[EAS] Handle SQW code

[Alan Jurison]

While many broadcasters including myself are not a huge fan of SQW for EAS because we come from the land of endless snow and they have been overplayed by the regional NOAA/NWS WFOs much to the ire of everyone with a cellphone having WEA go off even in the middle of the night for them for what we consider daily occurrences/non-events. (In fairness, the WFOs have received a lot of feedback and dialed back the frequency of which they send them by raising the alert criteria and awareness).
 
I can understand some regions SQW is more of a rarity, and could be helpful.  For places where it is overplayed, a broadcaster could just filter them out to log only events.

Rather than have each manufacturer or station do something different to handle this, it probably makes sense to align SQW (and any other gaps between SAME and EAS).
 
My recommendation would be to wait until one of the next EAS / Emergency Alerting FCC dockets has an open comment period (which may be awhile), perhaps you could get a group of interested parties to file a petition for rulemaking, keeping it simple, and ask for SQW to be formally added to the EAS list. 

Probably the latter would be the quickest method to get that to happen, as the pending FCC dockets on emergency alerting are involved... A simple petition for SQW (and anything else that is missing), with no deadline for implementation would probably gain broad support.  Provided it doesn't get folded into the other open dockets, could be a quick win for everyone involved.  I think the current administration would be in favor of a quick win.

And perhaps some communications/advocacy with NOAA/NWS to make sure that any future new codes for SAME are coordinated with EAS.
 
Regards,
 
Alan