[EAS] Overlap/monitoring issue

[Dale Lamm]

The question of messages that were simply logged when they should have
been transmitted came up at our LP station in April 2013 during a very
busy thunderstorm event. I had a productive e-mail chat with Sage
support, and obtained an understanding of the situation.

Some things which came out of the discussion (if my notes are correct!)
were that:

A message being relayed out the audio ports will not be interrupted by a
later message unless the second message happens to be an EAN.

Messages sitting in memory waiting for a timed delay to expire will
clash with later arriving messages having the same priority filter value
(which you are in control of).

CAP alerts do not sit in the audio memory. They will be queued and
played in the order received.

I sincerely hope this info is 100% accurate, as I don't wish to spread
mis-information. It was taken from my notes. I've consistently been
pleased with the quality of response I receive from the Sage support
group.

The events which caused "logged but not transmitted" messages were
multiple rapid-fire weather alerts containing nearly the same
information. A severe weather alert would sit in the timed relay buffer
till our jock could integrate it into the programming (and pre-announce
the special weather bulletin). Once it began playing out, it would
happen that a second similar alert would arrive. The new one would be
downgraded to "log only" status.

NWS can be a contributor to this problem. We sometimes deal with weather
messages which nearly fill the two minute buffer. A two-sentence warning
may be followed by 12 sentences of useful information on how to act in a
storm, where to seek shelter, etc. While all of this is playing out over
the air, other messages are arriving and being relegated to "log only".
If you monitor more than one NWS transmitter, you are exposing yourself
to more of this type of problem. We have suggested changes in NWS
procedures, communicating through the Ohio SECC. Perhaps a firmware
enhancement (and maybe more audio memory?) in the ENDEC is the ultimate
solution.

Dale