[Jeffhs]

I saw the test this afternoon on WKYC-TV, NBC Cleveland. The test sounded no different from any other EAS test local TV and radio stations are required to conduct every month or so.


I receive the daily "TVSpy" television industry newsletter in my email, and today's edition had a short note regarding the national EAS test. No surprises there, but I did wonder about a comment someone made on TVSpy.com regarding the real purpose of the EAS. The person seemed to believe that the system was developed to give the government the authority to shut down all broadcasting -- standard broadcast, FM and television -- at its sole discretion.

I am very sorry, but that is not the purpose of the Emergency Alert System. I put the word "alert" in italics because that word describes exactly why the system was developed -- to alert the American people to natural disasters and, when necessary, national security issues. The EAS is not meant to give the President the power to shut down all commercial broadcasting at the drop of a hat. I recently read of a plan being considered by which the President would have the power to shut down the Internet (the "kill switch") in case of a dire emergency. I do not believe anything ever became of this or ever will, any more than I believe (I do not) that the EAS exists only to give the President unprecedented authority to order every single radio and TV station in the United States of America off the air in the event of a national security emergency; after all, the old EBS and today's EAS do not operate as did Conelrad, which did require all radio and TV stations to leave the air in the event of a Conelrad alert. The only station permitted to remain in operation in the affected area during an emergency was the Conelrad alert station, which operated on 640 or 1240 kHz.

BTW, those short signals that sound for all the world like farts, sent just before the end of EAS tests, that WA2ISE referred to in his post sound almost exactly like packet radio signals or the signals sent over a phone line by a computer modem, and also by packet radio modems. When I had AOL Internet service, I was able to hear these signals over my computer's audio system as they were being sent out over my telephone line, and as well over the speaker in my computer monitor when I was operating amateur packet radio from 1989-99. I don't operate packet any longer (no room in this small apartment for two computer systems) and switched from dial-up Internet service to broadband several years ago; however, my point is that I don't know if broadband Internet uses the same raspy signals as do dial-up modems.