[EAS] IPAWS EAS Feed Notifications (monthly report)

[IPAWS]

EAS Participants,

The EAS RWT report for March is attached.  A description of the document layout can be found in the email chain below.  The only significant change was the RWT for the Chamorro Time Zone was sent on March 19 instead of March 18.  An email was sent notifying the community about this change on Mon 3/18/2013 10:31 AM.

NOTE:
There were a total of 56 EAS messages posted to the IPAWS EAS Feed during the month of March.  36 EAS messages were weekly RWTs sent by FEMA and are reflected in the attached report.  20 EAS messages were posted by state and local emergency management organizations.  These were all either RWT or RMT messages.  We will not be providing reports on state and local EAS messages.  The point of sharing this information is to illustrate that operational users are indeed utilizing their alerting tools and "getting their feet wet".  We anticipate state and local usage to increase as time goes on, and encourage broadcasters to work with their local emergency management organizations to increase awareness of EAS, and to coordinate the issuance of RWTs and RMTs.

v/r
Mark A. Lucero
Chief, IPAWS Engineering
FEMA National Continuity Programs
ipaws at fema.dhs.gov

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From: IPAWS
Cc: 'IPAWS'

EAS Participants,

The purpose of this email is to relay information about regular Required Weekly Tests initiated by FEMA.  The attached report lists all RWT messages FEMA has posted since Jan 1 this year.  You may use the report to correlate RWT messages you have polled from the IPAWS server.  The intent is to help FEMA and EAS participants identify any issues with equipment, communications, configurations, and ultimately make the system better.

The attached report has the following headings:

*         <sender>            This will always be "IPAWS at dhs.gov<mailto:IPAWS at dhs.gov>"

*         <identifier>        This will be of the form "RWT_SDT_1361829902" where SDT is the time zone and 1361829902 is the epoch time

*         <sent>                  This will be of the form "2013-02-25T11:05:02-11:00" where 11:05:02 is the local time (not IPAWS server time)

*         <expires>            This will always be 1 hour after the <sent> time

*         <description>    This will always be "Test Message IPAWS OPEN CAP EAS Feed Configuration Test Message"

*         time zone            This is the local time zone the RWT is intended for

*         FIPS                       These are the FIPS codes the RWT is intended for

If you miss an RWT or cannot confirm connectivity with the IPAWS server, troubleshooting should be conducted from the local box upstream to the FEMA server:

1.       Troubleshoot locally (check the EAS device connection, configuration, local network, internet connectivity, check with ISP)

2.       After exhausting local error possibilities, contact the EAS device vendor

3.       The EAS device vendor should then contact the IPAWS office with specifics

FEMA Enterprise monitoring tools alert us when there are problems with the IPAWS server or network connectivity.  We will make every attempt to notify EAS participants when issues arise and provide updates as issues are addressed.

Finally, we have set up a mailing list (registration link is below) for EAS participants who wish to receive communications directly from FEMA.  We will use this mailing list to send this monthly RWT report, to inform participants of scheduled or unscheduled outages, and other important communications.  I ask that you please forward this link to your peers who are not subscribed to the sbe mailing list so they can be informed as well.

v/r
Mark A. Lucero
Chief, IPAWS Engineering
FEMA National Continuity Programs
ipaws at fema.dhs.gov<mailto:ipaws at fema.dhs.gov>

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(https://public.govdelivery.com/accounts/USDHSFEMA/subscriber/new?topic_id=USDHSFEMA_1009)