Retired broadcaster here. From the CONELRAD era, you should've mentioned the required national programs (There may have been more. But, I'm aware of two.) that Office of Civil Defense (Which ran CONELRAD) had on participating stations on 640 and 1240. The programs were of C & W music, selected in the belief of being least offensive to listerners, Also, the participating stations ran lower power, not just to further reduce DF usefulness, but also because of reducing XMTR damage due to VSWR excursion from off-frequency operation. A point from the EBS era was the time an operator at NORAD in Chyenne Mountain put the wrong punch tape in the reader for the weekly Saturday morning test over the AP and UPI teletype lines. The message was for" EAN Red Card Message One" to be read on-air. Stations not having an NDEA were to go silent/dark. Problem was, not all stations did that. I was watching WSVA-TV, channel 3 in Harrisonburg, VA that morning. They read the EAN message and hit PLATE HI-POWER OFF. KYW-TV in Philly was then weakly visible. This was in Alexandria, VA. (I periodically watched channe; 3 for Sporadic-E Skip TVDX) In fact very few stations went off. When it was found that the wrong message went out, NORAD sent the terminating message. But, witghout code word! They did resend the message with the proper code word. (The EAN RED CARD message had the rght code word from the beginning.) Also, the first broadcaster I worked at had a "Singing EBS Test". It had the script. But was sung! It also had the test tone being sent as "Mary Had a Little Lamb". Needless to say, it was eventually banned by the FCC! I laugh now, having been retired from Cox (after stops at RKO General and Media General Broadcast Group, among others along the way) for over three years now, 45+ years after my first job ar a 1KW daytimer with a 500 watt PSA. 73!.
During all the rain we had here in California, we were sometimes getting two or three alerts per day. I've got a weather radio, which also plays an alert "siren" at the start, and that thing could wake the dead (which is a good thing)
The EBS was activated by mistake by an operator at Cheyenne Mountain in 1971. Less than half of the country's radio stations did the correct thing; it was considered a massive failure. Even Cheyenne Mountain had problems. They could not find the correct authenticator code words to end the emergency broadcast, so the stations which actually participated waited for the better part of an hour for the President to come on to explain what the emergency was. The FCC sent a letter to each broadcast station in the US, asking what they did, so they could make changes to improve the system. At the time, I was a sophomore in high school, but I had a Second Class license and was the engineer of our school's 10-watt FM station WCNE. The FCC letter came to our school district, but the Superintendent gave it to me, since I was the one who had the best understanding of the FCC rules. I wrote the reply, which is the first official letter to a US government agency which bears my signature. At the time, I was not old enough to drive.
When I had a high level, wide coverage 2 meter repeater I used a TFT eas911 decoder on the system to send out EAS. I still have the encoder and decoder. Not sure if I will ever use them again but it was a fun project to work on and the coordinator for my state really helped out.
Very well put together video Drew! Very informative and educational. I don't know why but I always run to the radio whenever I hear the EAS system go off. Even if it is just an RWT. Keep up the great work!
Here in Canada in 2024, we have the red screen of death. If you’re watching TV, the screen turns bright red with white letters accompanied by awful alerting tone. I find these alerts cause far more fear than the actual issue it’s trying to convey. Radio is the same misery, just audio only. As for phones we get notifications but in that case it’s a white lettering on black with the alert tones.
Looking for people familiar with national control point procedures and NIC. Meaning at network master controls. FCC has little of this material in National Archives.
So interesting! I have absolutely zero knowledge of broadcast engineering, but I found you on TikTok and was hooked. It’s fascinating to me to hear about the engineering process of such a huge and specific system like the EAS. So glad to see you’re on RUclips as well :)
When I had a high level, wide coverage 2 meter repeater I used a TFT eas911 decoder on the system to send out EAS. I still have the encoder and decoder. Not sure if I will ever use them again but it was a fun project to work on and the coordinator for my state really helped out.
Drew, I appreciate your video. If we are all lucky; we will never have to experience an activation of the Emergency Alert System at the National level.
Lately with our EAS when they run tests after the SAME header during the message you can hear it play again very faintly. Sometimes the voice sounds like it’s on a radio station where the signal is going in and out as well
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Retired broadcaster here. From the CONELRAD era, you should've mentioned the required national programs (There may have been more. But, I'm aware of two.) that Office of Civil Defense (Which ran CONELRAD) had on participating stations on 640 and 1240. The programs were of C & W music, selected in the belief of being least offensive to listerners, Also, the participating stations ran lower power, not just to further reduce DF usefulness, but also because of reducing XMTR damage due to VSWR excursion from off-frequency operation. A point from the EBS era was the time an operator at NORAD in Chyenne Mountain put the wrong punch tape in the reader for the weekly Saturday morning test over the AP and UPI teletype lines. The message was for" EAN Red Card Message One" to be read on-air. Stations not having an NDEA were to go silent/dark. Problem was, not all stations did that. I was watching WSVA-TV, channel 3 in Harrisonburg, VA that morning. They read the EAN message and hit PLATE HI-POWER OFF. KYW-TV in Philly was then weakly visible. This was in Alexandria, VA. (I periodically watched channe; 3 for Sporadic-E Skip TVDX) In fact very few stations went off. When it was found that the wrong message went out, NORAD sent the terminating message. But, witghout code word! They did resend the message with the proper code word. (The EAN RED CARD message had the rght code word from the beginning.) Also, the first broadcaster I worked at had a "Singing EBS Test". It had the script. But was sung! It also had the test tone being sent as "Mary Had a Little Lamb". Needless to say, it was eventually banned by the FCC! I laugh now, having been retired from Cox (after stops at RKO General and Media General Broadcast Group, among others along the way) for over three years now, 45+ years after my first job ar a 1KW daytimer with a 500 watt PSA. 73!.
This is such cool info! I didn’t know PEPs needed someone to be on duty 24/7, when you think about it, that makes total sense
They use the attention signal for when weather alerts are posted on your phones for when There's ever severe weather. They still use that
During all the rain we had here in California, we were sometimes getting two or three alerts per day. I've got a weather radio, which also plays an alert "siren" at the start, and that thing could wake the dead (which is a good thing)
Fantastic video!
Oh yea there is a new sound to the amber alert system
The EBS was activated by mistake by an operator at Cheyenne Mountain in 1971. Less than half of the country's radio stations did the correct thing; it was considered a massive failure. Even Cheyenne Mountain had problems. They could not find the correct authenticator code words to end the emergency broadcast, so the stations which actually participated waited for the better part of an hour for the President to come on to explain what the emergency was. The FCC sent a letter to each broadcast station in the US, asking what they did, so they could make changes to improve the system. At the time, I was a sophomore in high school, but I had a Second Class license and was the engineer of our school's 10-watt FM station WCNE. The FCC letter came to our school district, but the Superintendent gave it to me, since I was the one who had the best understanding of the FCC rules. I wrote the reply, which is the first official letter to a US government agency which bears my signature. At the time, I was not old enough to drive.
thats pretty cool
I have always wondered how this worked. Great video, thank you!
Watch a 5 minute video on history ❌
Watch a 12 minute video about the history of an alert system ✅
I love the eas I am trying to make my own station and become a tech radio operator for ham and I love this sort of stuff
When I had a high level, wide coverage 2 meter repeater I used a TFT eas911 decoder on the system to send out EAS. I still have the encoder and decoder. Not sure if I will ever use them again but it was a fun project to work on and the coordinator for my state really helped out.
Very well put together video Drew! Very informative and educational. I don't know why but I always run to the radio whenever I hear the EAS system go off. Even if it is just an RWT. Keep up the great work!
Here in Canada in 2024, we have the red screen of death. If you’re watching TV, the screen turns bright red with white letters accompanied by awful alerting tone. I find these alerts cause far more fear than the actual issue it’s trying to convey. Radio is the same misery, just audio only. As for phones we get notifications but in that case it’s a white lettering on black with the alert tones.
Looking for people familiar with national control point procedures and NIC. Meaning at network master controls. FCC has little of this material in National Archives.
So interesting! I have absolutely zero knowledge of broadcast engineering, but I found you on TikTok and was hooked. It’s fascinating to me to hear about the engineering process of such a huge and specific system like the EAS. So glad to see you’re on RUclips as well :)
The Oddity Archive did it first in 2012, now there are others who made videos about the EAS
This is great! I stumbled across your channel looking up EBS/EAS tests from the NY Capital Region (Albany) market. Subbed!
After 1995 in 1996 the amber alert system was created
I wonder how this is going to change with the shift to streaming.
There is a new sound for the eas before the unpleasant tone
Such an underated channel :D
When I had a high level, wide coverage 2 meter repeater I used a TFT eas911 decoder on the system to send out EAS. I still have the encoder and decoder. Not sure if I will ever use them again but it was a fun project to work on and the coordinator for my state really helped out.
Interesting.
EAN's have been renamed to National Emergency Messages, by the way.
When did that happen?
@@ryanmccauslin7578December 2022.
@@ryanmccauslin7578 renamed in 2022
Drew, I appreciate your video. If we are all lucky; we will never have to experience an activation of the Emergency Alert System at the National level.
yeah, but if it happens, it will be iconic
Lately with our EAS when they run tests after the SAME header during the message you can hear it play again very faintly. Sometimes the voice sounds like it’s on a radio station where the signal is going in and out as well
I was born in march 24 1995 the late ebs era emergency broadcast system in three year in 1997 we have eas emergency alert system
Oct 4 2023 is the national eas fema test
EAS is so Creepy and Spooky
There are times when EAS gets Hacked by another country like Russia for instance with interference with UVB-76 The Buzzer when EAS goes Silent
but a life saver : )
That's actually a good thing. You want it to be something that people won't ignore.
Good stuff!
amazing video