[EAS] Yesterday's CAP RWT

[David Turnmire]

On 10/11/2012 8:19 AM, Adrienne Abbott wrote:

>The issue is not the test itself but documentation. If a test is sent and doesn't show up on your equipment you have to document that you didn't get the test and why as well as what you are doing to fix the problem. A report from FEMA every week on what tests were sent would be most helpful.

>If FEMA sends an RWT to just the states in the Eastern Time zone it would not show up in other time zones and probably would not need to be logged. However, thats just my feeling. FEMA is a national organization. It would be nice to hear from the FCC on this.

>Adrienne

With all do respect, I don't believe that is accurate.  We are required to receive A (as in one) alert (typically RWT, but not necessarily) from each of our assigned monitoring sources EACH week.  If we fail to receive ONE, we are required to determine why and document that... and rectify it if the problem is was on our end.  We are NOT required to know about, much less document, every attempt by one of our monitoring sources to send an RWT to who knows where with who knows what results.  Our equipment is going to log it (and perhaps email/text us if we so desire) if it successfully makes it to us in any event.  But as long as we get at least one that week, we know that our equipment was working (at that time anyway)... and we have satisfied the FCC requirement.

In short, as long as SOME TIME during the week, we get an RWT (or other alert for that matter) from IPAWS and document that, we have satisfied the requirements.  It is nice when RWTs are scheduled so we know when to expect them... and know quicker when there is a problem.  It is especially handy with legacy distribution methods because it provides an opportunity to verify audio levels, etc in real time.  Broadcasters sources initiate their RWTs at random times, so we don't have that opportunity. 

In my state, we are working with our CAP server provider to setup an automated/pre-scheduled RWT so that EAS participants have a guaranteed time they can expect an RWT to verify they have everything setup correctly.  As we all know, not all engineers have the same degree of IT skills and not all EAS decoders are as obvious as some about connectivity problems, so having a predictable RWT to work with is important IMHO.  Our primary CAC already initiates a scheduled RWT on our legacy State Relay Network.  But we also encourage all of our CACs to initiate RWTs whenever they feel like (with voice message) as a "harmless" (to broadcast air-space) means to train their staff on various shifts.  And we have seldom received nor requested notification (pre or post) about these "random" RWTs.

Dave