[EAS] ETRS Reporting

[Ed Czarnecki]

This raises a number of comments:

>> Why did they use yet another system for reporting? Quite honestly, they
could've used the IPAWS servers as a proxy and made the manufacturers write
into the firmware a "reporting" system. 

Comment:  because reporting is the FCC's jurisdiction and not DHS/FEMAs.
The FCC can't "make" FEMA do anything with their servers.  Nor, frankly,
could they make manufacturers implement additional code/software of this
type without a formal rulemaking.  By the way, remember that it was by and
large the broadcast community that raised concerns of privacy and
information gathering when CAP was first proposed.  As a result, IPAWS
developed a more "passive" architecture that does little information
gathering.  A related consideration is the Federal rules governing
collection and storage of information (particularly private sector
information), something FEMA was not organized to manage at the time.  

>>> Instead of relying on the 13,000 stations to know what they're doing (or
have the staff to do it). 
However, this is exactly what the FCC (not FEMA) is responsible for doing -
collecting information from EAS participants.

>> the 3 days of productivity lost doing the reporting by hand is the
kicker. 
I completely sympathize.  At this point, ETRS and test support is occupying
two full time equivalents in our factory, plus my time.

>> I think that the whole system needs to hire an IT design consultant who
knows how to do mass data ingest and redesign the whole thing if what
they're really after is "complete and utter control". 
I'm not sure what they want is "complete and utter control."  They just want
to know it works, and that EAS Participants are ... well, participating.
Batch filing, for instance, is a bit of a touchy subject.  We were hoping
for true batch filing of test results - however the batch filing process is
still basically spreadsheets requiring manual intervention anyway.   Also,
many of the reporting questions in Form 3 are observational or require
interpretation/investigation/explanation.  Not the kind of responses that
could be automatically generated.  I think that is one additional area of
improvement for the ETRS system. 

-----Original Message-----
From: eas-bounces at radiolists.net [mailto:eas-bounces at radiolists.net] On
Behalf Of Alex Hartman

Why did they use yet another system for reporting? Quite honestly, they
could've used the IPAWS servers as a proxy and made the manufacturers write
into the firmware a "reporting" system. Instead of relying on the 13,000
stations to know what they're doing (or have the staff to do it). So far
i've done about 15 Sage boxes and 2 dasdec's. While setting them up to get