NATIONAL PERIODIC TEST SEPTEMBER 28, 2016

Get Your Box In Order It is assumed that your box is in the program chain and functions automatically See FCC 11.51m2 which requires EAN and NPT be aired immediately 11.51n states RMT can be delayed up to 60 minutes but there can be no delay for EAN or NPT

Get Your Box In Order Be sure your box is running the latest version of firmware Be sure your box can accept the National Periodic Test or NPT. This was not an original EAS designation. So either update your box firmware or add the NPT designation

Get Your Box In Order Be sure your audio levels are set properly. Levels set too hot will impair audio quality for your viewers / listeners Each box manufacturers site I checked had either a start-up sheet explaining level set up procedures or detailed level instructions in the equipment manual

Get Your Box In Order Be sure your box is CAP capable and it is communicating with the FEMA CAP servers. (FCC requires this for several years now.) There are several of the CAP servers across the country, be certain you have multiple server URL’s entered into your box You are getting the weekly RWT from FEMA, aren’t you?

Get Your Box In Order FEMA Server Info: Server Name = IPAWS Server Type = IPAWS OPEN Server URL = apps.fema.gov This URL allows your box to poll all the FEMA servers, not just one

Get Your Box In Order To avoid the box from acting on old EAS messages, be certain to activate the “Use Current Date and Time” feature all the boxes have This feature is not, by default, activated. You need to make it active. Then you can be certain it won’t respond to old EAS messages or activations

Get Your Box In Order Change the default password. Then write it down so you won’t forget it. Your box is on the internet. It can be hacked. Don’t be the one to initiate a National Zombie Alert (NZA)

Get Your Station Registered The FCC is requiring each and every station to be registered in its ETRS Database by August 26, https/ ETRS = EAS Test Reporting System You will need your FRN Number to register and the station Facility ID Once you are registered, you may proceed to Form One https/

Get Your Station Registered Form One must be completed by August 26, 2016 Many group stations are setting up procedures to register all their stations in the group Check with your Director of Engineering to see how your company is handling this

Get Your Station Registered Some of the information on Form One has to do with the State EAS Plan and the Local Operating Plan Remember, your EAS responsibility centers around your City of License, not studio or transmitter location Everyone here will be in either the Northwest Ohio Operations Area or the Lima Central Operations Area.

Get Your Station Registered Form One asks for your Geographic one of Service The drop box will offer the Northwest Ohio Op Area as your choice. This is what you should enter. They want your op area, not what you think your coverage map is.

Get Your Station Registered Form One asks for your transmitter latitude and longitude in NAD83 But your license states the lat and long in NAD27 You will need to convert the license info to NAD83 ahead of time

Get Your Station Registered You will be asked for your monitoring sources That would be the monitoring assigns from the state plan. Those are mandatory. It also asks for you to list anything else you monitor. If you monitor the NWS radio, you will be offered a chance to add it as a monitoring source. There are help files on line from the FCC website. But you can only get to them if you register and log in.

Get Your Station Registered If you want to ask the FCC questions, here is the

Geolocation Issues EAS uses government standard FIPS Codes for location determination This allows each EAS message to be targeted to a “specific” geographic location Each State has a unique FIPS Code for each county For Lucas County it is is the State prefix, the last three digits identify the county

Geolocation Issues identifies all of Lucas County, OH The county can be sub-divided into 9 separate subdivisions: Central Northeast Southeast East Northwest Southwest North South West

Geolocation Issues These subdivisions vary in area, depending on the size of the county These subdivisions are fully compatible with current EAS boxes BUT These subdivisions are not always useful for the NWS to pinpoint the direction of the severe weather that is being tracked NWS has come up with another way to track the storms

The Polygon Warnings Are Born NWS used to issue severe warnings on a county by county area. This warning would encompass an entire county. The area where the storm was located may be in the southern part of the county, but since the entire county was under a warning, people in the North might experience no severe weather. Thus, to the North, people might be unnecessarily alarmed.

The Polygon Warnings Are Born To fix this the NWS began using the sub-divisions of each county to identify the areas of severe weather. This began in October Warnings now crossed county lines. The shape of the warning area took on the shape of a polygon. NWS could now more accurately identify severe areas and predict the storms direction.

The Polygon Warnings Are Born This resulted in some confusion to the EAS boxes, since the box could not reflect the polygon correctly. With this in mind, NWS now wants to come up with another way to define the storms shape and indicate direction that can be interpreted by the EAS box and be displayed or aurally depicted. This process is underway. A Notice of Inquiry is open inviting comments on how this might be accomplished.

The Polygon Warnings Are Born In the meantime Broadcasters must put up with warnings for multiple counties, some that may be out of their primary service area. See this link for more info: p6.pdfwww.srh.noaa.gov/images/bmx/aware/swaw_version_pages_ p6.pdf

Questions?