[EAS] CAP EAS Logging Question

[Dave Turnmire]

My observation is that decoders often DO treat CAP alerts differently 
than RF based alerts.  How much differently, depends on the box.  Lots 
of eccentricities on the fine points like... are duplicate alerts logged 
or ignored?

That being said, Idaho uses MyStateUSA for its CAP server.  We have RWTs 
on that system initiated by both a state level entity... with "All 
Idaho" FIPS codes (and a few counties in neighboring states). And we 
have RWTs that are generated by regional CACs with just the county FIPS 
codes that are germane to their normal responsibilities.  And if I'm 
triggering an RWT to assist a broadcaster in configuring their CAP 
decoder, I usually specify just the county they are in to minimize how 
many people in the state have it show up on their logs.

As for the receiving end... I have a DASDEC at my office and it is only 
logging RWTs for the FIPS codes that I care about.  In its case, it is 
somewhat of a two-step process, as there are two stages of 
"filtering"... the part that controls what gets forwarded and an earlier 
filter stage on the "CAP Interface" (that portion of the software).  
So... given my responsibilities on our SECC... I configure the "CAP 
interface" to pass any thing in Idaho (most of which in our case are 
"state wide" anyway).  That causes it to show up in my log even if it 
doesn't get forwarded to my viewers.  If not for my SECC 
responsibilities, I'd configure it to block everything from my log that 
is outside my viewer area.  If I'm a "gluten for punishment", there is a 
separate "under the hood" log I don't normally refer to that includes 
details on all of the alerts and whether they were blocked, etc.

I have had limited contact with TFT converter box and as I recall, you 
can configure it to not send alerts to your attached decoder based upon 
FIPS codes.  Which is good, because otherwise your log fills up with 
IPAWS RWTs for every time zone, plus everything else in the country you 
don't care about.  Heaven help you if you are still printing logs to 
paper in that case! :)

I have had less contact with the SAGE lately, so I'm not familiar with 
its eccentricities regarding logging of CAP alerts.  I just remember 
that in the pre-CAP days, you could configure the "filters" to ignore an 
alert entirely, or to just log it, or to forward it, etc.  Hopefully 
that applies to alerts received via CAP.

So... in short, I'd recommend coming up with an organized plan for your 
state regarding the various RWTs originated on your CAP server and which 
counties they should include.  It is up to you as to whether you 
schedule them.  In Idaho, a couple are scheduled and the others are 
random.  I believe there is an argument for both scenarios 
(predictability vs maximizing training, etc).  As such RWTs aren't 
normally aired on broadcast space (I realize some broadcasters choose 
to), they are generally "harmless", other than making the logs longer.

Dave