[EAS] Should digital audio files be prohibited in CAP?

[Sean Donelan]

On Sat, 10 Mar 2012, Clay Freinwald wrote:
> Again, please think of a TV station or Cable System - If we cannot use TTS,
> then Fred Frump, Emergency Manager, will be forced to create TWO messages,
> one is the Text Message for the Crawl and the other would be the Voice
> Message for the Aural portion of the EAS message.   This requires a great
> deal more time in the message creation mode, often time they simply don't
> have.    EAS does not have to be used as it is only one of the tools in the
> public warning tool-box.  To make it more restrictive or cumbersome, in my
> view, is a step in the wrong direction.

Because text-to-speech was optional in the CAP standards and profiles, a 
station wanting to save money can buy CAP devices without text-to-speech 
support in the CAP box.  The assumption some people seem to be making is 
that all CAP-EAS devices always have text-to-speech support. Some 
manufactures make text to speech support a separate license option.

If Fred Frump, Emergency Manager, doesn't mind that some stations which 
don't buy the TTS license for their CAP devices to save money, will just 
output the EAS data tones without any audio message, he could decide to 
omit the digital audio message.

Another alternative would be to require all CAP devices for EAS
enable text to speech licenses.  That may make some CAP devices more
expensive, and require some people who already bought CAP devices without
TTS support to spend more money.  No commentor has suggested that 
text-to-speech be required in CAP devices for EAS.