[EAS] Source of the "scary" text in Suffolk Co

[Sean Donelan]

On Thu, 8 Sep 2016, Ed Czarnecki wrote:
> Yes, but the standard EAS text for the NPT is something along the lines of
> "A National Periodic Test has been issued for:  the United States, effective
> Sept 28, 2017 at 2:00 pm until 2:15 pm."  Pretty harmless stuff for all but
> the most ardent tin foil hat folks.

Agree.  That's part of the reason its important for EM's to carefully 
choose the most appropriate event code, not just use EVI for everything. 
Consider how the choosen event code will appear without the CAP text.

> IMHO having the LP's wait 1 minute to allow for CAP polling is a temporary
> expedient.  It impacts the test conditions - are we testing CAP only?

Now we get to the problem of money.  Primary sources tend to have the 
newest EAS/CAP equipment, and most likely to get the newest software. So 
those States made the choice to implement the delay at the primary level.

Leaf node participants sometimes want to keep using older equipment, or 
can't afford upgrades.  So the dread "backward compability" demand is 
made. nevertheless, it makes sense to put the control at the most local 
level, i.e. at the leaf-node, participating stations and cable systems.

I still don't believe it requires a FCC rule change for EAS equipment 
manufacturers to offer the option for local participants to delay/check 
for a CAP message when it receives an EAS message (except an EAN).  It 
didn't require a FCC rule change for some States to add a 1 minute delay
at its primary stations. I would also agree a triggered CAP poll for an 
EAN probably does require an FCC rule "clarification," if not a change.

There may be some self-synchronization and network congestion concerns. 
With only 27,000 EAS boxes (and only 20,000 actively polling IPAWS), I 
pretty sure that Akamai can easily handle http equests from 20,000 boxes. 
Akamai regularly much larger events.  But some State-leve CAP servers 
might have some capacity issues from a simultaneous triggered CAP poll. 
EAS equipment should include some random jitter in any triggered CAP 
polling.

Also, cue the debate that IP transmission is unrealiable, and we must 
maintain AM Radio for fallback when everything else fails.