[EAS] FEMA Announces Addition of Premiere Networks as PEPStation

[Fletcher @ UWyo.Edu]

Technically "national" PEPs exist in several forms.  NPR is a
PEP.  They forward FEMA alerts on their "Squawk" channel.
Anyone owning an IDC SR2000, 2103, 4104, for instance
hooked to a dish pointed at Galaxy 16 can get the Squawk
audio.

My station takes it's PEP feed from NPR off Galaxy 16 (KOA
and KTWO-AM are not receivable because of noise levels).
We relay the NPR PEP EAS via our Galaxy 17 Ku uplink (which
we operate ourselves) to our 21 stations around the state.
Any agency could take the same NPR squawk directly, or
they could use the same receivers mentioned above to
receive our Ku downlink and have only one additional Sage
in the chain.   Any other network doing something similar
would essentially be a relay.  There have to be a few, both
radio or video.

Our flagship station is an LP-1, but we are functioning as a
defacto relay for any stations monitoring our network.
This creates a second PEP source for most areas of the state,
and a sole source for some.  This became evident during the
Nov. 9th test when a number of stations around the state
reportedly got the EAN from us instead of other terrestrial
sources.  It is discussed as an option in the state EAS plan.

On 5/2/2013 11:49 AM, Jim McKinnon wrote:
>Regarding this announcement by FEMA, how does the availability of a "nation-wide" PEP station fit into state, regional or local plans, if a Premier affiliate is not an LP-1, or SR? Does an affiliate station have the option or mandate to take an alert from Premier rather than their local monitoring assignment? Jim McKinnon

On 2 May 2013 13:09:11, Gary Glaenzer wrote:
>Hello Kevin; I believe that Tom (and he can correct me if I am in error) was proposing Dish and Direct as back-ups to the FEMA-Premier PEP. The more, the better, in other words. Regards, Gary

Most stations I know of don't monitor backup sources mostly
due to there being so few that they have no choice.  I know of
one instance of a station that is so isolated by terrain that they
have a waiver to take our network station as an LP-1.  They
simply can't receive the LP-1 for their area.  Another station
has such high AM band noise they can't get KOA from Denver.
They also got the Nov 9th EAN from us.

It would be interesting to know what resources an entity needs
to have to become a PEP.

__Reid__