[EAS] EAS monitoring sources

[Sean Donelan]

On Fri, 26 Aug 2016, Clay Freinwald wrote:
> EAS is divided into two categories -
>
> 1 - National/Federal/Presidential Messages/PEP's etc etc.
>
> This system has (thankfully) never been used.
>
> 2- Everything else (State/County/City etc)
>
> These systems get used all the time....and it's these system that need the
> help.

One of the issues with EAS is there is very little actual data on the use
of EAS at the state/county/city level.  Is it actually getting used
all the time, besides mandatory testing (approximately 1.4 million test 
broadcasts a year)?

The National Weather Service and National Center for Missing and Exploited 
Children have data on the use of EAS for weather and AMBER alerts.

National Weather Service issued over 235,000 weather alerts, about 6,000
via WEA. Unknown how many were re-broadcast by EAS Participants.

According to NCMEC, there were 186 AMBER alerts in 2014 (most recent 
available statistics). Unknown how many were re-broadcast by EAS 
Participants, although there is usually broad participation in AMBER
alerts by major broadcasters in most states.

Its unknown how many non-weather/non-amber alerts are issued by state and 
local officials or re-broadcast by EAS participants.  The FCC stopped
collected even voluntary reports of EAS activations 15 years ago, and a 
survey in 2010 by the Texas Association of Broadcasters showed very little 
use of EAS by state/local officials for non-weather/non-amber alerts.

The most common answers was "no answer", don't know and never.

While it may be a chicken & egg problem, legislatures after ask the 
question "Before we appropriate more money, how has it been used so far?"

Before programming directors complain.  Since a real EAS activation can 
replace a test activation, even if state/local officials used EAS more 
often; they could replace some of those 1.4 million EAS tests annually, 
nation-wide.