[EAS] ALERT: EAS Device passwords

[Tom Taggart]

We can't loose sight of the need to have the EAS equipment
accessible to the operators.

Yes, I know.  Standard IT practice is to eliminate any
interaction with carbon-based lifeforms.

One of the advantages of the Sage boxes (and probably some
others) is that they can be set up to be accessed through
the station's local network.  The Sage allows the use of two
separate passwords for administrator and operator access.
Easy, then, to set up a bookmark, or even desktop icon so
the operators can access the EAS box through a browser.
Especially helpful for clusters, where different studios may
be live during different day-parts. Also important if the
FCC inspector wanders in & asks the operator to send an RWT.
 Just tell the browser to remember the password, rather than
taping it to the monitor for all the part-timers.

For stations that are live (like one of mine during daytime
hours), the operator can bring up the EAS on a control room
computer and send an RWT. Or, for those rolling alerts we've
talked about that cause "message flooding,"-- use the time
delay function so the live announcer can abort the message &
just read the alert live. We subscribe to Accu-Weather, and
have the weather channel up on a control room TV, so the
announcer usually is already talking about severe weather
coming in before NWS sends its severe thunderstorm alert.

So, before we lock down every thing too tightly, we need to
keep in mind the original purpose of the system.