National EAS Test Audio Is Shortened to :30
on 11.03.2011
     
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This story has been updated with additional information.

The nationwide EAS test on Nov. 9 has been shortened, a FEMA official confirmed.

According to an email distributed by the National Association of Broadcasters to a number of industry leaders today and forwarded to Radio World, NAB was informed by FEMA that the audio of the test at 2 p.m. (Eastern Time) will now last 30 seconds, instead of the originally planned two and a half minutes.

“This will result in a total test time of approximately 45 to 60 seconds (including the data burst tones),” according to the email by NAB’s Larry Walke.

“This change was made at the direction of Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano. NAB will be providing more information as we learn more and will be adjusting the messaging about the Nationwide EAS Test accordingly.

“We are working on revising a new public service announcement to reflect this change that we expect will be available tomorrow.”

 A new FEMA EAS test page has been created; see that here.
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Comment List:
I'm sure they can test longer messages in a lab with some amount of confidence that it will work in the real world. There is no need to disrupt everything for more than 30 sec. The main point of this test is to see how many stations don't air the test and to figure out how to fix the situation. It really doesn't matter if Obama gives a 120 minute speech or just says "Yo."
By Jeff on 11/9/2011
This is stupid. This test should be over 2 minutes long to see if there are hardware or software issues that cause equipment to crap out after 2 minutes. Why did they cave to the NAB? 3 whole minutes for the first time since 1922. Big deal.
By AlfredE Neuman on 11/3/2011
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