[EAS] Interesting zombie artifact (I think)

[Harold Price]

Greg,

I've tracked at least one of this type of report 
back to the source, I've seen many others that are similar.

If the alert shows up in the log as "expired", 
and the dates in the displayed message are for a 
prior day, your device has heard a recording of 
the actual event, played back as part of news, 
commentary, or "funny things this week" broadcast 
on the station you are monitoring.  Check with 
your monitor source, see what they were playing 
at 02/12/13 20:23:17 your local time.  Remind them that part CFR 47 11.45 says:

"No person may transmit or cause to transmit the 
EAS codes or Attention Signal, or a recording or 
simulation thereof, in any circumstance other 
than in an actual National, State or Local Area 
emergency or authorized test of the EAS. 
Broadcast station licensees should also refer to §73.1217 of this chapter."

73.1217 refers to broadcast hoaxes.

Sometimes this is part of a news package that 
comes from upstream, and as a practical matter, 
there is little you can do.  Sometimes, it comes 
from local staff, playing something from You 
Tube.  The latter is something that can be 
locally controlled, and should be part of local training.

Background:

Sometimes, especially with legacy equipment, 
clocks will get out of sync at the sending and 
receiving station, so that the time will be out 
of the capture range of the receiver, which 
starts at the timestamp in the EAS message, and 
runs to timestamp+duration.  The ENDEC reports 
this as either "behind", if it appears to be a 
few days ago, or "ahead" if it appears to be in 
the future - other vendors have other nomenclature.

Sometimes, with newer equipment, either the 
sender or receiver will have their UTC offset 
entered incorrectly, so that the timestamp in the 
message is incorrect, or the timestamp in the 
receiver is interpreted incorrectly.

In these two cases, the call sign in the EAS 
message will be what you expect it to be - the 
call sign (or group id) of your monitor assignment.

In the case where the call sign is something 
else, or the time is off by a day or more, you 
may be hearing a recording of an alert, as I 
suspect is the case for Greg's log.

An ahead or behind log entry (or your vendors 
equivalent), means you should do a little 
investigation to see just what is going on.  For 
properly configured devices, the ahead or behind messages won't get on the air.

[For completeness, in a message that is already 
too long, there are other permutations - you will 
see the call sign you expect if your monitor 
assignment is playing a "best of" recording that 
includes a copy of an EAS message they 
sent.  This will happen if the ENDEC is in-line 
before the recorder.  You will also see the call 
sign you expect if the relay point held the 
message just long enough to be expired when you 
receive it.  Both of these cases occur in the wild from time to time.]

Harold

At 01:47 AM 2/14/2013, Gregory Muir wrote:
>I am throwing this out there as a real curiosity item to the group.
>
>The below event was logged on a Sage machine 
>owned by a radio station that is located in the 
>same town that the original Montana "zombie" 
>television station is located.  It never made it 
>to air due to several strange characteristics to it which I will explain.
>
>First, this message was tagged (tag omitted for 
>respect) as the originator being the original 
>"zombie" television station that made the 
>news.  This ENDEC only monitors the NWS and 
>local LP1 (AM) & 2 (FM) stations, not the source 
>that was tagged. "Monitor 2" is the local LP2 
>which will be discussed about a little more later.
>
>The receive time stamp is one day later than the 
>issue date which is one reason why the ENDEC did 
>not forward the message.  In addition, the 
>counties listed are not part of this ENDECs 
>forwarding counties.  There was no associated 
>audio file stored possibly because the message 
>was expired (not sure about that issue).
>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> 
>  >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> 
> Expired 02/12/13 20:23:17 Local Area Emergency, Received on Monitor 2.
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> 
>  >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> 
> The Civil Authorities have issued a Local Area 
> Emergency for Powell, MT, Broadwater, MT, 
> Jefferson, MT, Lewis and Clark, MT, and 
> Meagher, MT beginning at 2:33 pm Mon Feb 11 and 
> ending at 2:48 pm Mon Feb 11 (Tag omitted for this email)