[EAS] [EAS-WA] Movie trailer potential violation

[Mike McCarthy]

Two issues....one technical, one philosophical,

Technical: Could it be they shifted the tones just enough to not be
decoded by real machines? All it takes is about 2% variation in the
frequency and the databursts would be ignored. I would think that those
stations who are LP's would be hearing from monitoring stations about
those "odd received messages" if that wasn't the case.

Philosophical: On it's face, I agree use of alert tones very close in
composition and/or tonality to the real tones in any manner despite being
altered enought to not be reacted upon is a violation of the rule spirit,
if not the letter. That's plain wrong....

That said, I hear lots of instances where a supposed EBS tone was sent for
an emergency. (Twister is a good example.) But the tones were
significantly altered to make it clear the 835/960 tones were not used. 
The public's awareness of the "This is a test...beeeeeeeeep" is quite well
ingrained regardless of the tones used.

So...the questions of a rules violation run a little deeper than a mere
listening would provide.

MM

> I was wondering about that- saw it air last night and said to my partner
> "That's not right"... can't believe they are using those three 'zap'
> tones!  ~rb
>
> Ruth Brownstein (Training and Operations Mgr.)
> c/o KAOS- 89.3 FM
> Olympia Community RADIO