January 10, 2007

Present:

Terry Spring-KWPX
Don Miller-WSEM
Tim Lawson-Snohomish County DEM
Clay Freinwald-SBE
Bill Goodwin-Click! Network
DeWayne Sennett-Cingular
Brian Daly-Cingular
Jim Tharp-Entercom
Teb Buehner-NWS Seattle
Kris McGowan-FCC Seattle

Via Phone:

Kerry Jones-NWS Spokane
Mark Allen-WSAB
Dennis Hull-NWS Pendleton
Tom Sharp-Pierce County DEM
Mike Gordan-Kitsap County DEM
Peggy Fonts-Grays Harbor County 911
Art Blum-KONA

The Meeting was called to order and introductions were made. Clay is still at Entercom, but in a lesser capacity.

The FCC has established the WARN Committee. WARN Stands for the Warning Alert and Response Network and was established by legislative directive. The purpose of the committee is to develop and recommend technical standards and protocols to facilitate the voluntary transmission of emergency alerts by mobile phone providers. Our own Brian Daly of Cingular Wireless is on the committee and will be providing us with updates on the remailer. The first meeting was on December 12 and set the ground work for the committee. They must make their recommendations to the FCC by next October. There are presently 43 members consisting of representatives of government, broadcasters, cell phone companies and manufacturers, and other related special interest groups.

The FCC now requires DTV stations to broadcast EAS on all their sub-channels.

Another of our participants, Bob Wyatt, has been appointed to the ATSC DTV Committee. They will be working on using the DTV data stream for emergency alerts, such as an advanced EAS using the Common Alerting Protocol (CAP).

Oregon has been trying to pre-feed their RMT's to get around problems with the tests being delayed by their distribution system. The last one was wiped out by a NWS RWT. The weather service tries to be aware of when the RMT's are being run so that they do not send something on top of it.

A new symbol or logo has been created for Emergency Management.

Partners In Emergency Management will be held at the Tacoma Convention Center April 10 and 11. It is an all hazards conference for Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and British Columbia. The 2006 conference drew over 650 attendees from government, business, military and volunteer agencies.

Stations are supposed to log required tests, but they don't have to log everything. Generally that means receiving 2 test or alerts and sending 1. If a required test is not sent or received, log why. Keep in mind that the weather service will delay their Wednesday RWT during bad weather.

The Evacuation Alert that was sent erroneously on January 8th was discussed. SnoPac was conducting a training session and someone hit the wrong button. There have been a number of false activations the last few years. Again, the suggestion was made that the EAS system be disconnected during training. Once again there were suggestions that the state issue all alerts. Don Miller explained that the new web based system he is working on has better safeguards, an easier interface, and better audio quality. It has been demonstrated around the state. The state is looking for a station to install it in the Central Puget Sound area. Most stations do not want to relay everything. The goal is to improve the audio quality delivered to the stations and to get away from using the two way radio links.

During the November floods, some people were not aware of what was going on because they were listening to satellite radio, Ipods, CD's, etc. Should EAS alerts be issued for events like that? When do you send emergency alerts to phones when that capability becomes available? The NWS requires that an event has to be immediate and life threatening before they use EAS. Guidelines have to be tight because of the different personalities involved and to have constancy. How do we reach the 10%?

AT WSEM, they have the web based alerting system partially funded, and are working on the legislature for the rest.

Mark Allen from the WSAB reported that the 2007 RMT schedule is now on their web site in living color! Rep Glen Anderson has expressed concern about the lack of information during the wind storm. He would like to see a central source of information, such as an official state radio station.

At the National Weather Service, the UPS at the Blaine weather radio station is now on line. On March 28th, Alaska and Northern California will conduct a tsunami test using the real event code. Several people had reservations about using a real event code for a test.

HazCollect training will possibly be posted on the web or available on a CD.

Kris reported that the FCC has recently found some non-functioning EAS boxes. A station was fined for not relaying RMT's because the clock on the EAS unit was off. They are hiring another engineering person.

The 2007 RMT schedule is done.

The technical committee is looking into alternative sources for Sage power supplies. Also, there are other sources for the Sage thermal paper besides Harris. According to an article in this month's Radio Guide, Reliable Office Supplies (Stock #5228, (800) 735-4000) and Staples (SKU #8924305228) stock them. TFTs use adding machine paper. You have to reel off the first half of the roll so it will fit so it fill fit in the paper well. The ribbon is an Epson ERC-09 or NuKote NUKPM 267. The Burk uses the same ribbon. You can subscribe to Radio Guide by emailing publisher Ray Topp (radio@rconnect.com) or editor Barry Mishkind (editor@radio-guide.com).

The next meeting is Wednesday, March 14 at 9:30 AM at Camp Murray.

Terry Spring
Chief Engineer
KWPX Seattle
An Affiliate of ION Media Networks

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