[EAS] [Pubtech] [BC] NWS Status as an EAS Monitoring Source

[Dave Kline]

Due diligence aside (but still know that it is being handled properly here) NWS has always been in a gray area when it comes to EAS. Everyone from station managers to engineers to SECC's have their opinions about what to do with the National Weather Service resources. While there are good reasons outside of any regulations that support those opinions, sometimes you just need the correct answer to a specific question so you can get through the murky, gray waters of NWS as it relates to EAS.

We had a wonderful, though sometimes off-track discussion. Some folks may have even gotten answers to questions they didn't know they needed to ask. My question eventually went to the FCC directly.
They responded with a clear and definitive answer.

I was sometimes frustrated that people went way off-topic to suggest to me how to get around the problem, even though I had not asked for that. In the end however, I was surprised to see how many of us seem to be passionate about the subject. It may be that we were debating a topic that represents something larger. It may be the lack of clarity and resulting confusion caused when we mistake opinion for fact. (That's hardly an issue in modern day America, is it?)

There seems to be a lot of pent up energy when it comes to EAS. You would have thought we'd be over it having just gone through the NPT. But apparently not. The FCC is making changes to EAS in ways we've never seen before. Efforts to standardize how SECC's operate is just one example. This may help in some regards but may also have unintended consequences. When something unintended happens around EAS, it can have a large impact on stations and the communities they serve. I would advise everyone to not just let it stew. Don't wait for someone else to uncork the bottle.

In my multiple dealings with the FCC over the last year and a half or so, I have learned one thing. -It doesn't hurt to ask-. They are real people, not the Wizard asking for the Witches broomstick. If you approach them rationally and logically, if you explain how an issue affects you, or how it impacts others, or possibly all broadcasters, they do listen and they do respond.

Back in the day, many of us knew and interacted with some FCC folks in our area. Times have changed and as a result the commission has to do things differently now, but so do we. Just because there isn't a familiar person who may have visited your station a time or two, or there isn't someone in a nearby area code you could call and ask a question, there are still people who in my experience, will consider your question or concern and get back to you with an answer.

Take some of that pent up energy and direct it towards getting in touch with someone who might be able to help. Don't let it build up in frustration waiting for someone else to ask a question so you can unload everything that's bothered you over the years. Be a little more involved in getting your own answers. In the process, you might find out something you didn't even know you were supposed to know. 

On Tue, Aug 24, 2021 at 1:01 PM Howard Hoyt howard.hoyt at att.net wrote:
Personally, I question if an NWS receiver is a part of the fed's
list of EAS equipment. They specify encoders and decoder and
intermediary equipment, and other associated gear. Is that like
power supplies, without which the above mentioned equipment would
not function. Or does it mean receivers?

Hi all, I am late to this discussion, I hope I am on topic here.

Having discussed this EAS issue with several different University's legal staff, the consensus in both cases was: show due diligence, even if the system has issues you need to be able to show best effort to meet the community's interest.  I'll leave any further legal discussions for others, I took my marching orders from those decisions.  As a result I have put the EAS alerts on all web streams since many (most?) University listeners are local and use their phones, etc. to listen.  If a tornado ripped through town (it has happened) it would be hard to argue with a student's parents (or their lawyers) that their kid was killed because they weren't listening to the FM broadcast, but instead listening online...  I also ensured these stations have two broadcast + NWS monitoring as well as CAP active.

When setting up one station's EAS system I contacted the NC EAS Chairperson who told me that the designated area NWS station was required EAS monitoring for each participant.  The logic being another participating FM or AM being monitored may have set up rules which would not necessarily apply to my customer's station, i.e. an event or location relevant to them.  That makes sense to me having set up both the ENDEC and DASDEC, I know unless one is extremely careful one can miss selecting important event triggers such as Tornado Warning or others...

So unless I am mistaken here, this means in NC at least each station has to monitor at least their LP1 and LP2 and an NWS.

As an aside, one station had no easy way to receive ANY EAS monitored source and the NOAA signal was very weak at their location, so I designed a sleeve-fed 2-element FM / 5-element NOAA Yagi so only a single feedline would be needed from the roof, then I installed inexpensive splitters at the triple EAS receiver.  If anyone has a need for a similar antenna, visit: https://proaudioeng.com/pae-dual-eas7-eas-monitoring-antenna/ or contact me.

Cheers,
Howie

Howard Hoyt
proaudioeng.com

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Dave Kline - Solder Jockey
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