[EAS] Yesterday's CAP RWT

[Dave Turnmire]

On 10/11/2012 9:12 AM, Amy Sebring wrote:
> An alternative is to encourage FEMA IPAWS to use the NMN event code
> (Network Message Notification) to provide alerts to EAS participants
> regarding IPAWS system status, e.g. planned outages, etc. and possibly
> the NPT event code (National Periodic Test) in lieu of RWT.
>
The difficulty I have with NMN, ADR, or any of those types of event 
codes... is that their meaning is not well understood within the 
broadcast community, nor is their any generally agreed upon guidance on 
critical issues like whether they should be forwarded.  As close as I 
have personally run across, is a NOAA Weather document (appendix C of 
http://www.nws.noaa.gov/directives/sym/pd01005018curr.pdf).

In the case of NMN, it says "Not yet defined and not in suite of 
products for relay by NWS."   Obviously not very helpful!  ADR is 
better:  "A non-emergency message providing updated information about an 
event in progress, an event that has expired or concluded early, 
pre-event preparation or mitigation activities, post-event recovery 
operations, or other administrative matters pertaining to the Emergency 
Alert System. "  Yet that still doesn't explicitly state whether it is 
to be forwarded or not, and a reasonable person reading that description 
might interpret that as useful info for the general public... and thus 
should be forwarded.

Some broadcasters get very explicit in configuring their boxes to handle 
different alerts in different fashions.  Others essentially say forward 
EVERYTHING except RWTs, because that is quick and easy and in reality 
there are few alerts in their area anyway.  And many have boxes that do 
NOT ALLOW much flexibility in handling event codes.

The bottom line is that you simply can't assume that either the NMN or 
the ADR will be non-disruptive to the air-space of many broadcasters 
(and cable companies).  Personally, I'd like to see a industry consensus 
reached on the meaning of many of these non-weather event codes so we 
can make more effective use of them. But for now... RWT is the only type 
of alert that we have a reasonable expectation that it will NOT be 
forwarded.  If a particular station chooses to configure their box in an 
obviously non-traditional way (and yes, I have seen that done), then it 
is their choice to live with the consequences.

Dave