[EAS] Analysis of EAS Test Report

[Dave Turnmire]

On 4/23/2013 8:52 AM, Mike McCarthy wrote:
> If Congress were to pass a bill (and the PODUS sign into law) requiring
> the NWS carry EAN's and other non-weather EAS traffic beyond AMBER, this
> whole discussion would be a moot point.
To some degree this would appear to be another example of working on 
local relationships.  In our state, NOAA Weather DOES forward 
non-weather alerts.  I haven't looked at their SAGE's programming myself 
to confirm this, but my understanding is there aren't any exceptions, 
including EAN.  They did require that a bypass switch be part of the 
SAGE installation, so that a problem that adversely affected their NWR 
feed could quickly be dealt with, but I consider that a perfectly 
reasonable precaution.

Unfortunately, we weren't able to test the EAN part during the "national 
test" due to no PEP audio being available in this area at the time 
(since remedied), but we routinely get other types of alerts forwarded 
by them.  I suppose that if the EAN's unique ability to transcend the 
120 second limit became a problem, their staff might throw the bypass 
switch after a period of time.  That would be a matter for their 
judgement in those particular circumstances.

Dave