[EAS] EAN redux - FEMA

[Sean Donelan]

On Wed, 13 Jan 2021, Rod Zeigler wrote:
> Maybe I missed something, but why would any reasonable broadcaster even 
> consider aborting an EAN?

Murphy's law - Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.

I can recall at least three times an EAN error required broadcast 
stations implement recovery steps.  Some stations did it better than 
others.

In 2005, when I was writing an RFP for EAS boxes for an IPTV provider, one 
of my "mandatory" features was the ability to abort EAS and EAN messages 
from the central IPTV NOC. And return to normal operations. I objected to 
needing to send a field person to each EAS box to reset it.  It had 
nothing to do with any particular administration or individual.

That was also my first experience with FCC staff refusing to answer any 
questions about EAS operations. The FCC staff told me to talk to our 
lawyers (who are lawyers, not engineers).

I view it as just proper operation contingency planning.