March 8, 2006

Present:

Terry Spring-KWPX
Scott Vermeys-Comcast
Rick Peterson-Click! Network

Steve Houser-FCC
Lowell Kiesow-KPLU
Clay Freinwald-Entercom
Randy Fleehart-KWPX/Bates
Don White-Tribune Television
Allan Steinberg-Bates
Roland Robinson-Bates Technical College
Ted Buehner-NWS Seattle
Don Miller-WSEM
Shelli Jones-KBCB (phone)
Ed Leavitt-RACES/EMD
John Franz-KVOS (phone)
Donna DiBianco-KAOS (phone)
Mark Allen-WSAB
Jim Dalke-Radio Disney/KARR

The meeting was called to order and introductions were made.

The previous day's RMT was discussed. The correct RMT was sent first, but was aired by few, if any, any stations because Lewis County accidentally sent an alert with a higher priority a short time later. This superseded the alerts that were already in the boxes. The alert also had poor audio. Stations have one hour to forward a monthly test, but if another RMT or alert comes along during that period, it will overwrite the buffer. As stations are not required to participate in EAS except to run a weekly test, monthly test and national alerts, it was felt that we would have to find a way to keep faulty tests from happening. Most of the problems have been with RMT's, so there was a vigorous discussion on what would be the best way to keep faulty RMT's from happening. The suggestion was made to stagger tests in adjacent areas so that RMT's would not butt heads with each other. The disadvantage of this is that some boxes have more filtering capabilities than others and a station could ending up airing more than one RMT a month. It was proposed that only the state emergency management office would originate the monthly tests. The advantage would be that the state is used to successfully originating alerts. Also, they have a direct audio link to NWS and to the many broadcasters who monitor the SRN. Many of the local areas have marginal audio links to get into the system. The disadvantage is that the local areas would have even fewer times to test their capabilities of issuing alerts. It was proposed that the local areas would be required to originate RWT's. RWT's are not relayed by broadcasters, they are just logged. By doing weekly tests on a regular, publicized schedule, they could be checked for audio quality at the receive end. Then problems could be identified and corrected. It was noted that reception problems could also be at the receive end.

It was proposed and approved that, effective immediately, all RMT's in the State of Washington would be originated by the State Emergency Operations Center or the National Weather Service. It was further proposed and approved that all 911 and emergency operations centers would be required to send a RWT every week using their local area networks. Schedules will be developed by the individual local areas. Broadcast stations are encouraged to monitor the audio quality of the weekly tests being originated in their local areas using the schedules that will be provided.

The SBE will hold their annual EAS Meeting at the NAB. FEMA Region 9 will also meet there. Monday, there will be a tech session on disaster and recovery at the Las Vegas Convention Center. You will need something better than an exhibits pass to get into it.

The SBE has established a list server for EAS. See http://www.sbe.org/eas_exchange.php.

This year's EAS Summit was held recently in Washington DC. NASBA, the National Alliance of State Broadcasters Associations, produced a huge binder filled with all sorts of useful information. Another summit is being considered for 2007. Last year the theme was on sharing best practices. This year it was on improving those practices. It was attended by broadcasters, emergency management and state committee people from most states. The federal government was also represented. Mark Allen will be doing a summary that will be filed with the FCC as part of the current EAS NPRM. The recent hurricanes were discussed, along with the aftermath, such as dealing with bio-hazards. Also discussed was the possible bird flu epidemic and how the response for it differs from other disasters and how broadcasters might react to it and be effected by it. The FCC's response to Katrina was given high marks. The advantage of broadcasters and emergency managers working together before an emergency was stressed. The use of EAS was encouraged, but the operational status of EAS varies from state to state. They talked about money, as in finding grants. There was a panel about dealing with the hurricanes. The greatest lesson learned was fuel for the generators. Other problems included the authorities not allowing broadcast personnel to get to their stations. There needs to be documentation of emergency procedures that are simple and easy to read. There needs to be communication between the public information office and the news directors. They discussed the storm readiness of NOAA. They broke out people by FEMA Regions and had them work on hypothetical emergencies and report back to the group on how they solved problems. Other observations from the summit were that the different federal government departments were running in different directions and that it is difficult to get all the different systems to work together. Amateur radio was discussed. It needs to be set up ahead of time. Possibly, amateur radio stations could be set up at major stations or a transmitter site. Who has station emergency response teams? How well is your station prepared for a major disaster or other emergency? There was a panel for beyond EAS for systems such as EDIS (http://www.edis.ca.gov/) or other systems. Clay will loan his binder to anyone that is interested.

The State Emergency Management finally has an official Memo of Understanding with NOAA for entry into the weather radio system. They have been relaying warnings to the Weather Service for some time.

Donna DiBianco, training maven for the radio station at Evergreen College, will be working on an EAS training DVD.

In the cable world, there is no change in the cable over ride issue. Comcast is working toward that capability. TFT has a new chip that will force a EOM after a predetermined amount of time. Scott will be compiling a table of Comcast's EAS monitoring.

In the North Puget Sound area, the RMT audio was good, but there was a problem with the header.

At Emergency Management, the idea of running a tsunami test with real event codes has been squelched. This has long been against SECC policy. The state will be using a new web interface to send RMT's. There will be the capability of receiving alerts over the internet which will increase the audio quality. It will go to all 911 centers and EOC's, and to the HazCollect server at NWS.

Check out www.mystateusa.com. There is both a private and public section. In the private section, protected by password, there is an EAS section with templates for alerts and warnings. EAS warnings will be able to be originated and be distributed by traditional EAS channels and voice, pagers, text messaging, etc. The public can sign up to receive alerts. In the future there will be language translation.

At the weather service, the Bellingham weather radio station is progressing. The antenna and transmitter have been ordered. PSE will provide power. There is no air date yet.

The Memorandum of Understanding has been signed between the four regional NWS offices and the state for the relay of emergency messages. In Anchorage there was a false Tsunami alert due to operator error. It was recalled immediately.

In light of recent FCC enforcement activity, there has been some questions about the requirements for video information of emergency information. The FCC definition of an emergency is fairly broad. The video information can be either closed or opened captions. More information can be found in part 79 of the FCC rules, see http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_05/47cfr79_05.html. See also http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DA-05-688A1.doc.

There are new products coming out from Sage and TFT, including a digital SAGE unit. See http://www.broadcast.harris.com/ and http://www.tftinc.com/easproducts.html.

The next meeting will be Wednesday, May 10 at Camp Murray.

Terry W. Spring
Chief Engineer
KWPX Seattle