Among the many anecdotal reports arriving at Radio World about the national EAS test include stories of radio stations receiving looping audio, distorted audio or no audio at all from the station ahead of them in the daisy chain.
We’ve heard of reported PEP station failures in Alabama, Oregon, Michigan and New Mexico.
RW has contacted FEMA with questions about what occurred with the originating audio for the test. FEMA had reported prior to the test it had several successful tests in which it sent the message to PEP stations. Regulators stressed after the test that its value is as an assessment tool.
Here’s one snapshot, from Crawford Broadcasting. DOE Cris Alexander, an RW contributor, said none of its Denver stations had any audio rebroadcast. “We got the header and tones and retransmitted them just a few seconds later, then we had 30 seconds of silence followed by the EOM [End of Message] and rejoin.” Crawford stations in Western New York had no audio of the test message and Illinois audio was all in Spanish, his engineers tell him. No stations received the test in Portland, Ore. and while the test worked in Southern California the audio was unintelligible, according to company engineers.
There were successes to report, said Crawford; the test worked at company stations in Rochester, N.Y., Detroit and San Francisco.
We reported the FCC and FEMA are collecting preliminary data about the results from some 30,000 test participants. Of those, about 14,000 are radio stations, the FCC told Radio World.
The commission has posted Form 3 to report on your station experience with the national EAS test.
