[EAS] Rescheduling Monthly Tests to avoid major national news

[Sean Donelan]

Several state EAS plans include language similar to the following:

   "In addition, the times of major events are recommended to
be avoided, such as: pre-planned Presidential speeches, hours of a major 
national or local news story carried outside of normal newscast hours, 
local and national election coverage, and major sporting events like World
Series games and the Superbowl."

There are relatively few news or sporting events carried on all major 
broadcast TV networks, cable news channels and some news radio networks 
live. The House impeachment investigation hearings were carried live 
today.

I saw a spike in people complaining about EAS monthly tests during today's 
hearings.  Especially aggravating for some people were cable TV system 
set-top boxes which locked up for 5 to 10 minutes across all the channels 
during the hearing.

   - Arizona
   - Ohio (9:45am but with a 1 hour duration, which broke into opening 
statements of the hearing on some cable, radio, TV)
   - Parts of Florida

Nevada conducted their monthly test after the hearings were over for the 
day, and there appeared to be few (no) compliants in Nevada.

Did any SECC/LECC think about changing RMTs to before or after the 
national news coverage hours?

Are cable systems ever going to fix their set-top boxes locking up during 
EAS messages for 10+ minutes, or improve selective digital channel 
override?

Cable Customer Service Reps give laughable excuses, i.e. blaming FCC, for 
problems with their testing. Not to pick on one, but Spectrum Cable 
CSRs seemed to be overly respresented with broken set-tops.