Emergency Alert System
Encyclopedia
The Emergency Alert System (EAS) is a national warning system in the United States
put into place on January 1, 1997, when it superseded the Emergency Broadcast System
(EBS), which itself had superseded the CONELRAD System
. In addition to alerting the public of local weather emergencies such as tornadoes and flash floods, the official EAS is designed to enable the President of the United States
to speak to the United States within 10 minutes, but the nationwide federal EAS has never been activated. A national EAS test was conducted on November 9, 2011 at 2pm Eastern Standard Time. The EAS regulations and standards are governed by the Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau of the FCC. Each state and several territories have their own EAS plan. EAS has become part of IPAWS - the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System, a program of Federal Emergency Management Agency
(FEMA). EAS is jointly coordinated by FEMA, the Federal Communications Commission
(FCC), and the National Weather Service
(NOAA/NWS).
The EAS is used on AM
, FM
and Land Mobile Radio Service
, as well as VHF, UHF
and cable
television
including low-power stations. Digital television
and cable
providers, along with Sirius
XM
satellite radio, IBOC, DAB
and digital radio
broadcasters have been required to participate in the EAS since December 31, 2006. DirecTV
, Dish Network
and all other DBS
providers have been required to participate since May 31, 2007.
header
, an attention signal, an audio announcement, and a digitally encoded end-of-message marker.
The is the most critical part of the EAS design. It contains information about who originated the alert (the President
, state or local authorities, the National Weather Service
(NOAA/NWS), or the broadcaster), a short, general description of the event (tornado, flood, severe thunderstorm), the areas affected (up to 32 counties or states), the expected duration of the event (in minutes), the date and time it was issued (in UTC), and an identification of the originating station. (See SAME
for a complete breakdown of the header.)
More than thirty radio stations are designated as National Primary Stations in the Primary Entry Point (PEP) System to distribute Presidential messages to other broadcast stations and cable systems. The Emergency Action Notification is the notice to broadcasters that the President of the United States or his designee will deliver a message over the EAS via the PEP system.
Alert System," acts as an emergency presidential link into the EAS, and is capable of phone patches. The FNARS net control station is located at the Mount Weather Emergency Operations Center.
article (correction printed January 3, 2002) "No president has ever used the current [EAS] system or its technical predecessors in the last 50 years, despite the Soviet missile crisis, a presidential assassination, the Oklahoma City bombing
, major earthquakes and three recent high-alert terrorist warnings... Michael K. Powell, the then chairman of the Federal Communications Commission
, which oversees the Emergency Alert System, pointed to 'the ubiquitous media environment,' arguing that the system was, in effect, scooped by CNN
, MSNBC
, Fox News Channel
and other channels... [FEMA] activates the alert system nationally at the behest of the White House on 34 50,000-watt stations that reach 98 percent of Americans... Beyond that, the current EAS signal is an audio message only—which pre-empts all programming—so that viewers who were watching color images of the trade center on Sept. 11 would have been able to see only a screen with a generic text message along with a presidential voice-over, if an emergency message had been activated."
The Federal Communications System EAS TV Handbook - 2007 does not include any sort of visual element. Under the SAME protocol, precise emergency information would be delivered aurally.
The SAME header bursts are followed by an which lasts between eight and 25 seconds, depending on the originating station. The tone is on a NOAA Weather Radio
(NOAA/NWS) station, while on commercial broadcast stations, it consists of a "two tone" combination of 853 Hz and 960 Hz sine wave
s and is the same attention signal used by the older Emergency Broadcast System
. The "two tone" system is no longer required as of 1998 and is to be used only for audio alerts before EAS messages. Like the EBS, the attention signal is followed by a voice message describing the details of the alert.
The message ends with three bursts of the AFSK "EOM", or End of Message
, which is the text NNNN, preceded each time by the binary
10101011 calibration.
The White House endorsed the migration to the Common Alerting Protocol
(CAP) in a presidential initiative, and FEMA is in the process of testing implementation.
Stations are required by federal law to keep logs of all received required monthly test, required weekly test, emergency action notification, and emergency action termination messages. Logs may be kept by hand but are usually kept automatically by a small receipt printer in the encoder/decoder unit. Logs may also be kept electronically inside the unit as long as there is access to an external printer or method to transfer them to a personal computer
. While only the four aforementioned events are required by federal law to be logged, most stations log all received activations.
In addition to the audio messages transmitted by radio stations, television stations must also transmit a visual message. A text "crawl" is displayed at the top of the screen that contains all of the information encoded in the initial SAME header. A color coded "crawl" system is often used where the color signifies the priority of the message. Some television stations transmit only the visual message which is outside of the requirements. A television station may be used for monitoring by another station and thus the audio is necessary.
Participating stations are required by federal law to relay EAN (Emergency Action Notification) and EAT (Emergency Action Termination) messages immediately (47 CFR Part 11.54). Stations traditionally have been allowed to opt out of relaying other alerts such as severe weather, and child abduction
emergencies (AMBER Alert
s) if they so choose. Under new rules published on July 12, 2007, the FCC intends to require all stations to relay state and local alerts that are approved by their states' governors (pending approval of the CAP
standard).
Non-participating stations do not relay messages. Instead they transmit a message instructing listeners/viewers to tune to another station for the information, and they must then suspend their operation.
Required monthly tests (RMTs) are generally originated by the primary relay station, a state emergency management agency, or by the National Weather Service (NOAA/NWS) and are then relayed by broadcast and cable stations. RMTs must be performed between 8:30 a.m. and local sunset during odd numbered months, and local sunset to 8:30AM for even months. Received monthly tests must be re-transmitted within 60 minutes from receipt. Additionally, an RMT should not be scheduled or conducted during an event of great importance such as a pre-announced Presidential speech, coverage of a national/local election, major local or national news coverage outside regularly scheduled newscast hours or a major sporting event such as the Olympic Games
, the FIFA World Cup
, the Super Bowl
, the Stanley Cup Finals
, the NBA Finals
, the MLS Cup
, WrestleMania
, the World Series
, or the Daytona 500
as mentioned in individual EAS state plans.
On November 9, 2011, after the national test was attempted, stations began calling in saying that some of their receivers weren't able to relay the test, or some just didn't get the test at all; DirecTV
users reported even hearing Lady Gaga
's "Paparazzi
" throughout the test. As of November 9, 2011, the FCC is still collecting data, however, it is clear that not every station in the US received or relayed the alert. The message, according to some, also lacked the alert code which would allow the President to speak. For this reason, the test was cut down to 30 seconds rather than the proposed 3 minutes. A similar test of the National EAS was carried out in January 2010, but operations were limited to the state of Alaska
. That test was carried out flawlessly.
). Since then, several classes of non-weather emergencies have been added, including, in most states, the AMBER Alert
System for child abduction emergencies.
In 2004, the FCC issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking seeking comment on whether EAS in its present form is the most effective mechanism for warning the American public of an emergency and, if not, on how EAS can be improved, such as mandatory text messages to cellphones, regardless of subscription. As noted above, rules implemented by the FCC on July 12, 2007 provisionally endorse replacing the SAME protocol with CAP and allow governors to compel universal activation of the system within their own states.
On February 3, 2011, the FCC announced plans and procedures for national EAS tests, which will involve all television and radio stations connected to the EAS system, as well as all cable and satellite services in the United States. It will not be relayed on the NOAA Weather Radio (NOAA/NWS) network as it is an initiation-only network and does not receive messages from the PEP network. The national test will transmit and relay an EAS test message from the White House. This protocol was first used in the first national test of the EAS, conducted on November 9, 2011 at 2:00 PM EST/11:00 AM PST.
, which are available to the public through both mail-order and retailers including Radio Shack
and several others. Other specialty receivers for AM
/FM
/ACSSB(LM) are available only through mail-order, or in some places from federal, state, or local government
s, especially where there is a potential hazard nearby such as a chemical factory. These radios come pre-tuned to a station in each area that has agreed to provide this service to local emergency management officials and agencies, often with a direct link back to the plant's safety system or control room for instant activation should an evacuation or other emergency arise.
The ability to narrow messages down so that only the actual area in danger is alerted is extremely helpful in preventing false warnings, which was previously a major tune-out factor. Instead of sounding for all warnings within a station's area, SAME-decoder radios now sound only for the counties they are programmed for. When the alarm sounds, anyone with the radio knows that the danger is nearby and protective action should be taken. For this reason, the goal of the National Weather Service
(NOAA/NWS) is that each home should have both a smoke detector
and a SAME weather radio.
Currently under development is new infrastructure called the Digital Emergency Alert System
. This system would allow the transmission of emergency alerts directly to citizens and responders. These alerts would be sent to users of computers, mobile phones, pagers, and other devices.
, during a Russia
n invasion of the United States
, one of the loading screen videos is simply the Emergency Alert System. A message scrolls across the screen giving evacuation instructions for residents of Prince George's County
. Strangely, the scrolling message says "EMERGENCY BROADCAST SYSTEM" when the tone is actually the EAS tone.
In the 2009 science fiction film "Knowing
", when "Diana" pulls in at the gas station and goes to the clerk for gasoline, the television in the background is displaying a 24 hour news broadcast, when suddenly the screen changes with both the "Emergency Alert System" alert tones and an alert message stating, "This is an Emergency Broadcast Transmission!" "This is not a test!" The message repeats again and you see a portrayal of a fictionalized presidential cabinet alerting the public of the impending solar flares.
, videos of Weather radios going off are popular among weather
and emergency management
enthusiasts. SAME tones are also added to voice clips with an informational screen based on the ones seen on TV. Users often erroneously refer to any instance of a SAME
header being broadcast (thus activating the weather radios) as an "EAS". These users will also refer to the broadcast of an alert without the SAME header as a "No EAS". However, unless the EAS is activated on TV
and nonweather radio, it is not an activation of the EAS. Also, many people make mock-ups of an activation by the EAS in where they make a video that looks a lot like one that would happen in real-life, from tornado and hurricane warnings to nuclear attacks.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
put into place on January 1, 1997, when it superseded the Emergency Broadcast System
Emergency Broadcast System
The Emergency Broadcast System was an emergency warning system in the United States, used from 1963 to 1997, when it was replaced by the Emergency Alert System.-Purpose:...
(EBS), which itself had superseded the CONELRAD System
CONELRAD
CONELRAD was a method of emergency broadcasting to the public of the United States in the event of enemy attack during the Cold War. It was intended to serve two purposes; to prevent Soviet bombers from homing in on American cities by using radio or TV stations as beacons, and to provide...
. In addition to alerting the public of local weather emergencies such as tornadoes and flash floods, the official EAS is designed to enable the President of the United States
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
to speak to the United States within 10 minutes, but the nationwide federal EAS has never been activated. A national EAS test was conducted on November 9, 2011 at 2pm Eastern Standard Time. The EAS regulations and standards are governed by the Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau of the FCC. Each state and several territories have their own EAS plan. EAS has become part of IPAWS - the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System, a program of Federal Emergency Management Agency
Federal Emergency Management Agency
The Federal Emergency Management Agency is an agency of the United States Department of Homeland Security, initially created by Presidential Reorganization Plan No. 1 of 1978 and implemented by two Executive Orders...
(FEMA). EAS is jointly coordinated by FEMA, the Federal Communications Commission
Federal Communications Commission
The Federal Communications Commission is an independent agency of the United States government, created, Congressional statute , and with the majority of its commissioners appointed by the current President. The FCC works towards six goals in the areas of broadband, competition, the spectrum, the...
(FCC), and the National Weather Service
National Weather Service
The National Weather Service , once known as the Weather Bureau, is one of the six scientific agencies that make up the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of the United States government...
(NOAA/NWS).
The EAS is used on AM
AM broadcasting
AM broadcasting is the process of radio broadcasting using amplitude modulation. AM was the first method of impressing sound on a radio signal and is still widely used today. Commercial and public AM broadcasting is carried out in the medium wave band world wide, and on long wave and short wave...
, FM
FM broadcasting
FM broadcasting is a broadcasting technology pioneered by Edwin Howard Armstrong which uses frequency modulation to provide high-fidelity sound over broadcast radio. The term "FM band" describes the "frequency band in which FM is used for broadcasting"...
and Land Mobile Radio Service
Land Mobile Radio Service
The Land Mobile Radio Service is regulated in the United States by the Federal Communication Commission in CFR 47 Part 90 for non-federal government wireless use between land-based mobile and fixed stations...
, as well as VHF, UHF
Ultra high frequency
Ultra-High Frequency designates the ITU Radio frequency range of electromagnetic waves between 300 MHz and 3 GHz , also known as the decimetre band or decimetre wave as the wavelengths range from one to ten decimetres...
and cable
Cable television
Cable television is a system of providing television programs to consumers via radio frequency signals transmitted to televisions through coaxial cables or digital light pulses through fixed optical fibers located on the subscriber's property, much like the over-the-air method used in traditional...
television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
including low-power stations. Digital television
Digital television
Digital television is the transmission of audio and video by digital signals, in contrast to the analog signals used by analog TV...
and cable
Digital cable
Digital cable is a generic term for any type of cable television distribution using digital video compression or distribution. The technology was originally developed by Motorola.-Background:...
providers, along with Sirius
Sirius Satellite Radio
Sirius Satellite Radio is a satellite radio service operating in North America, owned by Sirius XM Radio.Headquartered in New York City, with smaller studios in Los Angeles and Memphis, Sirius was officially launched on July 1, 2002 and currently provides 69 streams of music and 65 streams of...
XM
XM Satellite Radio
XM Satellite Radio is one of two satellite radio services in the United States and Canada, operated by Sirius XM Radio. It provides pay-for-service radio, analogous to cable television. Its service includes 73 different music channels, 39 news, sports, talk and entertainment channels, 21 regional...
satellite radio, IBOC, DAB
Digital audio broadcasting
Digital Audio Broadcasting is a digital radio technology for broadcasting radio stations, used in several countries, particularly in Europe. As of 2006, approximately 1,000 stations worldwide broadcast in the DAB format....
and digital radio
Digital radio
Digital radio has several meanings:1. Today the most common meaning is digital radio broadcasting technologies, such as the digital audio broadcasting system, also known as Eureka 147. In these systems, the analog audio signal is digitized into zeros and ones, compressed using formats such as...
broadcasters have been required to participate in the EAS since December 31, 2006. DirecTV
DirecTV
DirecTV is an American direct broadcast satellite service provider and broadcaster based in El Segundo, California. Its satellite service, launched on June 17, 1994, transmits digital satellite television and audio to households in the United States, Latin America, and the Anglophone Caribbean. ...
, Dish Network
Dish Network
Dish Network Corporation is the second largest pay TV provider in the United States, providing direct broadcast satellite service—including satellite television, audio programming, and interactive television services—to 14.337 million commercial and residential customers in the United States. Dish...
and all other DBS
Direct broadcast satellite
Direct broadcast satellite is a term used to refer to satellite television broadcasts intended for home reception.A designation broader than DBS would be direct-to-home signals, or DTH. This has initially distinguished the transmissions directly intended for home viewers from cable television...
providers have been required to participate since May 31, 2007.
Technical concept
Messages in the EAS are composed of four parts: a digitally encoded SAMESpecific Area Message Encoding
Specific Area Message Encoding or SAME is the protocol used to encode the Emergency Alert System and NOAA Weather Radio's SAME Public Warning System in the U.S...
header
Header (information technology)
In information technology, header refers to supplemental data placed at the beginning of a block of data being stored or transmitted. In data transmission, the data following the header are sometimes called the payload or body....
, an attention signal, an audio announcement, and a digitally encoded end-of-message marker.
The is the most critical part of the EAS design. It contains information about who originated the alert (the President
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
, state or local authorities, the National Weather Service
National Weather Service
The National Weather Service , once known as the Weather Bureau, is one of the six scientific agencies that make up the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of the United States government...
(NOAA/NWS), or the broadcaster), a short, general description of the event (tornado, flood, severe thunderstorm), the areas affected (up to 32 counties or states), the expected duration of the event (in minutes), the date and time it was issued (in UTC), and an identification of the originating station. (See SAME
Specific Area Message Encoding
Specific Area Message Encoding or SAME is the protocol used to encode the Emergency Alert System and NOAA Weather Radio's SAME Public Warning System in the U.S...
for a complete breakdown of the header.)
More than thirty radio stations are designated as National Primary Stations in the Primary Entry Point (PEP) System to distribute Presidential messages to other broadcast stations and cable systems. The Emergency Action Notification is the notice to broadcasters that the President of the United States or his designee will deliver a message over the EAS via the PEP system.
Communications links
The FEMA National Radio System (FNARS) "Provides Primary Entry Point service to the EmergencyAlert System," acts as an emergency presidential link into the EAS, and is capable of phone patches. The FNARS net control station is located at the Mount Weather Emergency Operations Center.
What the national level EAS would not do
In a The New York TimesThe New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
article (correction printed January 3, 2002) "No president has ever used the current [EAS] system or its technical predecessors in the last 50 years, despite the Soviet missile crisis, a presidential assassination, the Oklahoma City bombing
Oklahoma City bombing
The Oklahoma City bombing was a terrorist bomb attack on the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995. It was the most destructive act of terrorism on American soil until the September 11, 2001 attacks. The Oklahoma blast claimed 168 lives, including 19...
, major earthquakes and three recent high-alert terrorist warnings... Michael K. Powell, the then chairman of the Federal Communications Commission
Federal Communications Commission
The Federal Communications Commission is an independent agency of the United States government, created, Congressional statute , and with the majority of its commissioners appointed by the current President. The FCC works towards six goals in the areas of broadband, competition, the spectrum, the...
, which oversees the Emergency Alert System, pointed to 'the ubiquitous media environment,' arguing that the system was, in effect, scooped by CNN
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
, MSNBC
MSNBC
MSNBC is a cable news channel based in the United States available in the US, Germany , South Africa, the Middle East and Canada...
, Fox News Channel
Fox News Channel
Fox News Channel , often called Fox News, is a cable and satellite television news channel owned by the Fox Entertainment Group, a subsidiary of News Corporation...
and other channels... [FEMA] activates the alert system nationally at the behest of the White House on 34 50,000-watt stations that reach 98 percent of Americans... Beyond that, the current EAS signal is an audio message only—which pre-empts all programming—so that viewers who were watching color images of the trade center on Sept. 11 would have been able to see only a screen with a generic text message along with a presidential voice-over, if an emergency message had been activated."
The Federal Communications System EAS TV Handbook - 2007 does not include any sort of visual element. Under the SAME protocol, precise emergency information would be delivered aurally.
EAS header
Because the header lacks error detection codes, it is repeated three times for redundancy. However, the repetition of the data can itself be considered an error detection and correction code—like any error detection or correction code, it adds redundant information to the signal in order to make errors identifiable. EAS decoders compare the received headers against one another, looking for an exact match between any two, eliminating most errors which can cause an activation to fail. The decoder then decides whether to ignore the message or to relay it on the air if the message applies to the local area served by the station (following parameters set by the broadcaster).The SAME header bursts are followed by an which lasts between eight and 25 seconds, depending on the originating station. The tone is on a NOAA Weather Radio
NOAA Weather Radio All Hazards
NOAA Weather Radio All Hazards is a network of radio stations broadcasting continuous weather information directly from a nearby National Weather Service office. It is operated by the NWS, an agency of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration within the United States Department of...
(NOAA/NWS) station, while on commercial broadcast stations, it consists of a "two tone" combination of 853 Hz and 960 Hz sine wave
Sine wave
The sine wave or sinusoid is a mathematical function that describes a smooth repetitive oscillation. It occurs often in pure mathematics, as well as physics, signal processing, electrical engineering and many other fields...
s and is the same attention signal used by the older Emergency Broadcast System
Emergency Broadcast System
The Emergency Broadcast System was an emergency warning system in the United States, used from 1963 to 1997, when it was replaced by the Emergency Alert System.-Purpose:...
. The "two tone" system is no longer required as of 1998 and is to be used only for audio alerts before EAS messages. Like the EBS, the attention signal is followed by a voice message describing the details of the alert.
The message ends with three bursts of the AFSK "EOM", or End of Message
End of Message
End of message or EOM signifies the end of a message, often an e-mail. The subject of an e-mail may contain such an abbreviation to signify that all content is in the subject line so that the message itself does not need to be opened...
, which is the text NNNN, preceded each time by the binary
Binary numeral system
The binary numeral system, or base-2 number system, represents numeric values using two symbols, 0 and 1. More specifically, the usual base-2 system is a positional notation with a radix of 2...
10101011 calibration.
The White House endorsed the migration to the Common Alerting Protocol
Common Alerting Protocol
The Common Alerting Protocol is an XML-based data format for exchanging public warnings and emergencies between alerting technologies. CAP allows a warning message to be consistently disseminated simultaneously over many warning systems to many applications...
(CAP) in a presidential initiative, and FEMA is in the process of testing implementation.
Station requirements
The FCC requires all broadcast stations and multichannel video programming distributors (MVPD) to install and maintain FCC-certified EAS decoders and encoders at their control points or headends unless they have been been designated a non-participating station by the FCC. These decoders continuously monitor the signals from other nearby broadcast stations for EAS messages. For reliability, at least two source stations must be monitored, one of which must be a designated local primary. Stations are to retain the latest version of the EAS handbook.Stations are required by federal law to keep logs of all received required monthly test, required weekly test, emergency action notification, and emergency action termination messages. Logs may be kept by hand but are usually kept automatically by a small receipt printer in the encoder/decoder unit. Logs may also be kept electronically inside the unit as long as there is access to an external printer or method to transfer them to a personal computer
Personal computer
A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator...
. While only the four aforementioned events are required by federal law to be logged, most stations log all received activations.
In addition to the audio messages transmitted by radio stations, television stations must also transmit a visual message. A text "crawl" is displayed at the top of the screen that contains all of the information encoded in the initial SAME header. A color coded "crawl" system is often used where the color signifies the priority of the message. Some television stations transmit only the visual message which is outside of the requirements. A television station may be used for monitoring by another station and thus the audio is necessary.
Participating stations are required by federal law to relay EAN (Emergency Action Notification) and EAT (Emergency Action Termination) messages immediately (47 CFR Part 11.54). Stations traditionally have been allowed to opt out of relaying other alerts such as severe weather, and child abduction
Child abduction
Child abduction or Child theft is the unauthorized removal of a minor from the custody of the child's natural or legally appointed guardians....
emergencies (AMBER Alert
AMBER Alert
An AMBER Alert or a Child Abduction Emergency is a child abduction alert bulletin in several countries throughout the world, issued upon the suspected abduction of a child, since 1996...
s) if they so choose. Under new rules published on July 12, 2007, the FCC intends to require all stations to relay state and local alerts that are approved by their states' governors (pending approval of the CAP
Common Alerting Protocol
The Common Alerting Protocol is an XML-based data format for exchanging public warnings and emergencies between alerting technologies. CAP allows a warning message to be consistently disseminated simultaneously over many warning systems to many applications...
standard).
Non-participating stations do not relay messages. Instead they transmit a message instructing listeners/viewers to tune to another station for the information, and they must then suspend their operation.
System test
All EAS equipment must be tested weekly. The required weekly test (RWT) consists, at a minimum, of the header and the end-of-message SAME bursts. Though a RWT does not need an audio or graphic message announcing the test, many stations will provide them as a courtesy to the public. Television stations are not required to transmit a video message for weekly tests. RWTs are scheduled by the station, on random days and times, and are generally not relayed.Required monthly tests (RMTs) are generally originated by the primary relay station, a state emergency management agency, or by the National Weather Service (NOAA/NWS) and are then relayed by broadcast and cable stations. RMTs must be performed between 8:30 a.m. and local sunset during odd numbered months, and local sunset to 8:30AM for even months. Received monthly tests must be re-transmitted within 60 minutes from receipt. Additionally, an RMT should not be scheduled or conducted during an event of great importance such as a pre-announced Presidential speech, coverage of a national/local election, major local or national news coverage outside regularly scheduled newscast hours or a major sporting event such as the Olympic Games
Olympic Games
The Olympic Games is a major international event featuring summer and winter sports, in which thousands of athletes participate in a variety of competitions. The Olympic Games have come to be regarded as the world’s foremost sports competition where more than 200 nations participate...
, the FIFA World Cup
FIFA World Cup
The FIFA World Cup, often simply the World Cup, is an international association football competition contested by the senior men's national teams of the members of Fédération Internationale de Football Association , the sport's global governing body...
, the Super Bowl
Super Bowl
The Super Bowl is the championship game of the National Football League , the highest level of professional American football in the United States, culminating a season that begins in the late summer of the previous calendar year. The Super Bowl uses Roman numerals to identify each game, rather...
, the Stanley Cup Finals
Stanley Cup Finals
The Stanley Cup Finals is the championship series to determine the winner of the Stanley Cup, emblematic of the professional club championship of ice hockey. Although the Cup itself has existed since 1893, an annual championship series between professional teams was not established until 1913...
, the NBA Finals
NBA Finals
The NBA Finals is the championship series of the National Basketball Association . The series was named the NBA World Championship Series until 1986....
, the MLS Cup
MLS Cup
The MLS Cup is the championship match of Major League Soccer, the highest tier of professional soccer in the United States and Canada. As the final match of the MLS Cup playoffs, the winner is crowned the season champion in the same manner as other North American sports leagues...
, WrestleMania
WrestleMania
WrestleMania is a professional wrestling pay-per-view event, produced annually in late March or early April by WWE, a professional wrestling promotion based in Connecticut...
, the World Series
World Series
The World Series is the annual championship series of Major League Baseball, played between the American League and National League champions since 1903. The winner of the World Series championship is determined through a best-of-seven playoff and awarded the Commissioner's Trophy...
, or the Daytona 500
Daytona 500
The Daytona 500 is a -long NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race held annually at the Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Florida. It is one of four restrictor plate races on the Cup schedule....
as mentioned in individual EAS state plans.
National tests
A RWT is not required during a calendar week in which an RMT is scheduled. No testing has to be done at all during a calendar week in which all parts of the EAS (header burst, attention signal, audio message, and end of message burst) have been legitimately activated. Coordinated national tests are planned to be conducted at least once every year, beginning with the national test that happened on November 9, 2011, and are very similar to RMTs.On November 9, 2011, after the national test was attempted, stations began calling in saying that some of their receivers weren't able to relay the test, or some just didn't get the test at all; DirecTV
DirecTV
DirecTV is an American direct broadcast satellite service provider and broadcaster based in El Segundo, California. Its satellite service, launched on June 17, 1994, transmits digital satellite television and audio to households in the United States, Latin America, and the Anglophone Caribbean. ...
users reported even hearing Lady Gaga
Lady GaGa
Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta , better known by her stage name Lady Gaga, is an American singer and songwriter. Born and raised in New York City, she primarily studied at the Convent of the Sacred Heart and briefly attended New York University's Tisch School of the Arts before withdrawing to...
's "Paparazzi
Paparazzi (Lady Gaga song)
"Paparazzi" is a song by American recording artist Lady Gaga. It was released as the final single from her debut album The Fame . Written by Rob Fusari and Gaga, the song portrays Gaga's struggles in her quest for fame, as well as balancing success and love...
" throughout the test. As of November 9, 2011, the FCC is still collecting data, however, it is clear that not every station in the US received or relayed the alert. The message, according to some, also lacked the alert code which would allow the President to speak. For this reason, the test was cut down to 30 seconds rather than the proposed 3 minutes. A similar test of the National EAS was carried out in January 2010, but operations were limited to the state of Alaska
Alaska
Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...
. That test was carried out flawlessly.
Additions and proposals
The number of event types in the national system has grown to eighty. At first, all but three of the events (civil emergency message, immediate evacuation, and emergency action notification (national emergency)) were weather-related (such as a tornado warningTornado warning
A tornado warning is an alert issued by government weather services to warn that severe thunderstorms with tornadoes may be imminent. It can be issued after a tornado or funnel cloud has been spotted by eye, or more commonly if there are radar indications of tornado formation...
). Since then, several classes of non-weather emergencies have been added, including, in most states, the AMBER Alert
AMBER Alert
An AMBER Alert or a Child Abduction Emergency is a child abduction alert bulletin in several countries throughout the world, issued upon the suspected abduction of a child, since 1996...
System for child abduction emergencies.
In 2004, the FCC issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking seeking comment on whether EAS in its present form is the most effective mechanism for warning the American public of an emergency and, if not, on how EAS can be improved, such as mandatory text messages to cellphones, regardless of subscription. As noted above, rules implemented by the FCC on July 12, 2007 provisionally endorse replacing the SAME protocol with CAP and allow governors to compel universal activation of the system within their own states.
On February 3, 2011, the FCC announced plans and procedures for national EAS tests, which will involve all television and radio stations connected to the EAS system, as well as all cable and satellite services in the United States. It will not be relayed on the NOAA Weather Radio (NOAA/NWS) network as it is an initiation-only network and does not receive messages from the PEP network. The national test will transmit and relay an EAS test message from the White House. This protocol was first used in the first national test of the EAS, conducted on November 9, 2011 at 2:00 PM EST/11:00 AM PST.
EAS for consumers
EAS is designed to be useful for the entire public, not just those with SAME-capable equipment. However, several consumer-level radios do exist, especially weather radio receiversReceiver (radio)
A radio receiver converts signals from a radio antenna to a usable form. It uses electronic filters to separate a wanted radio frequency signal from all other signals, the electronic amplifier increases the level suitable for further processing, and finally recovers the desired information through...
, which are available to the public through both mail-order and retailers including Radio Shack
Radio shack
Radio shack is a slang term for a room or structure for housing radio equipment.-History:In the early days of radio, equipment was experimental and home-built. The first radio transmitters used a noisy spark to generate radio waves and were often housed in a garage or shed. When radio was first...
and several others. Other specialty receivers for AM
AM broadcasting
AM broadcasting is the process of radio broadcasting using amplitude modulation. AM was the first method of impressing sound on a radio signal and is still widely used today. Commercial and public AM broadcasting is carried out in the medium wave band world wide, and on long wave and short wave...
/FM
FM broadcasting
FM broadcasting is a broadcasting technology pioneered by Edwin Howard Armstrong which uses frequency modulation to provide high-fidelity sound over broadcast radio. The term "FM band" describes the "frequency band in which FM is used for broadcasting"...
/ACSSB(LM) are available only through mail-order, or in some places from federal, state, or local government
Government
Government refers to the legislators, administrators, and arbitrators in the administrative bureaucracy who control a state at a given time, and to the system of government by which they are organized...
s, especially where there is a potential hazard nearby such as a chemical factory. These radios come pre-tuned to a station in each area that has agreed to provide this service to local emergency management officials and agencies, often with a direct link back to the plant's safety system or control room for instant activation should an evacuation or other emergency arise.
The ability to narrow messages down so that only the actual area in danger is alerted is extremely helpful in preventing false warnings, which was previously a major tune-out factor. Instead of sounding for all warnings within a station's area, SAME-decoder radios now sound only for the counties they are programmed for. When the alarm sounds, anyone with the radio knows that the danger is nearby and protective action should be taken. For this reason, the goal of the National Weather Service
National Weather Service
The National Weather Service , once known as the Weather Bureau, is one of the six scientific agencies that make up the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of the United States government...
(NOAA/NWS) is that each home should have both a smoke detector
Smoke detector
A smoke detector is a device that detects smoke, typically as an indicator of fire. Commercial, industrial, and mass residential devices issue a signal to a fire alarm system, while household detectors, known as smoke alarms, generally issue a local audible and/or visual alarm from the detector...
and a SAME weather radio.
Currently under development is new infrastructure called the Digital Emergency Alert System
Digital Emergency Alert System
The Digital Emergency Alert System was a system managed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and designed to alert first-responders and civilians in the event of a national emergency...
. This system would allow the transmission of emergency alerts directly to citizens and responders. These alerts would be sent to users of computers, mobile phones, pagers, and other devices.
Incidents
- During the September 11 attacks in 2001, "... the EAS was not activated nationally or regionally in New York or Washington during the terrorist attacks on the nation." Richard Rudman, then chairman of the EAS National Advisory Committee explained that near immediate coverage in the national media meant that the media itself provided the warning or alert of what had happened and what might happen as quickly as the information could be distributed. "Some events really do serve as their own alerts and warnings. With the immediate live media coverage, the need for an EAS warning was lessened." 34 PEP stations were kept on high alert for use if the President had decided to order an Emergency Action Notification. "PEP is really a last-ditch effort to get a message out if the president cannot get to the media."
- On February 1, 2005, someone activated an EAS message over radio and television stations in Connecticut telling residents to evacuate the state immediately. Officials at the Office of Emergency Management announced that the activation and broadcast of the Emergency Alert System was in error due to possibly the wrong button being pressed. "State police said they received no calls related to the erroneous alert."
- On June 26, 2007, the EAS in IllinoisIllinoisIllinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
was activated at 7:35AM CDT and issued an Emergency Action Notification Message for the United States. This was followed by dead air and then WGNWGN (AM)WGN is a radio station in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It is the only radio station owned by the Tribune Company, which also owns the flagship television station WGN-TV, the Chicago Tribune newspaper and Chicago magazine locally. WGN's transmitter is located in Elk Grove Village, Illinois...
radio (the station designated to simulcast the alert message) being played on almost every television and radio station in the ChicagoChicagoChicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
area and throughout much of Illinois. The accidental EAN activation was caused when a government contractor installing a new satellite receiver as part of a new national delivery path incorrectly left the receiver connected and wired to the state EOC's EAS transmitter before final closed circuit testing of the new delivery path had been completed. - On October 19, 2008 KWVE-FM of San Clemente, CaliforniaSan Clemente, CaliforniaSan Clemente is a city in Orange County, California. The population was 63,522 at the 2010 census. Located on the California Coast, midway between Los Angeles and San Diego at the southern tip of the county, it is known for its ocean, hill, and mountain views, a pleasant climate and its Spanish...
was scheduled to conduct a Required Weekly Test; however, it conducted a Required Monthly Test by mistake, causing all stations and cable systems in the immediate area to relay the test. In addition, the operator aborted the test midway through, leading the station to fail to broadcast the SAME EOM burst to end the test, causing all area outlets to broadcast KWVE-FM's programming until those stations took their equipment offline. On September 15, 2009, the Federal Communications CommissionFederal Communications CommissionThe Federal Communications Commission is an independent agency of the United States government, created, Congressional statute , and with the majority of its commissioners appointed by the current President. The FCC works towards six goals in the areas of broadband, competition, the spectrum, the...
fined its licensee, Calvary Chapel of Costa Mesa, $5000 for the botched EAS test. After the fine was levied, various state broadcast associations in the United States submitted joint letters to the FCC, protesting against the fine, saying that the FCC could have handled the matter better. On November 13, 2009, the FCC rescinded its fine against KWVE-FM, but had still admonished the station for broadcasting an unauthorized RMT, as well as omitting the code to end the test. - On May 20, 2010, NOAA All-HazardsNOAA Weather Radio All HazardsNOAA Weather Radio All Hazards is a network of radio stations broadcasting continuous weather information directly from a nearby National Weather Service office. It is operated by the NWS, an agency of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration within the United States Department of...
and CSEPPUnited States Army Chemical Materials AgencyThe United States Army Chemical Materials Agency is a major sub-command of the United States Army Materiel Command and a reporting element of the United States Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics, and Technology. Its role is to enhance national security by securely storing...
tone alert radios in the Hermiston, OregonHermiston, OregonAs of the census of 2010, there were 16,745 people, 4,964 households, and 3,360 families residing in the city. The population density was 2,035.4 people per square mile . There were 5,383 housing units at an average density of 832.9 per square mile...
area, near the Umatilla Chemical DepotUmatilla Chemical DepotThe Umatilla Chemical Depot, based in Umatilla, Oregon, was a U.S. Army installations in the United States that stored chemical weapons. The chemical weapons originally stored at the depot consisted of various munitions and ton containers containing GB and VX nerve agents and HD blister agent...
, were activated with an EAS alert shortly after 5PM. The message transmitted was for a Severe Thunderstorm Warning, issued by the National Weather ServiceNational Weather ServiceThe National Weather Service , once known as the Weather Bureau, is one of the six scientific agencies that make up the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of the United States government...
in PendletonPendleton, OregonPendleton is a city in Umatilla County, Oregon, United States. Pendleton was named in 1868 by the county commissioners for George H. Pendleton, Democratic candidate for Vice-President in the 1864 presidential campaign. The population was 16,612 at the 2010 census...
, but the transmission broadcast instead was a long period of silence, followed by a few words in Spanish. Umatilla CountyUmatilla County, OregonUmatilla County is a county located in the U.S. state of Oregon. It is included in the 8 county definition of Eastern Oregon. The county is named for the Umatilla River. In 2010, its population was 75,889...
Emergency Management has stressed there was no emergency at the depot. - During September, 2010, the staff of KCST-FMKCST-FMKCST-FM is a radio station broadcasting a Adult Contemporary format. Licensed to Florence, Oregon, USA, the station serves the Eugene-Springfield area. The station is currently owned by Coast Broadcasting Co., Inc. and features programing from ABC Radio . The station also broadcasts local Siuslaw...
Florence, OregonFlorence, OregonFlorence is a city in Lane County, Oregon, United States. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 8,466.-History:The Florence area was originally inhabited by the Siuslaw tribe of Native Americans. Some state that the city was named for state senator A. B...
noticed that their EAS equipment would repeatedly unmute as if receiving an incoming EAS message several times a week. During each event, which was relayed from KKNUKKNU-External links:*...
SpringfieldSpringfield, OregonSpringfield is a city in Lane County, Oregon, United States. Located in the Southern Willamette Valley, it is within the Eugene-Springfield Metropolitan Statistical Area. Separated from Eugene to the west, mainly by Interstate 5, Springfield is the second-most populous city in the metropolitan area...
, the same commercial advertisement for ARCOARCOAtlantic Richfield Company is an oil company with operations in the United States as well as in Indonesia, the North Sea, and the South China Sea. It has more than 1,300 gas stations in the western part of the United States. ARCO was originally formed by the merger of East Coast-based Atlantic...
/BPBPBP p.l.c. is a global oil and gas company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the third-largest energy company and fourth-largest company in the world measured by revenues and one of the six oil and gas "supermajors"...
gasoline could be heard, along with the words "This test has been brought to you by ARCO". Further investigation by the primary station transmitting the commercial revealed that the spot had been produced using an audio clip of an actual EAS header which had been modified to lower the header's tone and presumably prevent it from triggering false positive alert reactions in EAS equipment. The spot was distributed nationally, and after it had once been identified as the source of the false EAS equipment trips, various stations around the country reported having had similar experiences. After a widespread notification by the Society of Broadcast EngineersSociety of Broadcast EngineersThe Society of Broadcast Engineers or SBE is a professional organization for engineers in broadcast radio and television. The SBE also offers certification in various radio frequency and audio technology areas for its members.- History :...
was issued, ARCO's ad agency withdrew the commercial from air play. - On August 9, 2011, the Emergency Alert System was activated for a Required Weekly Test in Davidson County, TennesseeDavidson County, TennesseeDavidson County is a county located in the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of 2010, the population was 626,681. Its county seat is Nashville.In 1963, the City of Nashville and the Davidson County government merged, so the county government is now known as the "Metropolitan Government of Nashville and...
. However, due to a bug in the system, as many as 20 RWTs were sent and received from 3:20am to 5:00am CDT. - In October 2011, the FCC fined WHPR-FM in Highland Park, MichiganHighland Park, Michigan- Geography :According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , all land.- Demographics :As of the census of 2000, there were 16,746 people, 6,199 households, and 3,521 families residing in the city. The population density was 5,622.9 per square mile . There were 7,249...
$22,000 for numerous violations, one of these included not having any EAS equipment in use; an employee of the station pointed out that the station's EAS decoder was stored in a closet. - On November 9, 2011, the first National EAS Test was conducted. Many people that were listening to TV or radio reported barely hearing the audio, not seeing the video, hearing overlapping audio, or on cable and satellite systems which redirect to one certain channel slot to launch the test, were stuck on the EAS channel without routing to the test (such as a non-essential shopping channelShopping channelShopping channels are television specialty channels that present shopping related content, particularly for home shopping enthusiasts.-USA:* America's Store* Home Shopping Network* Jewelry Television* QVC* Shop at Home Network* ShopNBC...
, TV Guide Network, Music ChoiceMusic ChoiceMusic Choice is a United States company that programs music and produces music-related content for digital cable, cell phones, and cable modem subscribers in the US. Music Choice programs dozens of audio music channels for digital cable subscribers, as well as programs and produces music-related...
audio channel, or in DirecTVDirecTVDirecTV is an American direct broadcast satellite service provider and broadcaster based in El Segundo, California. Its satellite service, launched on June 17, 1994, transmits digital satellite television and audio to households in the United States, Latin America, and the Anglophone Caribbean. ...
's case, a Sonic TapDMX (music)DMX is a "multi-sensory" branding agency based in Austin, Texas. DMX also provides music for cable and satellite television networks worldwide, including DirecTV.-History:...
audio channel airing Lady Gaga'sLady GaGaStefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta , better known by her stage name Lady Gaga, is an American singer and songwriter. Born and raised in New York City, she primarily studied at the Convent of the Sacred Heart and briefly attended New York University's Tisch School of the Arts before withdrawing to...
PaparazziPaparazzi (Lady Gaga song)"Paparazzi" is a song by American recording artist Lady Gaga. It was released as the final single from her debut album The Fame . Written by Rob Fusari and Gaga, the song portrays Gaga's struggles in her quest for fame, as well as balancing success and love...
at the time).
In popular culture
In the video game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is a first-person shooter video game developed by Infinity Ward and published by Activision for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 video game consoles and the Microsoft Windows operating system. Officially announced on February 11, 2009, the game was released worldwide on...
, during a Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n invasion of the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, one of the loading screen videos is simply the Emergency Alert System. A message scrolls across the screen giving evacuation instructions for residents of Prince George's County
Prince George's County, Maryland
Prince George's County is a county located in the U.S. state of Maryland, immediately north, east, and south of Washington, DC. As of 2010, it has a population of 863,420 and is the wealthiest African-American majority county in the nation....
. Strangely, the scrolling message says "EMERGENCY BROADCAST SYSTEM" when the tone is actually the EAS tone.
In the 2009 science fiction film "Knowing
Knowing (film)
Knowing is a 2009 American-British science fiction film directed by Alex Proyas and starring Nicolas Cage. The project was originally attached to a number of directors under Columbia Pictures, but it was placed in turnaround and eventually picked up by Escape Artists. Production was financially...
", when "Diana" pulls in at the gas station and goes to the clerk for gasoline, the television in the background is displaying a 24 hour news broadcast, when suddenly the screen changes with both the "Emergency Alert System" alert tones and an alert message stating, "This is an Emergency Broadcast Transmission!" "This is not a test!" The message repeats again and you see a portrayal of a fictionalized presidential cabinet alerting the public of the impending solar flares.
Internet culture
On YouTubeYouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
, videos of Weather radios going off are popular among weather
Weather
Weather is the state of the atmosphere, to the degree that it is hot or cold, wet or dry, calm or stormy, clear or cloudy. Most weather phenomena occur in the troposphere, just below the stratosphere. Weather refers, generally, to day-to-day temperature and precipitation activity, whereas climate...
and emergency management
Emergency management
Emergency management is the generic name of an interdisciplinary field dealing with the strategic organizational management processes used to protect critical assets of an organization from hazard risks that can cause events like disasters or catastrophes and to ensure the continuance of the...
enthusiasts. SAME tones are also added to voice clips with an informational screen based on the ones seen on TV. Users often erroneously refer to any instance of a SAME
Specific Area Message Encoding
Specific Area Message Encoding or SAME is the protocol used to encode the Emergency Alert System and NOAA Weather Radio's SAME Public Warning System in the U.S...
header being broadcast (thus activating the weather radios) as an "EAS". These users will also refer to the broadcast of an alert without the SAME header as a "No EAS". However, unless the EAS is activated on TV
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
and nonweather radio, it is not an activation of the EAS. Also, many people make mock-ups of an activation by the EAS in where they make a video that looks a lot like one that would happen in real-life, from tornado and hurricane warnings to nuclear attacks.
See also
- Common Alerting ProtocolCommon Alerting ProtocolThe Common Alerting Protocol is an XML-based data format for exchanging public warnings and emergencies between alerting technologies. CAP allows a warning message to be consistently disseminated simultaneously over many warning systems to many applications...
- Commercial Mobile Alert SystemCommercial Mobile Alert SystemThe Commercial Mobile Alert System , also known as the Personal Localized Alerting Network , is an alerting network designed to disseminate emergency alerts to mobile devices such as cell phones and pagers...
(CMAS) - Earthquake Early Warning (Japan)Earthquake Early Warning (Japan)The is a warning issued just after an earthquake in Japan is detected. The warnings are issued mainly by the Japan Meteorological Agency , and they issue tips on how to react to the warnings.-Introduction:...
- Emergency population warningEmergency population warningAn emergency population warning is a method whereby local, regional, or national authorities can contact members of the public en masse to warn them of an impending emergency...
- Emergency Public Warning SystemEmergency Public Warning SystemThe Emergency Public Warning System was a system used in the province of Alberta, Canada until October 2011, whereby local or provincial authorities could warn the public about impending or current emergencies affecting their area...
- NOAA Weather Radio All HazardsNOAA Weather Radio All HazardsNOAA Weather Radio All Hazards is a network of radio stations broadcasting continuous weather information directly from a nearby National Weather Service office. It is operated by the NWS, an agency of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration within the United States Department of...
- National Warning SystemNational Warning SystemThe National Warning System is an automated telephone system used to convey warnings to United States-based federal, state and local governments. The original mission of NAWAS was to warn of an imminent enemy attack or an actual accidental missile launch upon the United States...
- National Severe Weather Warning ServiceNational severe weather warning serviceThe National Severe Weather Warning Service is a service produced by the UK Met Office which informs the public of the United Kingdom of severe weather which may damage the country's infrastructure and endanger lives...
- Nuclear FootballNuclear FootballThe nuclear football is a briefcase, the contents of which are to be used by the President of the United States of America to authorize a nuclear attack while away from fixed command centers, such as the White House Situation Room...
- Standard Emergency Warning SignalStandard Emergency Warning SignalThe Standard Emergency Warning Signal is a warning siren used in Australia to alert the public of danger. The siren is played over radio, television or public address systems in public places to warn of bushfire, flood, cyclone, tsunami, earthquake or terrorist attack.-Use:The SEWS tone has also...
(Australia) - HANDELHANDELHANDEL was the code-name for the UK's National Attack Warning System in the Cold War. It consisted of a small console consisting of two microphones, lights and gauges. The reason behind this was to provide a back-up if anything failed....
(UK's National Attack Warning System) - J-AlertJ-Alertis a nationwide warning system in Japan launched in February 2007. It is designed to quickly inform the public of various threats. The system was developed in the hope that early warnings would speed up evacuation times and help coordinate emergency response....
- Wartime Broadcasting ServiceWartime Broadcasting ServiceThe Wartime Broadcasting Service was a service of the BBC that was intended to broadcast in the United Kingdom either after a nuclear attack or if conventional bombing destroyed regular BBC facilities in a conventional war ....
External links
- Consumer facts page
- FCC notice regarding possible improvements
- Required Weekly Test on WTKR-TV, Norfolk, VA
- Actual EAS Activation for a Severe Thunderstorm Warning, Washington County PA
- DASDEC Digital EAS Encoder/Decoder Information
- SAGE Digital ENDEC Information
- EAS Test Messages in .mp3 audio
- SAGE ENDEC MANUAL - ENDEC Manual
- Sage ENDEC Alerting Systems Product Datasheet