[EAS] Improving IPAWS and EAS

[Sean Donelan]

On Tue, 10 Jul 2018, Randall Miller wrote:
> Sean, what does 100% compliance mean?
>> Interesting quirk, the Russia funded radio station in Washington, DC
>> has nearly perfect (100%) compliance with EAS tests and alerts.

Just to followup on the question from last month.  I don't actually listen 
to most of the radio stations, so I needed to use the DASDEC which records 
a "snapshot" of the audio before and after an alert.

It sounds like the Russian radio station in Washington DC has the EAS box 
configured for complete automatic operation.  The EAS messages break into 
programaming with zero delay, and the on-air program announcers seem 
oblivious when it returns to normal programming.

It makes for a jarring listening experience, but the Russians haven't 
missed any EAS messages yet.

And since a couple of people asked about the other 15% of stations with 
problems.

That did NOT mean the problems were no EAS. Only 2 Washington DC 
radio/tv stations never seem to transmit a detectable EAS. I don't log 
the audio, so I don't skim all their programming for entire months. I just 
go by over-the-air, I don't have access to their station logs.

The other 9 stations with problems had some kind of EAS, but the EAS was
missing the beginning or ending of the EAS message; or audio was not 
extremely un-undertandable (blended with other programming, overdriven, or 
barely audible). Local TV stations seem to have more problems switching 
EAS audio than radio stations.  By not understandable, I don't mean VHF 
narrowband audio from NOAA. I mean essentially noise or silence.