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FAIL: First nationwide EAS test
November 9, 2011 at 19:46
TV stations across the nation each handled the EAS test differently, with some opting to voluntarily suspend programming with informative test screens.
The first nationwide test of the Emergency Alert System (EAS) occurred today at 2:00 PM EST. While we wait for the final word from broadcasters and cable companies and the subsequent compiled report from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), anecdotal reports are streaming in online from across the nation with mixed reports of the effectiveness of the test, with many TV viewers and radio listeners reporting that the media outlet they were tuned to either failed to deliver the entire test message (both on-screen textual data as well as audio) or failed to switch to alert mode at all. DirecTV viewers claim to have heard pop music instead of a test message, while others (including me) had a very difficult time getting TiVo and other DVRs to tune back to regular programming after the “end of message” tones.
According to CNN, viewers in major markets like New York, Washington, Atlanta and California all reported failures. In Rhode Island I have first-hand reports from individuals tuned to WWLI-FM, the primary EAS station for Providence, who heard static and garbled audio followed by some discernible voices exclaiming “Jesus Christ, this isn’t working!” It is unknown if these voices originated at WWLI or from another station “upstream” in the EAS chain.
As far as Full Channel’s participation, it receives its primary information from WWLI-FM and passed exactly what was broadcast over FM on every analog channel and force-tuned digital set-top receiver (customers watching on digital set-tops are automatically tuned to analog version of TV Guide channel to ensure the message is received properly from the analog-based EAS system). Given that the audio channel was garbled, the system’s receiver was unable to decode the digital message normally encoded in WWLI’s broadcast.
In Santa Barbara, I was tuned to cable, over-the-air digital TV as well as three radio stations. All five outlets broke programming at some point a few minutes after 11:00 AM PST with KVMM-CD (a digital Class A TV station on channel 41) passing the on-screen textual message apparently as intended with information indicating that it had received the alert from KRUZ-FM. KEYT-TV, viewed through cable, broke programming with its own branded slate, but apparently did not pass any textual message from EAS on-screen.
On the radio side of things, I was monitoring KCSB-FM, KTYD-FM, as well as KCLU’s Santa Barbara translator K272DT. All three stations broke programming at different times, with KCSB being the first (in fact the DJs were talking about the test in the minutes leading up to it in anticipation). KCSB’s alert audio was garbled and static-filled. By the time KTYD and KCLU had activated their alerts, KCSB was returning to regular programming. All three stations appeared to pass poor quality low audio alerts along with static.
Although the FCC has scoffed at the idea that this test was a failure, saying that it was intended to uncover and address weaknesses in the system, it is discouraging that it took 50 years since the inception of the post-WWII CONELRAD system to coordinate the first nationwide test (albeit without the next generation CAP compliance yet) of broadcast media just as the once-ubiquitious stations themselves are stepping aside to make room for broadband and digital mobile technologies which are left out of the EAS loop altogether. It would seem that following this schedule, we will have the EAS problem licked just in time for the advent of telepathic entertainment!
