could be documented and considered in a 
rulemaking.