[EAS] Updating maps of EAS operational areas/Nebraska

[Rod Zeigler]

Regarding Nebraska's single operational area.

Yes, our unapproved 2007 State EAS Plan did have a map of the State 
divided up into "Operational Areas" It was a map that Ne. EMA used for 
their operations and had no real bearing on what the EAS plan was doing. 
It really did not matter since that EAS plan was unworkable on it's face.
Operational Area's are all SLTT functions and not a Federal alerting 
function.
The advent of IPAWS/CAP  for SLTT alerting really helped us in Nebraska 
since we now no longer needed LP's or Operational Areas. Alerts could be 
sent to the County specific level directly to each EAS participant with 
alerting responsibilities in that particular County or Counties. NWS 
already does this so it meshed nicely with IPAWS/CAP. Ne. EMA, NSP, and 
a number of other SLTT authorities in the State have the capability of 
generating IPAWS/CAP alerts.
We kept our SP/SR system since it works well and is the Primary Federal 
alerting assignment. With Sirius/XM, Premiere, NPR and NPWS as Federal 
Secondaries each EAS Participant now has two completely different, 
directly sourced from FEMA, OTA Federal monitoring sources. The FCC 
requires that all Federal level monitoring sources be OTA.
AMBER can be disseminated by the SP/SR, NSP, and NWS so we have all the 
bases covered there. NWS is also a backup to the SP/SR and NSP for SLTT 
alerts should the need arise.
It may look and sound complicated, but it is actually quite elegant and 
has proven to be quite workable. The calls I received after the last NPT 
were from EAS participants that were not monitoring the listed sources 
in the new plan, which shows the fragility of the daisy chain system in 
today's noise filled reality.

-- 
R. V. Zeigler, Dir. of Eng.
Nebraska Rural Radio Assn.
KRVN AM & FM  KAMI
Chairman, Ne. SECC
www.krvn.com