[EAS] What am I doing wrong?

[Rod Zeigler]

Bill Santiff. WMJS-LP General Manager, Chief Engineer, and Underwriting 
fundraiser...

Mr. Santiff, I believe it was my response to another LPFM to which you 
are referring.
You will find when you have more in-depth EAS experience and networking 
with others across CONUS and OCONUS that each state has its issues with 
which to contend.
I have worked in both Kansas and Nebraska trying to make the State Plans 
work for my particular stations. Each have their weak and strong points 
due to available technology, topology, and demographics. In Nebraska 
particularly, and to which you referred, we have vast areas of the state 
where the human population is outnumbered by cattle at over a thousand 
to one. Since cows have proven to be very poor business managers none 
have been able to create radio stations in those areas. The humans have 
created, through the State of Nebraska, a chain of educational radio and 
TV stations to serve these very sparsely populated areas in the true 
spirit of "public" radio and TV.
Not having a statewide satellite network in Nebraska has also been one 
of the impediments to a second, separate, EAN source to each and every 
EAS participant. Kansas had two of these when I was involved there and 
one or the other of these fed each and every LP1 as a second source. 
LP1's in Nebraska exist only to appease the need to fill such a slot in 
the State Plan. They cannot be reliably heard by each other in a "daisy 
chain" configuration unless we devolve to monitoring them via internet 
streaming. We all know that is not a reliable answer.
The state's PEP station can be heard all over the state (assuming good 
receiver and antenna) during daylight hours. Nighttime hours require it 
to be extremely attenuated to the East to protect WCBS' signal in Ohio. 
I have suggested that the FCC issue an "EAN STA" that would allow all 
PEP stations to switch to non-directional operation during an EAN 
(assuming they are not interfering with another PEP which is something 
NEBA could determine), and have received information that that 
particular situation is very murky, legally speaking. If such an STA 
were allowed, we have a second source immediately and all is well with 
the world.
I know Nevada and other western states have similar issues due to the 
same factors. I personally spent a month attempting to create a second, 
separate, EAN source to every EAS participant in the state, using only 
available, over the air, resources, and found it would work only on an 
absolutely perfect day with a bit of good luck. I cannot in good 
conscience offer a plan that weak. If we are going to stake our well 
being on a communications system, it had better be as robust as humanly 
possible because you are only as good as your back-up plans.

Now we are moving on to create a multi-lingual alerting database over 
the next 18 months.................

-- 
R. V. Zeigler, Dir. of Eng.
Nebraska Rural Radio Assn.
KRVN-KTIC-KNEB-KAMI
Chairman, Ne. SECC
Bd. Member, Nat'l. Emergency Broadcast Assn.
www.krvn.com