[EAS] The Real Cost of Converters

[Tom Spencer]

No, because when converters were being implemented and authorized, no-one had any idea of just how long it might be until all of the requirements would become finalized, and in what form.  It could have been 2115 instead of 2015.   As to the converters themselves...

Again, the FCC specifically mentions "visual information" in the requirement.  Why????  Radio is not a "visual" medium (unless someone is still running a "Visual" brand transmitter somewhere... and if so, how?  But I digress...).

Without TTS, there is no good reason for a radio station to have more than a basic converter.  In fact, some present converters do have the capability to separately output the visual information - as text.  Print to screen in the control room, and the original TTS system - the " 'Uman Brane" can do the conversion.

Of course, this presumes that there is such a device in the control room.........

Meanwhile, as I've mentioned before, I expect this to be revisited long before 2015.

Richard_Rudman wrote:

>Hi, Randy-

>Thanks for your perspective on this. You raise some good arguments.

>Now, here's where the cost/benefit argument of CAP converter devices that we are making is going to take you:

>"However, because we also require that EAS Participants utilize the enhanced text in a CAP message to provide a visual display, as set forth in section 3.6 of the ECIG Implementation Guide, we will require that any intermediary devices provide such functionality by June 30, 2015, which is three years from the June 30, 2012, deadline for overall CAP compliance."

>So, if you have a CAP converter, according to the exiting rules, by 6/30/15 you will have to upgrade to a fully CAP-capable device. To do this you will have to ask the manufacturer of your device if they will build you an upgrade, or buy a whole new CAP EAS box.

>Question for the Group: Would it not have been simpler, easier, better and less expensive in the long run for all EAS broadcast/cable/manufacturing stakeholders for the FCC to have not allowed CAP converters in the first place?

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Tom Spencer