[EAS] ESPN Does it Again

[Dave Kline]

The question then being, how much shift is enough?

As I recall, it seems the FCC is concerned that someone listening or watching mistakes the tone for an actual alert. That's highly subjective. In the same way they allow individual communities to define what is profanity and what isn't, it seems that what might be mistaken for an actual alert is up to the individual hearing it. Of course, the FCC deciding how any individual will react is also very subjective.
Hopefully, any NAL issued regarding this will have originated because an individual complained that they thought they were hearing a real alert, and not just because the FCC heard it.

Could you use recording of things like a siren or modem tones to put in place of EAS tones/duckfarts?
Would documenting the original source of these sound effects provide enough proof to the FCC that you did not use any EAS signals? Would this avoid one from getting in trouble?

Maybe producers should send emails to the FCC with audio clips of the proposed sound effects, asking for their blessing to use in place of real EAS alerting signals. They should include that no response will be considered permission to use the effects.
Get a few hundred (or thousand) of those emails going and maybe the commish will apply some grease to quiet the squeak?

On Wed, Aug 18, 2021 at 1:01 PM Bill Ruck ruck at lns.com wrote:
If I were asked to add the tones to "entertainment" programming I'd
pitch shift them enough so that they would not be the specified
frequencies.  And carefully document that in case the Funny Candy
Company asks.

Bill Ruck
Curmudgeon
San Francisco

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Dave Kline - Solder Jockey
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