[EAS] 2019 EAS National Periodic Test -- The Good. The Bad. The Ugly.

[Sean Donelan]

On Thu, 22 Aug 2019, Dale Lamm wrote:
> RE: the attention tone removal... Our operational area went through 
> this a few years ago. The solution was a Sage firmware update to version 
> 89.2 or better, and careful adjustment of the attention threshold 
> setting inside the configuration file.

Thanks. This is not limited to Sage. The attention tone detection affects 
DASDEC, Trilithic and likely other EAS manufacturers.

I've noticed that almost all of the stations in DC, regardless of EAS 
manufacturer, tend to have double attention tones during the same month. 
And other months, they don't.  The common source is the audio processor at 
the local primary (WTOP). That doesn't mean WTOP is at fault, as I said in 
the previous message, commercial stations configure their audio processor 
based on their commercial programming -- not EAS. No problems decoding the 
AFSK data bursts.

I assume Sage, Dasdec, Trilithic, and Gorman Redlich detect the 
attention tone in the lab as stated in the EAS rules. But how much 
variance in the real world, without missing the audio message, is 
expected?