Federal Fumble; Texas EAS Test Fails, Nov 9 2011, WBAP, DFW Dallas Texas, 1 PM CST

[TheBlackaurora44]

I'm a broadcaster as well and all of us at the stations I work for couldn't believe the crap that we heard....First of all, any test should have a voice that says something along the lines of, "This is a test of the emergency alert system." After that, the familiar tones should be heard and then something like, "If this had been an actual emergency you would have been given information etc. How hard is it for the U.S. government to create tones? In 1969 they landed the first man on the moon.

[bentleyontheair]

did any of yall notice that the attention tone faded out?

[uploadJ]

@bentleyontheair

The 'attention tone' fading out is due to the fact the auto-notch filter ("AN" on the display in the upper right) was switched 'on' in the Icom IC-756Pro2 receiver; I forgot to deselect it for this event. Sorry for the confusion this might be causing.

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[bentleyontheair]

@uploadJ That's Okay I Just Didn't Know if that really did happen over the air on their EAS Encoder/Decoder (i think they use a gorman-redlich eas1 i think) or if it was the radio so anyway thanks for telling me.

[SuperSonicTailsEas]

I'm so glad you're listening to rush limbaugh. He truly is an intelligent man. Nice test

[uploadJ]

@SuperSonicTailsEas

It made for a nice intro into the EAS test ... no? ... No need for a "lead-in" voice-over intro which would be needed 10 years down the road when ppl wonder WTF was all this fuss about ...

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[atvrider7]

thats a very fancy looking piece of equipment.

[uploadJ]

@atvrider7

Yes; also note the little clock showing time in UTC (also known as GMT or Greenwich Mean Time) in 24 hour format in the upper right-hand corner of the spectrum display. If you look closely one can see the " : " (colon) blinking on then off at once a second rate ...

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[SuperROLLTECH]

This happened on a lot of other stations as well, also on some stations it sounded like there were four feeds of the eas at once resulting in bad audio.

[TheChrisBarrows]

It seems as if their SAGE encoder locked up and they had to do it manually because if they didn't the EAN would wreak havoc on their systems.

[bentleyontheair]

@TheChrisBarrows i think so too

[bechtold2008]

I work for a radio station in Fargo, ND... we had a similar problem, except our source (as we're not a PEP) fired the EOM after 15 seconds of dead air instead of two minutes like this one... I guess there was audio problems nationwide, presumably originating from FEMA.

[LHZZ12MM]

EPIC FAIL...but then again...that's what we've come to expect from the Feds.

[statefairshows]

Us EAS fans will neveer forget this day.

[SpychoSpy]

I fucking hate that.

[mbrstooge]

I was listening to the 96.7 simulcast and on the message segment, all I heard was a faint Spanish broadcast and other EAS tones.

[BlackSunDarkStar]

Thanks for uploading that. Wow, glad it was a test...

[59OPAL]

You need a two minute talkup, just as under EBS. It takes 8 secs. to capture the EAN, then about that long to send an EAN header. Then, the LP1 could relay EAN audio. Downstream stations take longer. The decision to cut the test audio from three minutes virtually assured failure. The Alaska tests went OK, with three minutes. The people who decided upon 30 secs. obviously weren't people like Richard Rudman. People who know what they are doing.

[59OPAL]

WBAP is a Primary Entry Point. This means the Primary Entry Point conference bridge from the FEMA Operations Center to the transmitter site failed. Similar results in the Orlando and Tampa market. The PEP system has been around for 20 years and is tested weekly closed circuit. There really is no excuse. The audio talkup of 30 seconds was too short. They had to fire the EOM manually, but I did not hear it.

[KiloEcho5]

@59OPAL Same thing heard here in Lubbock, TX on 950 am

[uploadJ]

@59OPAL "WBAP is a Primary Entry Point"

Right you are; I added that additional info to the Description section as well as a link to Wiki for more info.

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[bentleyontheair]

@59OPAL I Agree i am a broadcaster in Sherman (part15fm/internet) The PEP System has been around for a while and i too think it was too short they should have kept it at 2:30 i just bought a sage eas endec for my part 15 fm and internet station to go with it

[desernight]

ooh the beeps on this sound harsh.