[EAS] PEP & KCBS

[Kenyon, Alfred]

Sean's educated guess regarding PEP selection was not too far off. The PEP Concept was extracted from the Final Report of the FCC Emergency Broadcast System Evaluation Task Force, August 1987

The Report described a FEMA and FCC developed proposal to use broadcast stations to serve as the last resort method of EBS transmission. It specified 30 Stations, Based on Location, and Coverage Area, including consideration of nighttime skywave service. The transmitting facility must be located outside the projected "2 psi" blast over pressure zones based on projected nuclear target areas in the US.

Stations could receive EMP protection, physical protection and emergency power
Considered for direct transmission of national level EBS information

Quoting: "If all other transmission paths fail, several of these stations should remain operational..."

The concept called for service to the entire county at some time DURING A 24 HOUR PERIOD. 

The report listed the following stations (as stated in the report):

KHZ CALL KW City and State

540 WGTO 50 Cypress Gardens, FL.
550 WDEV 5 Waterbury, VT.
550 WSAU 5 Wausau, WI.
560 WFRB 5 Frostburg, MO.
640 KGVW 10 Belgrade, MT.
650 WKKQ 10 Nashwauk, MN.
650 WSM 50 Nashville, TN.
670 KBOI 50 Boise, ID.
680 KKYX 50 San Antonio, TX
700 WLW 50 Cincinnati, OH.
710 KEEL 50 Shreveport, LA.
720 KDWN 50 Las Vegas, NV.
740 WLWI 50 Montgomery, AL 
780 KROW 50 Reno, NV.
800 WSVS 5 Crewe, VA.
850 KOA 50 Denver, CO.
880 KRVN 50 Lexington, NE.
920 WPTX 5 Lexington Park, MD.
930 WWNH 5 Rochester, NH.
990 WNYR 5 Rochester, NY.
1020 KBCO 50 Roswell, NM.
1030 KTWO 50 Casper, WY.
1040 WHO 50 Des Moines IA.
1110 WOT 50 Charlotte, NC.
1130 KBMR 10 Bismarck, ND.
1270 WDLA 5 Walton, NY.
1310 WVIP 5 Mt. Kisco, NY
1370 WDEA 5 Ellsworth, ME.
1420 WCOJ 5 Coatesville, PA.

Here I really wish that the list supported images. There was a composite coverage map published in the Report that's quite interesting when compared to contemporary coverage of those same stations. If someone wants to host scans of a few pages from the Report along with a few composite coverage maps please let me know.

In the late 80's FEMA was tasked with creating the Primary Entry Point program. They reached out to many of the licensees in the above list supplemented by a few others. One or two owner told FEMA to "pound sand" (In the words of the FEMA PEP lead Ted DeLozier.) and they moved on to other licensees. 

In 1995, in recognition of broadcast networks migrating from distribution by AT&T to satellite effectively rendering the ability to seize radio networks at the AT&T Long Lines level,  President Clinton signed the "1995 Presidential Statement of Requirements" which eliminated the Emergency Activation Network (aka AT&T) in favor of the PEP system for national alerting.  This simultaneously took PEP from a 24 hour delivery period to 10 minutes. Thus creating a need for daytime fill-in stations. 

Official PEP coverage was based on the reception capability of a average car radio operating in the absence of interference. (Hey, if the grid is down, it does get much quieter. Then you only count hardened surviving RF sources...) The engineers of the PEP Advisory Committee recommended signal specs of 0.5 mV/m for AM groundwave and 50 dBu for FM PEP service contours. With these figures in mind we plotted service contours for the existing PEP stations and then checked Arbitron Markets for existing PEP service starting at market #1 New York, well served by PEP WABC. 

We worked our way down the Arbitron markets recommending new PEP candidates based on 
1) Population gain, non-duplicated, 
2) Site accessibility (A mountain top FM may have a great signal but if you can't get to it...), 
3) Licensee site ownership (That didn't work out too well did it?)
4) Cooperative ownership (That "pound sand" thing.)

Everything was done using standard FCC accepted contour calculation techniques based on official license parameters, M3 ground conductivity, and 30 second terrain data. I performed all the propagation analysis which was then double checked by PEP engineers whose names you would recognize. Then FEMA and PEPAC reached out to station licensees to see if they were willing to participate in the program. 

I have to admit that when I visited one of the recently selected PEP sites for the first time I decided that I must have been out of my mind. The signal was great, as predicted, the facility was neat, but it was a bit of a broadcast museum in operation. The operator turned out to be an excellent asset to the program but I had my doubts when I was sitting in the TX parking area. 

That's the story behind Suzanne's comment about a Maine market qualifying for a PEP.

Regards,

Al Kenyon
Customer Support Branch Chief | IPAWS | NCP
Office: 202-212-3308 | Mobile: 202-538-4471
Alfred.Kenyon at fema.dhs.gov

Federal Emergency Management Agency
fema.gov