St. Louis, MO (KSDK) – NewsChannel 5 will participate in a first of its kind EAS test next Wednesday afternoon.
The test, conducted by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Federal Emergency Management (FEMA) and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), includes all broadcasters across the country. All radio and TV broadcast stations, cable operators, and satellite radio and TV will participate.
The Emergency Alert System test is scheduled to occur Wednesday, November 9 at 1 p.m. Central Time. It will last only 60 seconds.
This first national EAS test will serve as a benchmark for measuring effectiveness of the EAS system and for future improvements going forward.
FEMA and the FCC intend to conduct national EAS tests on an annual basis, although not always on November 9.
As the title of this post says… this is a REAL WTH moment.
Actually, its more like a W.hiskey T.ango F.oxtrot !
On November 9, 2011 — 11/9/11 — the USA is going to conduct a test of the new EAS (emergency alert system).
They just changed the time format from 3min 3osec long down to 30 seconds…which some are asking about… raising questions as to why the sudden change in plans? The coincidence of a large passing asteroid (2005 YU55) does not help suspicions at all. Here is a link to see the “past dates” of disaster coincidence :
More importantly, I noticed this section of the .pdf manual they have released… it clearly says that the TEXT that is sent out from the HQ will NOT SAY that this is a test ! The say adding the “test” wording is “encouraged” to be added!
Wait, this sounds like a RE-RUN.. the FCC should know all about those ! If this isn’t seen as a TEST by everyone … I sure hope we don’t see an ORSON WELLS – War of the Worlds panic!
from the FCC .pdf:
“The audio portion of the test will state: “This is a Test.” However, for video service providers (a category that includes broadcast, cable, satellite, and wireline video providers), the EAN code will automatically generate a text crawl that will say “APrimary Entry Point station has issued an Emergency Action Notification . . . “The text crawl will not indicate that the event is a test. FCC rules require only that video service providers transmit a visual message containing the information resident in the EAS header code. There is no EAN test code at this time, and the information within the EAN header code cannot be altered.
To minimize public confusion and to ensure that the test is fully accessible, video service provider EAS Participants are encouraged to insert a separate visual element during the test to indicate to their viewers that “THIS IS A TEST” if doing so is technically and operationally feasible and does not interfere with the operation of the underlying test.“
I really wonder what a “primary entry point station” is. And why they can’t put “test” in the text field when you can clearly put anything you want into a text field.
The government always likes to assign acronyms to everything… so a “primary entry point station” = P.R.E.P.S. or PREP = prepare/preparation station.
How ironic, that on 11/9/11 that a FCC EAS message from FEMA will be issued from a PREP . Time for them to go to their DUMB and use HAARP and RADAR on NEO YU55 !
LOL @ too many acronyms in this post !
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Here is a link to the FCC .pdf (updated) which is the “manual” for this EAS test broadcast.
