[EAS] New EAS NPRM now posted on the EAS Forum Website

[Barry Mishkind]

At 09:17 AM 6/30/2014, Kelly D. Alford wrote:
>Looking up the food chain, station owners nor programmers probably differentiate the roles between CAP and EAS, let alone whatever individual state involvement, when it comes to nationwide bad publicity from blunders like the zombie apocalypse or national testing follies.

        Perhaps one of the major problems
        with the EAS has been the virtual complete
        lack of participation from management
        and programming - aside from saying
        "Get that stuff off my air" and "the
        engineer will handle it."

        As Clay has said, there is a wide range of
        outcomes, if only a little effort is put toward
        doing more than rejecting EAS as a "joke."

        Operationally, sure, it all seems a lot harder
        to non-tech folks. The EAS is more difficult
        than it needs to be, for several reasons. But,
        like programming a computer, while the
        learning curve is sharp, it does get easy with use.

        Again, among the biggest problems with EAS, 
        is the generally total lack of commitment from 
        management and programming - even to the
        point of saying what they would like to have
        the system do. If they gave 1/20 the time and
        attention the tech folks did, we might have
        quite a different rollout and many fewer issues.

        How many managers or programmers do you think
        went to www.theBDR.net/articles/fcc/eas/eas.html
        and read the NPRM? Any of it? (Yes, the FCC seems
        to have moved the URL around a bit on this one, but
        the link on the EAS page works.)

>  They just know, and unfortunately so do their viewers and listeners, a system that we're required to have operational under a federal mandate is, for whatever reason, often ineffective and unreliable.

        And it could be effective and reliable. But not
        if it is left to the tech folks who can make it 
        work alone, but cannot make it effective on 
        their own.