[EAS] FCC NPRM on improving EAS just issued

[Sean Donelan]

On Fri, 29 Jan 2016, Alex Hartman wrote:
> I think i said it when CAP showed up that this was going to kill the 
> traditional EAS daisy-chain system...

In 1994, when EAS replaced EBS, the over-the-air PEP distribution was
the tertiary (third) backup after everything else was knocked out.

EAS was supposed to be an improvement over EBS because it wouldn't
be reliant on a daisy-chain distribution.  In practice, almost all states 
kept the same daisy-chain adding a second LP-2 station in each area.

Later, the FEMA Emergency Action Notification Network and AT&T carrier
orders stopped being funded.  The PEP daisy-chain was the only thing left 
for national alerts, which had never happened.  FEMA is slowly 
re-building, adding more PEP stations and satellite partners.  But 
without a Cold War or fresh disasters, everyone wants to save money.

A few states have replaced their daisy-chain plans.  It all depends
on what you think the likely disasters are, and what is the worst
case disaster.  If the national electrical grid and 80% of the 
broadcasters are gone, several high-powered AM stations is a
decent doomsday plan.  You might even get good reception on the
AM band again.