[EAS] Riddle me this...

[Sean Donelan]

As a meta-discussion, the proper configuration of "local area" and RWTs 
is always a great debate without resolution.

Argument #1: RWT should ONLY match the expected local EAS area to detect 
misconfigured EAS monitoring sources, i.e. which don't include your 
local area. This forces an "error"  for misconfigured monitoring 
sources requiring someone to do work to fix. But may create FCC inspector 
log problems.

Argument #2: RWT should log everything received so you get ALL test 
messages and never have a "missing" on your FCC log.  This hides 
some configuration errors which may not be apparent until a crisis, but 
avoids the dreaded FCC inspector log problem.  Since RWTs are log-only, 
its not a problem to overlog and the engineer can check later for wrong 
FIPS codes.

For a careful engineer, it doesn't matter because a careful engineer will 
always ensure everything is correct. I'm a defensive engineer, and assume 
something will go wrong anyway.

Last time FEMA sent a RWT with 000000, some people reconfigured their EAS 
boxes to include 000000 for RWTs.  They then sent their own RWT including 
000000 by accident.  If you add 000000 to your RWT, make certain its for 
logging RWT received -- not used for sendig RWT.

I have my opinion, but the other argument is valid too.

On Tue, 25 Sep 2018, Sid Schweiger wrote:
> The Sage boxes which didn't receive the CAP notice all had a filter for 
> the RWT, set to "Local Area."  That has been changed to "All Locations." 
> Hopefully that will take care of the problem next time around.