March 14, 2007

Present: Terry Spring-KWPX, Lowell Kiesow-KPLU, Phil Johnson-CPS/LECC, Clay Freinwald-Entercom, Don Miller-WSEM, Andrew Hendrickson-FEMA Region X

Via Phone: Lisa Scott-Bellevue, Don Boyd-Whatcom Co., Jamie Cravelle-ESCA, Bob Martin-Clallam Co., Bob Wyatt-KSPS Spokane, Kris McGowan-FCC, Tyree Wilde-NWS Portland, Tom Sharp-Pierce Co. EM, Steve Martin-Seattle EM, Don White-KCPQ/KTWB, Kerry Jones-NWS Spokane, Steve Thomas-Bellevue, Jim Tharpe-KIRO

The meeting was called to order and introductions were made. The previous minutes were approved.

Don Miller reported on the EAS Summit in Washington DC. He felt it was good over all. It was hosted by NASBA, the National Alliance of State Broadcasters Associations. The Common Alerting Protocol and where it is going was discussed. Implementation is moving forward, with cell phone warnings coming soon. Senator Jim Dimint (http://demint.senate.gov/) of South Carolina spoke. Don did a presentation on the IPAWS program, and where it is going. He demonstrated the system by sending an RWT from the conference.

For IPAWS, Central Washington is funded. Funding for the rest of the state should be available in July. Don is still looking for stations to receive the boxes. Contact him if you are interested. With this system, the text message is the same as the voice. It is supposed to be compatible with a character generator in order to put text directly on a TV stations air. It uses a world-wide standard. It should speed up the dissemination of AMBER alerts.

There is a new chair in the Central Puget Sound area, Phil Johnson. Clay will put out a revised Tab 2 soon. Also in Tab 2, we need contact info for Doug Fisher in the Cowlitz/ Wahkiakum area and updated info for Ed Webster from the North Puget Sound area. Laurel Nelson has moved from Bellevue EM to Seattle EM.

It has been reported that Hollyanne is no longer in business, and therefore, their EAS boxes are no longer supported.

In California, EDIS has adopted CAP. This feeds all EAS in that state. See http://www.edis.ca.gov/

KKOL is having problems at their new site in Tacoma. Something about RF fields at the neighboring oil refinery and docks.

The North to Central Puget Sound Area link up was discussed. It was agreed it would most likely be irrelevant with the move to IP.

The recent AMBER Alert was discussed. It took the local police four hours to decide if they actually had an alert, and then another hour to get it sent out. It will be discussed by the AMBER Alert review committee.

Some parts of the country use live event codes for testing. The FCC has given their approval and encouragement to end to end testing. The decision should be made locally. In Washington, it has been decided to not use live event codes. The feeling is that the system is tested sufficiently with the monthly tests. The big disadvantages are that the crawls that TV viewers see will not say that it is a test and that there will always be people that don't get the message.

There is still some reluctance for emergency agencies to use EAS. An example is the recent chlorine spill in Tacoma. They did not fire off EAS because they thought it would affect the entire county. They probably would use EAS in the future. The Tacoma reverse 911 system was used for that event.

Once again, another reminder to use the remailer for discussing anything related to EAS.

Phil Johnson, the new Central Puget Sound Chair was introduced. He has recently retired form KIRO radio. He wants to put together a meeting for April or May. He will be emphasizing planning, organization, and communication.

Ted Buehner was not at the meeting because, reportedly, he is in Arizona. A new Tab 15 was sent out February 10. If you did not receive it, it is available at http://www.wsab.org/eas/eas_tab15.html A new NWS transmitter site map is in the works and should be distributed soon. The use of EAS for high impact weather events was discussed. The main event is floods. Winds are difficult to predict because their impact can
vary greatly by area. Whether EAS is used or not is up to the discretion of the weather office. This will be discussed at the next meeting. Watch for information on the remailer. Also note that the weather service will not send their regular RWT during times of heavy weather. N They will usually send it later when things calm down.

Clear Channel was having trouble pick up the NOAA weather radio station at their studio. It turned out their antenna had horizontal polarization and weather radio uses vertical polarization. Remounting their antenna fixed the problem.

The SBE EAS meeting at the NAB convention in Las Vegas will be held April 16 at 1 PM at the Hilton in Ballroom G. It will last about 2 hours.

The next meeting will be May 9 at 9:30 AM at Camp Murray.

Respectfully submitted,
Terry Spring