[EAS] Yesterday's CAP RWT

[David Turnmire]

On 10/14/2012 8:52 AM, Mike McCarthy wrote:
> David,
>
> Best practices would recommend stations only forward what they believe
> are relevant to their listeners and per the state and any local plan. No
> more.  Doing so only creates clutter and increases the "cry wolf" effect.
>
Not as a practical matter.  The fact that an Idaho station's box is 
configured to forward a Hurricane or Tsunami warning doesn't add to the 
clutter... we aren't going to get one of those anyway.  Likewise with 
ADR, NIC, NPT, and NMN (at least so far).  We can even configure our 
boxes to forward weather Watches (as opposed to Warnings), even though 
they are NOT authorized in our state plan... and there will still be no 
clutter since our NOAA offices aren't going to originate those anyway 
based upon THEIR policy.  Maybe weather alerts are different in your 
state, but that is how it is here.

And it misses the point regarding such alerts as ADR, NIC, NPT, or NMN.  
A local broadcaster may legally configure his box how ever he/she wishes 
on those... but that doesn't mean his/her audience is well served.  And 
the LECC or SECC can come up with whatever guidance they want... but if 
there isn't a national consensus, then we'll have situations such we 
just experienced in the last few days.... someone suggesting the 
NATIONAL use of a code... such as ADR... when that conflicts with local 
use.

We simply can't function effectively in isolated little islands. Based 
upon hardware/software limitations, for many the practical choice is 
that you forward or don't forward the ADR.  You don't have the option to 
configure your box to forward ADRs from FEMA but not from your local 
CAC.  But note that three of the four event codes I mention above have 
the word "national" in their title.  So perhaps we could agree that 
usage of ADR is restricted to state policy, and the other three are 
dictated by national policy.  That would give states flexibility for 
local needs... but still leaves us with needing to define national policy.

My suggestion is that we don't passively wait on the FCC to deal with 
this.  We might all be dead and buried before this gets dealt with in 
that case.  As Richard indicated, "hence the need for an effective 
broad-based public private EAS stakeholder advisory committee.".  Amen.  
Whether that is BWWG, NAB, SBE, or some combination of those or 
others... it seems to me that we need to identify problem areas such as 
the lack of an agreed upon definition and forwarding policy for those 
four event codes.  We could hash it out on this list and the SBE list, 
then when something resembling a consensus develops, have BWWG, NAB, 
SBE, etc present a united front to the FCC or FEMA with our policy 
recommendations.  My guess is that they'd be more open to adopting a 
proposal if it had gone through that initial vetting process and had 
industry support.  And in any event, while waiting on the FCC for 
regulatory approval, the industry would be in a position to provide a 
"recommended policy" to SECCs, LECCs, and EAS participants.  If the FCC 
later invokes a regulation that is in conflict, so be it... we'll 
adapt.  But right now we just have chaos on such matters.

Dave