[EAS] Fire

[Botterell, Arthur@CalOES]

What you said, Sean!

I was down in Pasadena at a workshop last week (on earthquake early warning, as it happened) and heard an emergency manager at NBC Universal talk about some experiments they've been doing with staff notification.  One exercise involved using the EAS two-tone as an attention signal over their MotoTurbo LMR system.  Turned out some artifacts of the MT codec made the two tone hard to hear.  So they switched to something that uses quick audio sweeps... it sounded a lot like this:  < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jM4gPCLzLO8 >.

That example is of the Australian "Standard Emergency Warning Signal" (SEWS)... which is an interesting thing.  Back in the 70s the Australian Bureau of Meteorology adopted that "sounder" for tropical cyclone warnings, and since then it's been adopted across threats and across media as the common signal that emergency information follows.  They use it in broadcast, over the telephone, over PA systems, in the same way that the EAS two-tone has been adopted for WEA here in the States.  (Read more about SEWS at <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Emergency_Warning_Signal>.)

So a couple of things.  SEWS seems to meet the needs of different ears, possibly better than the static two-tone.  It also works faster... you only need one or two seconds for recognition.  No need to drone on for eight seconds... which certainly was better than the 30-second two-tone of EBS but still seems like an eternity to many modern ears.

Indeed I wonder whether that some of the "EAS flooding" events we complain about might be less painful if EAS dispensed with the legacy two-tone and simply used the "duck farts" as the attention signal.  And I suspect that usability testing might reveal that the Aussies have got something right with SEWS.

There will doubtless be those who fear to lose whatever brand-equity they think there may be in the two-tone.  My own comment would be that when you're in a hole the first step is to stop digging.

Art
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From: eas-bounces at radiolists.net <eas-bounces at radiolists.net> on behalf of Sean Donelan <sean at donelan.com>

[snip]

The most difficult thing is to change the old-timer culture, who grew up
with those sounds; that those sounds aren't set in stone.

If using a clean sheet redesign of a public alert and warning system, I
wouldn't start with AM radio and in-band signalling. I would start by
working on a better public user interface for alerts and "closed circuit"
distribution to mass media outlets.  Closed circuit doesn't mean separate
physical channels. With digital transmission its easier to multiplex
channels over OTA Digital TV, satellite, internet, etc.

For narrowband AM radio, lets downgrade the alert message (no pictures,
talk radio audio) when necessary instead of limiting the entire system to
AM radio.