The 2001 test was maybe not the worst ever. In 1971 by mistake someone sent out the "real, not a test" signal for the EBS by mistake. This accidentally showed why the tests are important: only about a third of radio stations actually switched to the emergency message. That wasn't the worst of it though. Imagine you're 80 miles away from WCCO's big high power AM transmitter in Saint Paul, MN, listening on a Saturday morning. Suddenly the music stops, and the announcer says, "This is an Emergency Action Notification." There is a real national emergency. Then, 40 seconds in to reading the alert message script, IT GOES SILENT. For ten seconds, as far as you can tell, Saint Paul has just been vaporized. Finally, some background noise and a voice: "They've run the incorrect tape. Disregard, disregard the last message." So yeah. Your dad's work, and doing it properly, matters.
@@GeerlingEngineering people were stuffing their children into sewer systems in Hawaii. I think a few were injured, some may have even died, I forget. Whoever "accidentally" did that should be liable on the hook for all of that.
In an hypothetical scenario, if the dates for these test are fixed during the year instead of being random and shorty communicated to the public, could any intrusive party hijack the system and introduce a real message to cause confusion?
IMPORTANT PSA: If you have a "secret phone" (say you live in a "complicated home situation" and your main phone is monitored by someone you'd really like to escape from), MAKE SURE THAT OTHER PHONE IS POWERED COMPLETELY OFF DURING THE TEST. Like with the UK test a while back, _the notification and noise don't stop until you acknowledge them_ and it goes off even in Silent+DND mode! They do say that airplane modeing the phone will prevent it receiving, and it won't go off later (it's a one-way "at-everyone" broadcast from all cell towers, it doesn't "queue" it for the next time you're online), but it's best not to take that risk.
I work retail and yesterday at work it was kind of amazing hearing every person's phone in the entire store sounding the emergency alert sound. Everyone was taking out their phones confused.
When they did the test in the UK back in March, I initially thought it was a fire alarm, and started looking round to see who the fire marshal was for directions to evacuate.
Jeff - your Dad ROCKS!!! What a wealth of information he (and you) have regarding Broadcast Radio and Emergency Communications! Thanks again for sharing this information with the RUclips world - really fascinating! As a General Class Ham Operator, I hope that you both upgrade to General so we can make a contact over HF some day...
I concur. I wonder if Jeff would find HSMM High Speed Multi Media using DD-WRT or OpenWRT to make contact and communicate via WiFi for a much longer distance...(around 45 miles) using other Part 97 WiFi channels as opposed to Part 15. P.S. as an Extra Class amateur radio operator I hope that you both upgrade to Extra so we can have a QSO via HF also.
Back in Jan 2020, an emergency alert was sent to all cell phones in Ontario about an incident at the Pickering nuclear power plant. It was sent in error during a training exercise (live pathway instead of test pathway), but it took nearly 2 hours to send a follow-up oops message.
And I'd have believed *that* power plant could have issues. That thing is *old* . I hope they get a gen 4 lwr so y'all would never have to worry about it 😅.
@NobodyisAnybody Those stations can safely operate for a very, very long time. I know some licenses can certify a plant for 100 years. Still, the technology could use some upgrading 😅.
I can provide insight as to why mobile phone alerts take longer. Outside of anything within the network taking time to process, there's an inherent reason within LTE to cause delay. So when broadcast, its broadcast on a loop by all cell sites within the area. This broadcast is a packet within LTE spec called SIB12. This packet will contain all the information about the alert, such as its level and what text to be shown. The network specifies to your device how often it should check for this SIB12 message within SIB1. Different mobile networks with different hardware vendors will have a different value. A higher value means your phone will check in less often, saving battery, causing the delay observed.
Thanks for the info. In this test they send the wireless test a couple minutes earlier than the broadcaster test. My phone got the test quickly so I was impressed. I still wish I could have been in a busy airport to hear all the phones go off!
Here in Taiwan, the system is tested on 21 September, as it's known here 921. It is the anniversary of a massive and destructive earthquake on 21 September 1999.
I looked this up and saw reporting on it from up to a month ago, but only heard about it for the first time from your channel so thanks for saving me a jump scare on October 4
Thank you for this awesome walk through! I used to work in broadcast, and would run the required weekly tests. Our ENDEC was much simpler (that was 15+ years ago). We monitored NWS and one of our local FM stations. As far as I remember we were one of the last stations in the chain.
Here in the UK the system was tested in April but there was a massive issue with one of the big mobile networks which meant that a large proportion of people (me included) didn’t receive the alert! There was definitely a lot of panicky remediation that went on after that I think 😂
Since corona and a massive flooding, we in Germany do these test' once a year and this year was the first where the authorities started to talk about a success...
This is a good insight into the EAS. I just wish Comcast fixed their EAS boxes as the weekly tests are actually 3 to 4 times a week; it like testing a fire alarm everyday as they do the full interruption and not the ten seconds as called for by the regulations. FYI: Illinois does their monthly tests on the first Tuesday of the month with the tornado sirens (skipped in areas with active thunderstorms that triggered a warning within the test time block).
@@datastream2600 Comcast/Xfinity no longer has local numbers you can call the serving "office". The national number is run by script kiddies who can't query anything not approved by software ("managers" are useless and only there to keep customers from cancelling services - just like a scammer call center). I just file FCC complaint under the EAS form on the website.
This video explained it all very well. EAS is actually a hobby of mine. I have a collection of over 100 different models of weather alert radios so during a storm all of my radios will go off. A few of my radios even have the ability to decode alerts on am and fm stations.
That Sage unit brings back memories! I ran our college FM station when EAS replaced EBS and spent hours evaluating the options before ultimately going with TFT's solution.
I was working for a broadcast group in Florida during the same time period and we went the the Sage ENDEC units. Also at the same time the state put in a satellite-based 2-way communications system for the critical stations. Good times.
@@grayrabbit2211 in retrospect I probably chose the TFT for all the pretty blinky lights. I wonder what the current state of the EAS market is now, whether Sage has become the default or if there is still competition.
@@BigTunaTim76 I remember our Sage boxes had little printers built into them. Somehow we never got around to making fake messages on them. I do remember when I first started working at the station, one of the engineers told me if I ever saw 15 (highest priority) on the CBS NetAlert box, to go grab a girl and have 'some fun' because it'd be the last 'fun' either one of us were going to see before the nukes arrived. On equipment lists, I do put "LPD" on the spreadsheet when comparing equipment. LPD=Lights Per Dollar. I've been known to toss a cheap audio compressor in a rack for looks, even if it's not actually affecting the audio output signal. Sure, everything has gone to on-screen displays for things these days, but all of the bouncing displays on an LCD screen are no match for individual LEDs' blinky goodness.
I think when I started we had a couple of TFTs and early endecs that had paper tape printers. By the time I had taken over all my stations had switched to the blue box Sages so I don't know much about it. I think I have the old ones in a garage somewhere.
I've worked at stations where the engineering staff was very up to date and knowledgeable about everything EAS, and at a few stations where the engineers were mostly in a fog about it. Like your dad (probably), I worked in radio when it was the EBS system. A lot has changed and I think for the better. Kudos to your dad for being so "up to date" on the system, its operation, and how to properly execute a test, or an actual emergency. Thanks for the videos. It's great to see you, him, and the stations he maintains!
We get an additional test in our area due to the Nuclear Plant just down the coast from us. We live within the 10 mile zone around the plant so pretty much any major emergency there would affect us. They would be a part of the normal alert systems if they ever had an emergency, but their sirens are distinct from the tornado sirens that sound. They are tested at different times from the tornado sirens. I think we still receive a yearly calendar from them due to being in that 10 mile zone. Very cool to hear how the systems work...always wondered.
I hope you guys can get a newer reactor some day (I'm guessing yours is a 60's or 70's design?). Pretty crazy we still have those old designs in commission.
@@fledgeking It really just comes down to the anti-nuclear crowd pulling NIMBY bullcrap. There's a stigma around it due to the isolated incidents that have happened.
In Ukraine we receive such messages several times per day. Mostly on mobile phones, but some FM radio stations also support emergency notifications. And sirens start working in parallel everywhere
I've been following some Ukrainian Telegram channels and they popped up with messages to look for shelter almost every minute in early March 2022. I heard there are apps to alert it too.
@@rafaelasabchucalovato9439 Yes, now telegram, in my humble opinion, is the most important source of information about alerts. We have special monitoring channels that send information not only about alarm inself, but also about the type of attack and direction. They provide information about tactical and strategic aviation activity, ground-based missile launcher movements, type of the launched missiles/drones and their direction, possible areas of potential damage and so on. Other channels just copying base alarm information, so you always know what is going on and can weight necessity to go to shelter.
People are CRAZY! If they only had an idea how many tests and scenarios the government does on a regular basis. I've taken part in a few tests where the government pretends there is a massive regional tragedy. Then they do simulated responses. We just had a local test where we practiced for a nuclear power plant melting down last week.
Oh this is awesome! There's a whole world of information in those bursts of information in an EAS message, the SAME codes limit visibility (so an EAS message for Florida doesn't fire off EAS systems in Georgia for example), there is also the originator code (who transmitted this message), as well as what kind of message it is (Did you know that there's a tsunami and volcano mesage types?). We had a civil alert message a few weeks ago that ended up being for an island city that had to be disconnected from the utility power grid for emergency maintenance. The entire design of the EAS system is to be fully automated, this is why the ENDEC exists. It should automatically receive (DECode), store the audio message, and (reENcode) the message for retransmission without the operator lifting a finger. I have a much older ENDEC that I bought off eBay but being that I don't have a transmitter and I'm not a radio station, I use it for receiving EAS alerts from my PEPs using commodity radios (one AM, one FM, and one Weatherband). SAME codes set the "area" of the message being delivered, this prevents an EAS alert for Key West from triggering alerts in Tallahassee even though they're both in Florida, or preventing a statewide alert in Florida from triggering EAS repeaters in Georgia for example. Finally, the protocol itself is interesting, the reason why the start and end bursts are presented three times is because there's no checksumming in the protocol. It's broadcast three times and it's up to the ENDEC to keep the correct data. And your dad's right, the EOM message bursts at the end of the message is important as it tells the ENDEC to release the transmitter (back to the normal audio). An ENDEC that doesn't release the transmitter can hold a station offline (dead air)!
Can someone explain why big WX radio receiver providers (Midland) don't have SAME in portable radios, but do have it in WX desk side radios? 😆 Seems kind of lame. Also, weird how in 2023 it doesn't have the tech to record the reception onto some kind of flash storage for later playback. I guess all of these ideas would be too "innovative" for systems stuck in the past.
@@fitybux4664They probably don't support SAME on portable radios because it drains the battery a lot faster than checking for a tone once a second or so. It can't record the event because it wasn't listening when the SAME went out. All it knows is that there is a message. It cannot know whether it's a NUclear power plant Warning or a RWT.
@@fitybux4664 I agree with @user2C47, desktop radios are usually plugged in (utility power + battery backup) versus a battery only portable model. In a portable radio, only the tuner, a frequency filter, and a logic circuit would be needed to be powered. The alert tone causes the logic circuit to fire up and it turns on the amplifier and you hear the audio. To process the SAME headers, you'd still require the tuner, but the frequency filter and logic circuit would be replaced with either an ASIC, FPGA, or microcontroller for parsing the header, deciding if the message received is relevant, and then triggering the amplifier. Since desktop models aren't power constrained (they're not intended to be run on batteries for an extended period of time and usually are plugged into the wall), they can implement the SAME processing easily. A portable unit would be much less reliable as it'd have to keep the additional hardware powered up at a significant power cost. As far as recording the audio, all of the ENDECs used in a radio/television headend will record the audio to some storage media for the automatic rebroadcast. My TFT ENDEC has a bit of flash and I can review the last message recorded (older recordings are erased), but the SAGE ENDEC demonstrated here has a lot more storage and can store several messages (not sure how many, but I'm betting it's more than my TFT's one message). I'm not sure if SAGE uses flash for storage or a hard drive but if I had to guess, it's probably flash-based. If you're the tinkering type and have access to a USB SDR dongle, you can easily build an EAS receiver using software as the protocol is fairly simple to decode. I've found a few projects like this out there, but decided on doing this using a dedicated device rather than tie up my computer listening to the radio all day.
I have a Midland portable that supports SAME. It drains just as fast as the old analog portable. It even comes with a travel mode that cycles channel scan every so often, and temporarily disables location filtering.
The exact message (per Wikipedia) was "BALLISTIC MISSLE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL." It caused death threats to be sent to their employees. I'm sure many were injured during that "not a drill". (Also, I should add that I am quoting a historic event, and there is no current missile danger to Hawaii, that I know of.)
My local government abuses this system religiously. Ive talked to my local emergency management and sheriff. Nothing has changed. I reported it to the FCC and still nothing. Everything local still comes through as a presidential. As I had everything toggled to off. I've since rooted my phone and completely removed this feature. So I dont get squat anymore on my phone. I don't have cable nor do I listen to radio so I don't get any alerts there. My cell phone stays at home anyways. So it's not like I would get an alert when I'm out and about.
I live in Canada and we're not allowed to disable the emergency alerts on our phones. so damned annoying. at least they don't send out test alerts every month, otherwise I'd probably throw my phone off the balcony.
I dont rely on commercial radio for alerts. I have a NOAA radio in the house,and we always have our cells on which not only have the WEA but two other weather apps for alerts. Lesson learned many years ago when we were under a tornado warning and we tuned to WGN and WRMN for updates, and they just kept right along with their normal programming not to even update people about the situation, as if those were more important than the very severe weather going through our area at the time.
For this test I plan to see how my different devices react. I have an AM, FM, HD Radio (with alerts), Sirius, XM, Weather (with text alerts) and ATSC TV and i'm wondering which will get alerted first. I have an extra radio for shortwave but i'm not sure if EAS broadcasts on stations like WWV, WWCR, or WRMI. If anyone knows let me know and i'll include it in my test. Personally I'm not a fan of the interruption the EAS causes but I know it's a very important tool and the results of this test would be a very interesting topic to discuss on my tech blog.
I would like to know more details about how the messages are distributed. Maybe I missed you saying it, but from what I could gather, seems like it's almost like a call tree where one station (or probably a group of stations) at the top of the tree get it directly from the government and transmit it out, then for each top level station, several other stations hear it, and transmits the message themselves and the relay continues propagating the message across the US. (?)
Under iPhone it’s in notifications settings clear on the bottom labeled “government alerts” It has an option for AMBER alerts Emergency Alerts Public Safety Alerts And Test alerts. I have mine all on except Test Alerts. It will be interesting if the test alert off button makes this alert not noticeable. Maybe the test alert was off on yours? Maybe all were off? Android is very similar in settings allowing to you to turn off or on notifications for alerts
@@ohioplayer-bl9em That's an interesting experiment. I had all the alerts on last time on the phones which had the option. Most were Android but there were some dumb phones in the mix as well. I have zero IOS devices to test. I suspect compatibility will be much better this time. I want to test whether phones that don't support 4g get the message as well. i suspect not but will try.
How will you feel when a fake disaster is broadcast to deceive people?. FEMA is bad people. 3 letter govt agencies are, too. There's an info battle going on.
We have had this system for a few years now where I live and unfortunately my government and authorities are abusing or misusing it. They have used it to announce curfews, and they often send amber alerts in the middle of the night when it can be done hours sooner. It's as if they want to annoy us with it as much as possible. Because I have anxiety and those random alarms were not helping, I looked for ways to disable it on my phone. Disabling those alerts on my previous phone had no effect and they were still blasting and screaming even though unwanted and disabled. I ended up muting my phone and missing calls and notifications because I didn't want to risk that alarm sounding randomly every few weeks. Luckily I have a new phone that really does disable the alerts and I couldn't be happier.
The test was supposed to be at 2:20 EDT, but I got the WEA at 2:18 EDT and the EAS at 2:20. The strange thing about this test was that both the audio from the TV Station and the EAS audio were playing at the same time. I expected them to cut the TV audio and just play the EAS.
I actually got the alert, even though I was in the car driving home from school, and I was not connected to any wifi network, and I don't even have a phone number. I mean, I'm specifically talking about on my phone. My mom also got the alert, and we heard it on the radio.
Honestly it's genius to have it happen during programming, as that's when people are most likely to see the alert, instead of getting up to go do something else and not see the alert.
Because the test times are announced ahead of times all stations have a shot to try and have it occur during a break or during programs. Since playing over a commercial would cause a loss of income I assume most will choose to interrupt programs. Some creative programmers have played songs with messages like ‘I will survive’!
Don't forget about the 4am wake-up call every cell phone in Florida had earlier this year. Because of that about 3/4 of my office asked me (IT) to show them how to disable all of the alerts on their phones.
@@maxmustermann5932 exactly, and alarm fatigue will be the EA system's ultimate failure. overuse/misuse of the system will cause people to tune out and ignore potentially life-saving alerts.
LOL. Well, private entity priority does have their influence involved. I think as long as I successfully hear the test, I do not worry about what it interrupts. Especially when rewinding exists fairly prevalently. 🤪
Some of the tests don’t require the station to interrupt programming - the station can just work it in during a break. For those that do require interruption, if it interrupts an ad, they usually have to rerun the ad, to stay within their agreement with the advertiser.
I remember in Ukraine in first days we had EAS on local TV channel with a picture (and sound) of a siren and text that said to hide. Funny thing is one day it went on for a whole day. Dude responsible for that did not stop it when needed. That day emergency lasted for a few hours, in 3-4 time windows.
Interesting that the US does these tests apparently kinda rarely nationwide? In my country (much smaller country) we have a national air warning siren every month, first Monday of the month at 12 PM. And the phone alerts are also regularly tested.
Local municipalities are tested every month on the first Wednesday at 12pm on the dot. The US is a very big country to try to do the national test more than every few years. But all the local systems are tested and used for local or regional events like weather or natural disasters. I's up to the local governing body to have people in place to make sure the systems are actually going off when tested.
A much smaller Country makes sense but not a Country as large as the US. What emergency would affect the entire US all at once that would require this?
@@beardreacts2740 I've never seen an emergency in my country that affected the entire country at the same time, I guess that would be war. Come to think of it, I think I've only ever heard it once be used legit, but only locally
Not related to the EAS, but an important PSA nonetheless: That idiot at 1:27 with her feet up on the dash while driving... DON'T EVER DO THAT!!!💀☠You don't even want to think of the injuries you'd sustain in the event of an airbag deployment while your feet are there, or worse⚰.
Here in Finland these have been tested on the first monday of every month since like June or so, although it's mainly just been physical alarms and not wireless alerts
Our system has been running for years and years. If you started noticing the alerts since June, it's possible that the system was installed near you just then.
Here in Germany we got our first non failed warn test in years. And we only had three the past three years. The first was disastrous, the second some people got it, and the third was the most successful one yet.
The weather alerts vs region are a major PITA with cellular. Last place I lived the nearest cell tower was actually in a different state and we never got alerts for severe storms in our area but always got alerts for a couple counties to the North
I was on the phone in the pharmacy and everyone else's phones were going off and the person I was talking to had the sound on their end at their house but I did not hear it coming from my phone. 😮
In the Peoria area it used to be that when the jocks were in they did not forward NWS alerts over the EAS LP stations maybe because it heavily relies on legacy weather radio and can take as much as 2 minutes to forward. There should be more done like adding a CAP server for weather or using a service like EMNet at each local station for the weather warnings. With EMNet for example rather than forwarding NWS radio audio that may be poor quality, you can use an abbreviated generic voice (Ie A tornado warning is issued for Tazewell County until 8:00 pm) and only takes 20-30 seconds to forward and back to programming. Most DJs or station engineers opt to not forward NWS audio when it takes up to 2 minutes because it may interrupt coverage. And at times when they kept it off and no jocks are in and a tornado warning goes out, we've had nothing forwarded over some radio stations and everything went on like nothing was happening when a tornado is in the area. More needs to be done to ensure eas is doing its job.
I don't understand why the tests need to be disruptive to the public. Other than the data burst on radio/TV, nothing else is necessary, and it shouldn't trigger a message to come up on end-user phones/radios. There are tons of safety systems with background testing that users aren't aware of. The fire alarms in my condo and office building self-test every device silently, automatically. My building's HVAC and other managed systems also self-test and report back. Same for our PBX and firewall.
The problem is that you're looking at a relatively complex chain, and you need to test the *whole* chain to know it works. At some point, you have to test that last leg that alerts real people. You also need to test that it scales, and the most effective way to do that is an occasional full-scale test.
@@notsolm In my area, there's enough weather action and bogus Amber/Silver/Fuchsia/Brown alerts which test that last bit. Because of how numerous and useless the alerts have been, most people I know turn ALL of them off. When Florida sent out a test message to all cell phones at 4am earlier this year, that morning the #1 request from my coworkers was how to disable all alerts from their phones. About 75% of them had me help them with it. I don't need my cell phone to be warning me of high winds and flooding in the middle of a Cat 5 hurricane. We were already well-aware of that. Fun fact: EAS was never activated on 9/11.
that's bull. you cannot do a proper test of a fire alarm system without also triggering & testing the actual alarm bells / alerts. you need to test everything to make sure the system works.
@@techcafe0 It's not only how it's done, it's in the code -- these systems self-test. Each horn/strobe does internal self-tests and reports back to the panel if there's an issue. You don't need to test the airbag in your car by exploding it before each drive to make sure it works. It also performs similar checks each time you turn the key.
We know broadcasting the tones when not part of the emergency chain is a big no-no. I'm curious if there's anything in the audio chain which will mute the tones if they are accidentally played as part of normal programming. It's easy enough to drop ad spots with the tones but what about call-in shows? I imagine those (if not all live programming) has a "tape" delay in case of bad words and it seems like a perfect place to add in such a filter.
Yup they do have a delay mute feature for the alert tones for live call in shows, it detects the sound frequency and strips it from the audio being transmitted. The first three bursts tell the box to turn on, if a message follows, then there is a beep, then the message follows. When the message has been delivered the last 3 tones tell the box to release the transmission gear to normal programming.😮
Interesting you bring this up, earlier this year... I actually job shadowed at a talk radio station and I saw the exact same EAS box in the studio! I find it interesting that another one of our local talk radio stations doesn't actually hear when the EAS system goes off, so they could be talking... and then they're interrupted by the EAS system, and then you miss what the host said during the alert, only way you can hear the host when the EAS system is going off is if you're listening online
Two of the five devices I had operating actually alerted: cable TV and cell. RUclips (internet) didn't, my radio weather emergency channel didn't, the local AM talk radio station didn't. That's a 40% grade, IMHO that's a fail.
the weather radio and AM fialinhg are both big fails the internet well... the best it could do would be send notifacions to windows 10+ but that would be on Microsoft ,, you tube isnt a broadcaster
I don't recall ever getting or seeing a presidential test on the 4th. But then again this is rural oklahoma, it's a miracle we even have electricity and horseless carriages.
It would make an effective national emergency broadcast system as it would cover the entire country or various regions all at once. Plus it's under SiriusXM control of the broadcast to all the XM radios. Even those don't have an active subscription can still receive these alerts.
If the upstream stations fail to trigger the downstream EAS receivers, I'm sure they could use Satellite to broadcast down the trigger signal... (Assuming their transceivers can be tuned to that frequency. Also, not sure they'd make the journey with any usable signal integrity left.... 🤔)
In Sweden our alert system is tested on first non-holiday Monday in March, June, September and December at 15:00 CET/CEST. It’s nicknamed “Hesa Fredrick”, literally translated as “Hoarse Fredrick”.
I hope you will upload a video/short with an example of how it looks on different devices for us from the other side of the world ;) In my case, for example, it works based on SMS, sent for given regions.
@@HrLBolle Not yet, GSM operator based database for now. Cell broadcast was introduced in regulation ~4 months ago. Don't know when they will implement it. There is also an opt-In push notification option with local/gov apps. Not the OEM iphone/android warnings.
@@pofjiosgjsoges I being in Germany have already had alerts via Cell Broadcast. twice at the Bundeswarntag (first one was a bit messy) and one true alert for sever weather earlier this year, the heavy storm on 22nd. of June 2023
These systems in my country in Europe are also subject to test every year. You can hear them on the loudspeakers through the city. The system is a heritage from the Cold War era, and it was designed primarily to notify us of incoming American nuclear missiles attack. Now the system is used as a part of the national alert system in case of emergencies.
We test our air raid system every quarter the first Monday of the month at 15:00 in Sweden. Though they haven't tested the cellular alert systems in broad scale yet.
I remember the Hawaii Ballistic missle False alarm back in 2018 when I was in Bergen Community College plus I was in Hawaii for vacation when all sudden Sirens went off like the End of the world is happening but Honolulu Sirens sounded for Noon test for 30 seconds then they turned off
So, for cell phone carriers, I would expect that they have to send out messages to each recipient as an individual, and so it would take a lot longer to cycle through all of those, versus a broadcast message that could go out to each person in parallel. Does anyone here know for sure how the cell phone carriers actually handle these things?
Yep already made double sure my Endecs are ready on this end of the state. Will be doing the Rev 96 soon of course.. And *shudder* Barix boxes... but you have Brics too so all is forgiven.
@@GeerlingEngineering I have some stuff on the air that is older than me but in my mid 40s I sadly am considered "young" in this business. The guys that really know their stuff are retired or silent key. The Barix boxes gave me no end of fits as STLs. Switching to Comrex solved all those problems. Internet around here is not great and the Barix just don't have any buffer. I think the oldest thing I got is a Gates in name only backup transmitter from the 60s and I say that as my predecessors have rebuilt the insides in many interesting ways. The blower duct is the leg from a pair of jeans. Fortunately they left enough notes inside I can smack it into working. But yeah small town stations.
I have a lot of Comrex boxes for links including a Access Multirack I use as main audio. Most of the Barix units are backup audio and the main audio is either Comrex or Satellite RX. Let the electrons know who’s the boss, youngin’! Thanks for the comments.
@@radijoe Another BE gave me a set of Comrex Racks they were ewasting and I set them up as a test and never looked back. Their support is on the ball, basically configured the first link for me and I was sold. If they are going to help me get old junk working then they got a customer. We bought a set of bricks and will probably be replacing the last analog Marti's with them soon now that we have internet at that tower. The Barix boxes gave me no end of fits and I hate them. Got one left that carries serial RDS to the tower because I haven't switched it over yet. I am doing okay for someone who came over from IT and has been doing electronics as a hobby from the time I could hold a soldering iron. Like 8 or something making little circuits for my dads model trains. Self taught in all of it/learned by doing from the previous engineers. Now I am good with most stuff and have a nice repair bench I do not have the mojo to replace tubes and tune them yet. Just don't have the mojo other than tune the dip a little when there is ice on the bays. Love my solid state stuff. Nautel has been good to work with and I hope I can change them all out one day save for our small 10kw that I would retune/repurpose for our primary stations backup mentioned above. As for this EAS test all my little boxes went off like they were supposed to.
We've had one of those yearly tests in Germany, last month. This time, my old Samsung Galaxy S7 received the cell broadcast. They must've fixed that 3 vs. 4 digit ID code issue from the previous year.
Blur tools are known algorithmic processes that can be reversed in real time using reverse-algorithmic approximation. Basically, you can apply the negative of the filter and then diffusion rendering to guess what the rest of the image is. It's startlingly accurate.
Still surprises me that the test didn't hit my TFT Inc. EAS 911 ENDEC. Even with it having "up to date" (1996) codes, it should've still received the national broadcast (4 0's for national). I might have to look over its settings.
I’m in Canada and curious to know if SiriusXM was required to participate in this test? We do our own testing here but I’m sure the system has the same premise.
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The 2001 test was maybe not the worst ever. In 1971 by mistake someone sent out the "real, not a test" signal for the EBS by mistake. This accidentally showed why the tests are important: only about a third of radio stations actually switched to the emergency message. That wasn't the worst of it though.
Imagine you're 80 miles away from WCCO's big high power AM transmitter in Saint Paul, MN, listening on a Saturday morning. Suddenly the music stops, and the announcer says, "This is an Emergency Action Notification." There is a real national emergency. Then, 40 seconds in to reading the alert message script, IT GOES SILENT. For ten seconds, as far as you can tell, Saint Paul has just been vaporized. Finally, some background noise and a voice: "They've run the incorrect tape. Disregard, disregard the last message."
So yeah. Your dad's work, and doing it properly, matters.
Ouch, yeah! There was also that mobile alert a few years back about an attack that didn't really happen in Hawaii I think, that was pretty crazy.
@@GeerlingEngineeringYep… I was hunkering down for what felt like an eternity. Not something I’ll soon forget.
The classic wcco quality they strive for, this post made by KARE gang
@@GeerlingEngineering people were stuffing their children into sewer systems in Hawaii. I think a few were injured, some may have even died, I forget. Whoever "accidentally" did that should be liable on the hook for all of that.
In an hypothetical scenario, if the dates for these test are fixed during the year instead of being random and shorty communicated to the public, could any intrusive party hijack the system and introduce a real message to cause confusion?
IMPORTANT PSA: If you have a "secret phone" (say you live in a "complicated home situation" and your main phone is monitored by someone you'd really like to escape from), MAKE SURE THAT OTHER PHONE IS POWERED COMPLETELY OFF DURING THE TEST. Like with the UK test a while back, _the notification and noise don't stop until you acknowledge them_ and it goes off even in Silent+DND mode! They do say that airplane modeing the phone will prevent it receiving, and it won't go off later (it's a one-way "at-everyone" broadcast from all cell towers, it doesn't "queue" it for the next time you're online), but it's best not to take that risk.
People in those situations leave devices off and hidden.
Or.. hear me out. Get out of that situation…
@@jamesp7760 not always an option.
@jamesp7760 You realize it's really not that simple, right?
@sparklesparklesparkle6318 Can you not turn this into a political argument? We're talking about abusive home situations, not migrants.
I work retail and yesterday at work it was kind of amazing hearing every person's phone in the entire store sounding the emergency alert sound. Everyone was taking out their phones confused.
in my school, literally everyone in my algebra class was exposed. it was satisfying.
@@inoahguygames I was in geometry taking a test and it was beautiful hearing everyone's phones going off, our teacher was so annoyed lol.
Happened during my fitness class. I was laughing and it was satisfying
When they did the test in the UK back in March, I initially thought it was a fire alarm, and started looking round to see who the fire marshal was for directions to evacuate.
Thank God I didn't have school 💀💀
Jeff - your Dad ROCKS!!! What a wealth of information he (and you) have regarding Broadcast Radio and Emergency Communications! Thanks again for sharing this information with the RUclips world - really fascinating! As a General Class Ham Operator, I hope that you both upgrade to General so we can make a contact over HF some day...
I concur. I wonder if Jeff would find HSMM High Speed Multi Media using DD-WRT or OpenWRT to make contact and communicate via WiFi for a much longer distance...(around 45 miles) using other Part 97 WiFi channels as opposed to Part 15.
P.S. as an Extra Class amateur radio operator I hope that you both upgrade to Extra so we can have a QSO via HF also.
Back in Jan 2020, an emergency alert was sent to all cell phones in Ontario about an incident at the Pickering nuclear power plant. It was sent in error during a training exercise (live pathway instead of test pathway), but it took nearly 2 hours to send a follow-up oops message.
And I'd have believed *that* power plant could have issues. That thing is *old* . I hope they get a gen 4 lwr so y'all would never have to worry about it 😅.
@@fledgeking?
@@fledgeking I thought that at max it was 20 years old… I was *really* wrong…
@NobodyisAnybody Those stations can safely operate for a very, very long time. I know some licenses can certify a plant for 100 years. Still, the technology could use some upgrading 😅.
I work at the manufacturing facility that makes those blue colored Sage EAS controllers so I get to hear those emergency tones every week lol.
Ha, well thank you for your service!
bundles of fun every week hearing it in my broadcasting class
I can provide insight as to why mobile phone alerts take longer. Outside of anything within the network taking time to process, there's an inherent reason within LTE to cause delay. So when broadcast, its broadcast on a loop by all cell sites within the area. This broadcast is a packet within LTE spec called SIB12. This packet will contain all the information about the alert, such as its level and what text to be shown. The network specifies to your device how often it should check for this SIB12 message within SIB1. Different mobile networks with different hardware vendors will have a different value. A higher value means your phone will check in less often, saving battery, causing the delay observed.
Thanks for the info. In this test they send the wireless test a couple minutes earlier than the broadcaster test. My phone got the test quickly so I was impressed. I still wish I could have been in a busy airport to hear all the phones go off!
Here in Taiwan, the system is tested on 21 September, as it's known here 921. It is the anniversary of a massive and destructive earthquake on 21 September 1999.
Huh, interesting.
I looked this up and saw reporting on it from up to a month ago, but only heard about it for the first time from your channel so thanks for saving me a jump scare on October 4
Thank you for this awesome walk through! I used to work in broadcast, and would run the required weekly tests. Our ENDEC was much simpler (that was 15+ years ago). We monitored NWS and one of our local FM stations. As far as I remember we were one of the last stations in the chain.
Here in the UK the system was tested in April but there was a massive issue with one of the big mobile networks which meant that a large proportion of people (me included) didn’t receive the alert! There was definitely a lot of panicky remediation that went on after that I think 😂
Ringway Manchester it a radio guy, I'm not sure if he did a vid on this or not.
In the UK, we only have the mobile phone part. As far as I know, nothing is automated for radio and TV.
@@BrianG61UK I can picture the TV alert as being John Cleese at a desk in a field saying " . . .and now for something completely different .. . "
All networks had issues somewhere
Since corona and a massive flooding, we in Germany do these test' once a year and this year was the first where the authorities started to talk about a success...
This is a good insight into the EAS. I just wish Comcast fixed their EAS boxes as the weekly tests are actually 3 to 4 times a week; it like testing a fire alarm everyday as they do the full interruption and not the ten seconds as called for by the regulations. FYI: Illinois does their monthly tests on the first Tuesday of the month with the tornado sirens (skipped in areas with active thunderstorms that triggered a warning within the test time block).
You should call in. This is something I've had happen to my EAS units before, it's an easy find and fix that they just likely aren't catching happen.
@@datastream2600 Comcast/Xfinity no longer has local numbers you can call the serving "office". The national number is run by script kiddies who can't query anything not approved by software ("managers" are useless and only there to keep customers from cancelling services - just like a scammer call center). I just file FCC complaint under the EAS form on the website.
This video explained it all very well. EAS is actually a hobby of mine. I have a collection of over 100 different models of weather alert radios so during a storm all of my radios will go off. A few of my radios even have the ability to decode alerts on am and fm stations.
Bro has a 100% chance of surviving Armageddon 💀💀💀
I have 982 Radios 😂
That Sage unit brings back memories! I ran our college FM station when EAS replaced EBS and spent hours evaluating the options before ultimately going with TFT's solution.
I was working for a broadcast group in Florida during the same time period and we went the the Sage ENDEC units. Also at the same time the state put in a satellite-based 2-way communications system for the critical stations. Good times.
@@grayrabbit2211 in retrospect I probably chose the TFT for all the pretty blinky lights. I wonder what the current state of the EAS market is now, whether Sage has become the default or if there is still competition.
@@BigTunaTim76 I remember our Sage boxes had little printers built into them. Somehow we never got around to making fake messages on them.
I do remember when I first started working at the station, one of the engineers told me if I ever saw 15 (highest priority) on the CBS NetAlert box, to go grab a girl and have 'some fun' because it'd be the last 'fun' either one of us were going to see before the nukes arrived.
On equipment lists, I do put "LPD" on the spreadsheet when comparing equipment. LPD=Lights Per Dollar.
I've been known to toss a cheap audio compressor in a rack for looks, even if it's not actually affecting the audio output signal. Sure, everything has gone to on-screen displays for things these days, but all of the bouncing displays on an LCD screen are no match for individual LEDs' blinky goodness.
I think when I started we had a couple of TFTs and early endecs that had paper tape printers. By the time I had taken over all my stations had switched to the blue box Sages so I don't know much about it. I think I have the old ones in a garage somewhere.
I've worked at stations where the engineering staff was very up to date and knowledgeable about everything EAS, and at a few stations where the engineers were mostly in a fog about it. Like your dad (probably), I worked in radio when it was the EBS system. A lot has changed and I think for the better. Kudos to your dad for being so "up to date" on the system, its operation, and how to properly execute a test, or an actual emergency. Thanks for the videos. It's great to see you, him, and the stations he maintains!
Thanks, and I do enjoy your name :D
Very enjoyable. I have always been interested in radio transmission sites. Thanks Jeff and Dad. 73.
This kind of content is SO COOL for nerds like me, words can't describe! Thank you for sharing it with us.
🤓🤓
We get an additional test in our area due to the Nuclear Plant just down the coast from us. We live within the 10 mile zone around the plant so pretty much any major emergency there would affect us. They would be a part of the normal alert systems if they ever had an emergency, but their sirens are distinct from the tornado sirens that sound. They are tested at different times from the tornado sirens. I think we still receive a yearly calendar from them due to being in that 10 mile zone.
Very cool to hear how the systems work...always wondered.
I hope you guys can get a newer reactor some day (I'm guessing yours is a 60's or 70's design?). Pretty crazy we still have those old designs in commission.
@@fledgeking It really just comes down to the anti-nuclear crowd pulling NIMBY bullcrap. There's a stigma around it due to the isolated incidents that have happened.
Can you upload videos of the difference? I’m intrigued.
DIablo Canyon PG&E?
In Ukraine we receive such messages several times per day. Mostly on mobile phones, but some FM radio stations also support emergency notifications. And sirens start working in parallel everywhere
👍 God bless.
I've been following some Ukrainian Telegram channels and they popped up with messages to look for shelter almost every minute in early March 2022. I heard there are apps to alert it too.
@@rafaelasabchucalovato9439 Yes, now telegram, in my humble opinion, is the most important source of information about alerts. We have special monitoring channels that send information not only about alarm inself, but also about the type of attack and direction. They provide information about tactical and strategic aviation activity, ground-based missile launcher movements, type of the launched missiles/drones and their direction, possible areas of potential damage and so on. Other channels just copying base alarm information, so you always know what is going on and can weight necessity to go to shelter.
As someone who absolutely loves this stuff, I feel like I should thank you for uploading this.
Thanks for the explanation. I remember CONELRAD tests in the 50s. Hams needed to monitor the BC stations.
Exciting stuff. There is alot of misinfo going around about this test. Thank you Geerling bois for breaking echo chambers :)
The government is getting ready.
People are CRAZY! If they only had an idea how many tests and scenarios the government does on a regular basis. I've taken part in a few tests where the government pretends there is a massive regional tragedy. Then they do simulated responses. We just had a local test where we practiced for a nuclear power plant melting down last week.
@@pixelaccount3882thanks proving his point on misinformation. Stay afraid fool
@@pixelaccount3882getting ready for what?
Something about aliens, but the "real alien" was debunked
Oh this is awesome! There's a whole world of information in those bursts of information in an EAS message, the SAME codes limit visibility (so an EAS message for Florida doesn't fire off EAS systems in Georgia for example), there is also the originator code (who transmitted this message), as well as what kind of message it is (Did you know that there's a tsunami and volcano mesage types?). We had a civil alert message a few weeks ago that ended up being for an island city that had to be disconnected from the utility power grid for emergency maintenance.
The entire design of the EAS system is to be fully automated, this is why the ENDEC exists. It should automatically receive (DECode), store the audio message, and (reENcode) the message for retransmission without the operator lifting a finger. I have a much older ENDEC that I bought off eBay but being that I don't have a transmitter and I'm not a radio station, I use it for receiving EAS alerts from my PEPs using commodity radios (one AM, one FM, and one Weatherband).
SAME codes set the "area" of the message being delivered, this prevents an EAS alert for Key West from triggering alerts in Tallahassee even though they're both in Florida, or preventing a statewide alert in Florida from triggering EAS repeaters in Georgia for example.
Finally, the protocol itself is interesting, the reason why the start and end bursts are presented three times is because there's no checksumming in the protocol. It's broadcast three times and it's up to the ENDEC to keep the correct data. And your dad's right, the EOM message bursts at the end of the message is important as it tells the ENDEC to release the transmitter (back to the normal audio). An ENDEC that doesn't release the transmitter can hold a station offline (dead air)!
Can someone explain why big WX radio receiver providers (Midland) don't have SAME in portable radios, but do have it in WX desk side radios? 😆 Seems kind of lame. Also, weird how in 2023 it doesn't have the tech to record the reception onto some kind of flash storage for later playback. I guess all of these ideas would be too "innovative" for systems stuck in the past.
@@fitybux4664They probably don't support SAME on portable radios because it drains the battery a lot faster than checking for a tone once a second or so. It can't record the event because it wasn't listening when the SAME went out. All it knows is that there is a message. It cannot know whether it's a NUclear power plant Warning or a RWT.
@@fitybux4664 I agree with @user2C47, desktop radios are usually plugged in (utility power + battery backup) versus a battery only portable model. In a portable radio, only the tuner, a frequency filter, and a logic circuit would be needed to be powered. The alert tone causes the logic circuit to fire up and it turns on the amplifier and you hear the audio. To process the SAME headers, you'd still require the tuner, but the frequency filter and logic circuit would be replaced with either an ASIC, FPGA, or microcontroller for parsing the header, deciding if the message received is relevant, and then triggering the amplifier. Since desktop models aren't power constrained (they're not intended to be run on batteries for an extended period of time and usually are plugged into the wall), they can implement the SAME processing easily. A portable unit would be much less reliable as it'd have to keep the additional hardware powered up at a significant power cost.
As far as recording the audio, all of the ENDECs used in a radio/television headend will record the audio to some storage media for the automatic rebroadcast. My TFT ENDEC has a bit of flash and I can review the last message recorded (older recordings are erased), but the SAGE ENDEC demonstrated here has a lot more storage and can store several messages (not sure how many, but I'm betting it's more than my TFT's one message). I'm not sure if SAGE uses flash for storage or a hard drive but if I had to guess, it's probably flash-based.
If you're the tinkering type and have access to a USB SDR dongle, you can easily build an EAS receiver using software as the protocol is fairly simple to decode. I've found a few projects like this out there, but decided on doing this using a dedicated device rather than tie up my computer listening to the radio all day.
I have a Midland portable that supports SAME. It drains just as fast as the old analog portable. It even comes with a travel mode that cycles channel scan every so often, and temporarily disables location filtering.
Nothing beats the Hawaian test of January 13, 2018...
In The Netherlands we have them every first Monday of every month at noon...
The exact message (per Wikipedia) was "BALLISTIC MISSLE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL."
It caused death threats to be sent to their employees. I'm sure many were injured during that "not a drill".
(Also, I should add that I am quoting a historic event, and there is no current missile danger to Hawaii, that I know of.)
My local government abuses this system religiously. Ive talked to my local emergency management and sheriff. Nothing has changed. I reported it to the FCC and still nothing. Everything local still comes through as a presidential. As I had everything toggled to off. I've since rooted my phone and completely removed this feature. So I dont get squat anymore on my phone. I don't have cable nor do I listen to radio so I don't get any alerts there. My cell phone stays at home anyways. So it's not like I would get an alert when I'm out and about.
I live in Canada and we're not allowed to disable the emergency alerts on our phones. so damned annoying. at least they don't send out test alerts every month, otherwise I'd probably throw my phone off the balcony.
I dont rely on commercial radio for alerts. I have a NOAA radio in the house,and we always have our cells on which not only have the WEA but two other weather apps for alerts. Lesson learned many years ago when we were under a tornado warning and we tuned to WGN and WRMN for updates, and they just kept right along with their normal programming not to even update people about the situation, as if those were more important than the very severe weather going through our area at the time.
Love the videos with your dad. Thanks!
For this test I plan to see how my different devices react.
I have an AM, FM, HD Radio (with alerts), Sirius, XM, Weather (with text alerts) and ATSC TV and i'm wondering which will get alerted first.
I have an extra radio for shortwave but i'm not sure if EAS broadcasts on stations like WWV, WWCR, or WRMI. If anyone knows let me know and i'll include it in my test.
Personally I'm not a fan of the interruption the EAS causes but I know it's a very important tool and the results of this test would be a very interesting topic to discuss on my tech blog.
I would like to know more details about how the messages are distributed. Maybe I missed you saying it, but from what I could gather, seems like it's almost like a call tree where one station (or probably a group of stations) at the top of the tree get it directly from the government and transmit it out, then for each top level station, several other stations hear it, and transmits the message themselves and the relay continues propagating the message across the US. (?)
That's about right! Though with the more modern parts of the system the primary means is IP/Internet now, with a fallback to the broadcast chain.
Great question.. I am happy they kept the fallback method. I assume the modem sounds is what transmits data to the other broadcasters.
In the Netherlands they test it once a month, it that frequent that it gets so annoying that people disable the emergency notifications.
That could end badly
Awesome video explaining whats going on tomorrow. Thank you for sharing and keep up the great work.
Excellent video! Thank you for sharing how important these systems are.
The last time I turned on every phone I had and I was disappointed by how many didn't receive the alerts.
Any ryme or reason to that? No SIM card phones had alerts? MVNO phones had alerts? Non-MVNO phones? Cellular modem devices such as in cars?
@@fitybux4664 Nothing I noticed. All that required a sim has a sim.
Under iPhone it’s in notifications settings clear on the bottom labeled “government alerts”
It has an option for AMBER alerts
Emergency Alerts
Public Safety Alerts
And Test alerts.
I have mine all on except Test Alerts.
It will be interesting if the test alert off button makes this alert not noticeable.
Maybe the test alert was off on yours? Maybe all were off?
Android is very similar in settings allowing to you to turn off or on notifications for alerts
@@ohioplayer-bl9em That's an interesting experiment. I had all the alerts on last time on the phones which had the option. Most were Android but there were some dumb phones in the mix as well. I have zero IOS devices to test. I suspect compatibility will be much better this time. I want to test whether phones that don't support 4g get the message as well. i suspect not but will try.
On Android, test alerts are disabled by default for some reason.
We get annoyed when the tests happen but I'm sure we will be happy that it is there and working when a real disaster happens.
Thank you
How will you feel when a fake disaster is broadcast to deceive people?. FEMA is bad people. 3 letter govt agencies are, too. There's an info battle going on.
Most will probably ignore it.
Awesome video!
Very neat!
Wow this is so cool. Also you can hear Jeff's cute excitment when asking his dad if he could press the test button
Haha you know it! How often do you get to do that!
This was very interesting. Thank you for sharing this!
We have had this system for a few years now where I live and unfortunately my government and authorities are abusing or misusing it. They have used it to announce curfews, and they often send amber alerts in the middle of the night when it can be done hours sooner. It's as if they want to annoy us with it as much as possible.
Because I have anxiety and those random alarms were not helping, I looked for ways to disable it on my phone. Disabling those alerts on my previous phone had no effect and they were still blasting and screaming even though unwanted and disabled. I ended up muting my phone and missing calls and notifications because I didn't want to risk that alarm sounding randomly every few weeks. Luckily I have a new phone that really does disable the alerts and I couldn't be happier.
The test was supposed to be at 2:20 EDT, but I got the WEA at 2:18 EDT and the EAS at 2:20. The strange thing about this test was that both the audio from the TV Station and the EAS audio were playing at the same time. I expected them to cut the TV audio and just play the EAS.
Bless the algorithm!!! One of my self selected topics for uni was Emergency Alerts in Germany. Our MOWAS system is not that ready...
I actually got the alert, even though I was in the car driving home from school, and I was not connected to any wifi network, and I don't even have a phone number. I mean, I'm specifically talking about on my phone. My mom also got the alert, and we heard it on the radio.
Thanks for this cool and informative video!
I heard it today while at my high school everyone’s phones was going off in the class was going crazy.
Why is it that these tests NEVER occur during commercials, only during the programming we are watching or listening to?
Statistically it's very possible to have it happen during a commercial break somewhere in the country.
Honestly it's genius to have it happen during programming, as that's when people are most likely to see the alert, instead of getting up to go do something else and not see the alert.
Because the test times are announced ahead of times all stations have a shot to try and have it occur during a break or during programs. Since playing over a commercial would cause a loss of income I assume most will choose to interrupt programs. Some creative programmers have played songs with messages like ‘I will survive’!
Very good explanation
2:18pm for me, central Ohio, Spectrum wireless, iPhone.
Excellent and informative video, Thank You!
Don't forget about the 4am wake-up call every cell phone in Florida had earlier this year. Because of that about 3/4 of my office asked me (IT) to show them how to disable all of the alerts on their phones.
Alarm fatigue :(
@@maxmustermann5932 exactly, and alarm fatigue will be the EA system's ultimate failure. overuse/misuse of the system will cause people to tune out and ignore potentially life-saving alerts.
The national emergency alert bypasses those alerts from my understanding
@@vladstr100yes. The category "presidential alert" cannot be disabled.
It never interrupts the commercials just the show you are watching or a song on the radio!
LOL. Well, private entity priority does have their influence involved. I think as long as I successfully hear the test, I do not worry about what it interrupts. Especially when rewinding exists fairly prevalently. 🤪
Timing is always just perfect!
Some of the tests don’t require the station to interrupt programming - the station can just work it in during a break. For those that do require interruption, if it interrupts an ad, they usually have to rerun the ad, to stay within their agreement with the advertiser.
@BroadcastBlueprint thank you for the information
Kinda interesting to see a test of EAS, as someone who now experienced real deal air raid/missile alert. And yeah, they were sounded a bit too late
If anybody interested, here we had naval HQ hit by Storm Shadow
I remember in Ukraine in first days we had EAS on local TV channel with a picture (and sound) of a siren and text that said to hide. Funny thing is one day it went on for a whole day. Dude responsible for that did not stop it when needed. That day emergency lasted for a few hours, in 3-4 time windows.
Interesting that the US does these tests apparently kinda rarely nationwide? In my country (much smaller country) we have a national air warning siren every month, first Monday of the month at 12 PM. And the phone alerts are also regularly tested.
Local municipalities are tested every month on the first Wednesday at 12pm on the dot. The US is a very big country to try to do the national test more than every few years. But all the local systems are tested and used for local or regional events like weather or natural disasters. I's up to the local governing body to have people in place to make sure the systems are actually going off when tested.
A much smaller Country makes sense but not a Country as large as the US. What emergency would affect the entire US all at once that would require this?
@@beardreacts2740 I've never seen an emergency in my country that affected the entire country at the same time, I guess that would be war. Come to think of it, I think I've only ever heard it once be used legit, but only locally
WX is tested weekly in the USA. (Assuming you can receive it. But, that's kind of the point of the test...)
@@fitybux4664All EAS participants have to perform RWTs.
Not related to the EAS, but an important PSA nonetheless: That idiot at 1:27 with her feet up on the dash while driving... DON'T EVER DO THAT!!!💀☠You don't even want to think of the injuries you'd sustain in the event of an airbag deployment while your feet are there, or worse⚰.
Fantastic, in the UK we only have the GSM alert system
Having the audio of the test in this video you were breaking the law!
Here in Finland these have been tested on the first monday of every month since like June or so, although it's mainly just been physical alarms and not wireless alerts
Our system has been running for years and years. If you started noticing the alerts since June, it's possible that the system was installed near you just then.
If they did tests at the top of the hour, they could be integrated into the station IDs.
Here in Germany we got our first non failed warn test in years. And we only had three the past three years. The first was disastrous, the second some people got it, and the third was the most successful one yet.
We had our "Warntag" in germany about two weeks ago. Although we all knew its gonna happen i still jumped up.
The weather alerts vs region are a major PITA with cellular. Last place I lived the nearest cell tower was actually in a different state and we never got alerts for severe storms in our area but always got alerts for a couple counties to the North
I was on the phone in the pharmacy and everyone else's phones were going off and the person I was talking to had the sound on their end at their house but I did not hear it coming from my phone. 😮
In the Peoria area it used to be that when the jocks were in they did not forward NWS alerts over the EAS LP stations maybe because it heavily relies on legacy weather radio and can take as much as 2 minutes to forward. There should be more done like adding a CAP server for weather or using a service like EMNet at each local station for the weather warnings. With EMNet for example rather than forwarding NWS radio audio that may be poor quality, you can use an abbreviated generic voice (Ie A tornado warning is issued for Tazewell County until 8:00 pm) and only takes 20-30 seconds to forward and back to programming. Most DJs or station engineers opt to not forward NWS audio when it takes up to 2 minutes because it may interrupt coverage. And at times when they kept it off and no jocks are in and a tornado warning goes out, we've had nothing forwarded over some radio stations and everything went on like nothing was happening when a tornado is in the area. More needs to be done to ensure eas is doing its job.
The date of the test is also the most vulnerable.
If an adversary attacks on this testing date, the public will be confused as to test vs fact....
Didn't work in Maui, how will this ever be used for any good?
thank you for posting about this there is so little info how this thing works thank you jeff and jeffs dad
Good info to share with my coworkers we are working at (redacted) mobile carrier when said nationwide test happened and wondering how it goes down.
I don't understand why the tests need to be disruptive to the public. Other than the data burst on radio/TV, nothing else is necessary, and it shouldn't trigger a message to come up on end-user phones/radios. There are tons of safety systems with background testing that users aren't aware of. The fire alarms in my condo and office building self-test every device silently, automatically. My building's HVAC and other managed systems also self-test and report back. Same for our PBX and firewall.
The problem is that you're looking at a relatively complex chain, and you need to test the *whole* chain to know it works. At some point, you have to test that last leg that alerts real people. You also need to test that it scales, and the most effective way to do that is an occasional full-scale test.
@@notsolm In my area, there's enough weather action and bogus Amber/Silver/Fuchsia/Brown alerts which test that last bit. Because of how numerous and useless the alerts have been, most people I know turn ALL of them off.
When Florida sent out a test message to all cell phones at 4am earlier this year, that morning the #1 request from my coworkers was how to disable all alerts from their phones. About 75% of them had me help them with it.
I don't need my cell phone to be warning me of high winds and flooding in the middle of a Cat 5 hurricane. We were already well-aware of that.
Fun fact: EAS was never activated on 9/11.
that's bull. you cannot do a proper test of a fire alarm system without also triggering & testing the actual alarm bells / alerts. you need to test everything to make sure the system works.
@@techcafe0 It's not only how it's done, it's in the code -- these systems self-test. Each horn/strobe does internal self-tests and reports back to the panel if there's an issue.
You don't need to test the airbag in your car by exploding it before each drive to make sure it works. It also performs similar checks each time you turn the key.
We know broadcasting the tones when not part of the emergency chain is a big no-no. I'm curious if there's anything in the audio chain which will mute the tones if they are accidentally played as part of normal programming. It's easy enough to drop ad spots with the tones but what about call-in shows? I imagine those (if not all live programming) has a "tape" delay in case of bad words and it seems like a perfect place to add in such a filter.
The FCC doesn't like it. Stations have instantly done this with the old EBS tones and had to pay $$$.
Yup they do have a delay mute feature for the alert tones for live call in shows, it detects the sound frequency and strips it from the audio being transmitted. The first three bursts tell the box to turn on, if a message follows, then there is a beep, then the message follows. When the message has been delivered the last 3 tones tell the box to release the transmission gear to normal programming.😮
Love the MLS jersey! Also thanks dad for the info.
Interesting you bring this up, earlier this year... I actually job shadowed at a talk radio station and I saw the exact same EAS box in the studio! I find it interesting that another one of our local talk radio stations doesn't actually hear when the EAS system goes off, so they could be talking... and then they're interrupted by the EAS system, and then you miss what the host said during the alert, only way you can hear the host when the EAS system is going off is if you're listening online
Two of the five devices I had operating actually alerted: cable TV and cell. RUclips (internet) didn't, my radio weather emergency channel didn't, the local AM talk radio station didn't. That's a 40% grade, IMHO that's a fail.
the weather radio and AM fialinhg are both big fails the internet well... the best it could do would be send notifacions to windows 10+ but that would be on Microsoft ,, you tube isnt a broadcaster
Fascinating! Quite convenient that your dad has so much to do with it!
A year ago Orange county had a EBS same day. That's scary
were i live (the netherlands) we test it every first monday of the month and i every continent needs to do that since its really important
I don't recall ever getting or seeing a presidential test on the 4th. But then again this is rural oklahoma, it's a miracle we even have electricity and horseless carriages.
Any requirements for satellite radio providers to do this? Seeing as something like SiriusXM is primarily North American focused, it would make sense.
It would make an effective national emergency broadcast system as it would cover the entire country or various regions all at once. Plus it's under SiriusXM control of the broadcast to all the XM radios. Even those don't have an active subscription can still receive these alerts.
@@Darkk6969 that’s exactly what I was thinking, yet I have a feeling they’re exempt. I’ve never heard any sort of alert.
If the upstream stations fail to trigger the downstream EAS receivers, I'm sure they could use Satellite to broadcast down the trigger signal... (Assuming their transceivers can be tuned to that frequency. Also, not sure they'd make the journey with any usable signal integrity left.... 🤔)
SiriusXM and Premiere are both Primary Entry Points. NPR is as well but delivers national alerts to their affiliates over their ‘squawk’ frequency.
In Sweden our alert system is tested on first non-holiday Monday in March, June, September and December at 15:00 CET/CEST.
It’s nicknamed “Hesa Fredrick”, literally translated as “Hoarse Fredrick”.
I hope you will upload a video/short with an example of how it looks on different devices for us from the other side of the world ;)
In my case, for example, it works based on SMS, sent for given regions.
Cell Broadcast?
@@HrLBolle Not yet, GSM operator based database for now. Cell broadcast was introduced in regulation ~4 months ago. Don't know when they will implement it.
There is also an opt-In push notification option with local/gov apps. Not the OEM iphone/android warnings.
@@pofjiosgjsoges I being in Germany have already had alerts via Cell Broadcast.
twice at the Bundeswarntag (first one was a bit messy)
and one true alert for sever weather earlier this year, the heavy storm on 22nd. of June 2023
These systems in my country in Europe are also subject to test every year. You can hear them on the loudspeakers through the city. The system is a heritage from the Cold War era, and it was designed primarily to notify us of incoming American nuclear missiles attack.
Now the system is used as a part of the national alert system in case of emergencies.
What country
@@tfpnation6925 Bulgaria
Good info - thanks !
Thank you guys for this! This kind of information is really interesting! Its always fun to learn aomething new 😄
Wait wait wait....that ht....what frequency was that on? Is there a vhf place where you can monitor for eas aside from TV radio and cellular?
Thank you for this excellent overview, human Geerlings. My race will find this information very useful indeed. Mwahahahahha.
We test our air raid system every quarter the first Monday of the month at 15:00 in Sweden. Though they haven't tested the cellular alert systems in broad scale yet.
Wondering if your Dad could explain this whole Air-Chain? What´s the general signal flow?
Sounds like a good topic for a future video! Would be cool to quickly run through the whole chain from mic to tower.
@@GeerlingEngineering yeah, that´s quite interesting! Would be awesome if he could explain it 🙂
Pretty interesting, in the Netherlands we have a nation-wide test every first monday of the month at 12:00
that would get annoying pretty damed fast for me
here in the netherlands, the test is monthly actually.
Was at work on that day with around 20 people in the lobby. When the alert went off, it sounded like the entire place was going up in flames, loL!
I remember the Hawaii Ballistic missle False alarm back in 2018 when I was in Bergen Community College plus I was in Hawaii for vacation when all sudden Sirens went off like the End of the world is happening but Honolulu Sirens sounded for Noon test for 30 seconds then they turned off
I remember that crazy creepy loopback first national test since I have to record all of these for an LPFM. Nice to have it documented here.
So, for cell phone carriers, I would expect that they have to send out messages to each recipient as an individual, and so it would take a lot longer to cycle through all of those, versus a broadcast message that could go out to each person in parallel.
Does anyone here know for sure how the cell phone carriers actually handle these things?
They're working on changing this vs going through the carrier's database of their subs.
the alert is sent out as a broadcast message (not to individual subscribers) similar to any other network
Yep already made double sure my Endecs are ready on this end of the state. Will be doing the Rev 96 soon of course.. And *shudder* Barix boxes... but you have Brics too so all is forgiven.
Haha when I see equipment there I remember from like 20 years ago... I realize it's not one of the 'big' media company-owned radio chains :)
@@GeerlingEngineering I have some stuff on the air that is older than me but in my mid 40s I sadly am considered "young" in this business. The guys that really know their stuff are retired or silent key. The Barix boxes gave me no end of fits as STLs. Switching to Comrex solved all those problems. Internet around here is not great and the Barix just don't have any buffer. I think the oldest thing I got is a Gates in name only backup transmitter from the 60s and I say that as my predecessors have rebuilt the insides in many interesting ways. The blower duct is the leg from a pair of jeans. Fortunately they left enough notes inside I can smack it into working. But yeah small town stations.
I have a lot of Comrex boxes for links including a Access Multirack I use as main audio. Most of the Barix units are backup audio and the main audio is either Comrex or Satellite RX. Let the electrons know who’s the boss, youngin’! Thanks for the comments.
@@radijoe Another BE gave me a set of Comrex Racks they were ewasting and I set them up as a test and never looked back. Their support is on the ball, basically configured the first link for me and I was sold. If they are going to help me get old junk working then they got a customer. We bought a set of bricks and will probably be replacing the last analog Marti's with them soon now that we have internet at that tower. The Barix boxes gave me no end of fits and I hate them. Got one left that carries serial RDS to the tower because I haven't switched it over yet. I am doing okay for someone who came over from IT and has been doing electronics as a hobby from the time I could hold a soldering iron. Like 8 or something making little circuits for my dads model trains. Self taught in all of it/learned by doing from the previous engineers. Now I am good with most stuff and have a nice repair bench I do not have the mojo to replace tubes and tune them yet. Just don't have the mojo other than tune the dip a little when there is ice on the bays. Love my solid state stuff. Nautel has been good to work with and I hope I can change them all out one day save for our small 10kw that I would retune/repurpose for our primary stations backup mentioned above. As for this EAS test all my little boxes went off like they were supposed to.
We've had one of those yearly tests in Germany, last month. This time, my old Samsung Galaxy S7 received the cell broadcast. They must've fixed that 3 vs. 4 digit ID code issue from the previous year.
I’m just waiting to be in class and hearing all of these going off in class and in the hallways and in other classes
Heh, im going to make sure I have my camera recording at 2:19 to catch whatever happens
@@GeerlingEngineering same
Blur tools are known algorithmic processes that can be reversed in real time using reverse-algorithmic approximation. Basically, you can apply the negative of the filter and then diffusion rendering to guess what the rest of the image is. It's startlingly accurate.
especially with multiple frames
Still surprises me that the test didn't hit my TFT Inc. EAS 911 ENDEC. Even with it having "up to date" (1996) codes, it should've still received the national broadcast (4 0's for national). I might have to look over its settings.
Your voice is calming, like Mr. Rogers
Do you mind if I share this to our local emergency management Facebook page? This explains the test really well.
I’m in Canada and curious to know if SiriusXM was required to participate in this test? We do our own testing here but I’m sure the system has the same premise.
Yes, here in the USA, all broadcast, cable, and Sattelite/sattelite radio has to test.
I heard the alert over Sirius.
@@karlrovey I suppose I would have seen it if I happened to be watching an American TV channel.
@@Michael_Livingstone If you were outside the US and everything was routed locally, you would not have seen it.
Thank you for not fear mongering.