[EAS] ALL state FIPS CODE

[Sean Donelan]

On Sun, 28 Sep 2014, Alan Alsobrook wrote:
> If they are considering officially making an "All USA" FIPS code, were
> all State FIPS codes also in the works?
>
> Currently even though many boxes will respond to a 0XX000 code, it's not
> a officially valid code..

The county code (PSSCCC) of "0xx000" as the entire state or territory was 
already defined as an offical code, since the first Part 11 was published.

   11.31(c)
     PSSCCC--This the Location code and indicates the geographic area
     affected by the EAS alert. There may be 31 Location codes in an EAS
     alert. The Location code uses the Federal Information Processing
     Standard (FIPS) numbers as described by the U.S. Department of
     Commerce in National Institute of Standards and Technology
     publication FIPS PUB 6-4. Each state is assigned an SS number as
     specified in paragraph (f) of this section. Each county and some
     cities are assigned a CCC number. A CCC number of 000 refers to an
     entire State or Territory.

However, different vendor interfaces have interpreted the specification 
differently.

Some vendors require "0xx000" to be explicitly listed as a seperate code
when programming the EAS box, other vendors implicitly match the entire 
state code "0xx000" if any part of a state or territory is listed in the 
programming.  The NOAA WRSAME documentation includes an appendix about 
this, but the FCC did not include that appendix in the EAS Part 11 rules. 
This left vendors (and EAS users) in the unfortunate position of trying 
reconcile FCC, FEMA and NOAA conflicts.