[EAS] Fwd: [ChicagolandSkywarn] WEA Enabled Phones to Receive Emergency Messages

[Ed Czarnecki]

Ray - thanks for saying that, but I can only cite what I've been told.  I was on the original FCC committee that drew up the framework for CMAS, but the carriers and FEMA have done their own implementing.  The alert type you received is very interesting.  Are you sure this was via CMAS/WEA, or via a third party app you might have on your smartphone?  (By contrast, I'm in the Wash DC area, and I've received nothing over several smartphones we have ... nada ... via either VZW or ATT).  Which carrier are you using?

 

Anyways, if a "lower priority" advisory like this indeed came via WEA, then it would seem that the system is not being used the way either FEMA or the carriers have been consistently describing it.  So perhaps it was not a WEA alert.  Or perhaps someone along the way goofed and is not adhering to the "rules of engagement" - my understanding was that a wireless carrier would reject such an alert at their gateway, and that FEMA would (should) filter out such an alert from even being presented to the cell carriers.

 

The CMAS alert categories are specified as (quoting from a DHS S&T presentation);

·         Presidential

·         Imminent threat to life and property (e.g., severe weather, HazMat)

·         AMBER Alert/child abduction

 

Ed

 

 

 

From: ray at electronicstheory.com [mailto:ray at electronicstheory.com] 

 

Not that I don't believe you Ed.  I consider you to be an authority on the matter!

My question, however, is this: If they are only to be imminent danger related - how did I just receive yesterday, via my android "smart"phone, an "Orange air quality alert" in the DFW area?  Do they honestly think I'm going to die from the dust particulates in the air? 

 

Ray Dall

RF Engineer & EAS Implementation Engineer

Daystar Television Network