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

[Botterell, Arthur@CalOES]

>But aside from truly next-gen solutions, it's at least worth discussing whether the FSK protocol can be enhanced/replaced with something more efficient, transmitting more data can be >transmitted in-band, with better (or any!) security.  

Why the dismissive attitude toward "next-gen solutions"?  Have half-measures worked out so well for us?

I'd suggest that the in-band approach is in itself problematic.  Is it really desirable that, in order to move an alert at all, we have to interrupt program for everyone?  Would our program directors agree?  How about people in other parts of the listening area?

When an out-of-band RDS signaling scheme was proposed back in '95, AM stations objected that they shouldn't be "cut out" of EAS.  Well, it's twenty years on now, and much has changed (I almost wrote "much has been learned" but I'm less confident on that point.)  Let's face it, being part of the signaling daisy chain maybe isn't such a grand privilege.  Will an audience flock to an AM to listen to the tones?  I think it's the reach and the content before and after the tones that makes the difference.  And who knows, maybe EAS is the killer app for AM HD.

Just sayin'...

Art