All things EAS continue to be much on the minds of local broadcasters.
For example, in Nevada at this month’s annual meeting of the State Emergency Communications Committee, stations learned that FEMA’s IPAWS office plans a “mini-national EAS test” in September.
“The test would be launched from FEMA to KKOH(AM) in Reno and KDWN(AM) in Las Vegas and propagate from there to other stations in the Nevada EAS Operational Area,” according to an account in the newsletter of the Nevada Broadcasters Association. SECC Chair Adrienne Abbott told the meeting she would track results through a conference call with station engineers and report results to the NBA.
(Similar tests are expected in at least some other states. Separately, the Michigan Association of Broadcasters is planning a statewide “soft test” of the monthly local test on Sept. 22.)
Participants in the Nevada SECC meeting also decided to plan a “Western States EAS Summit” at the NAB Show next spring.
Abbott noted that past national EAS Summits, sponsored by the National Alliance of State Broadcaster Associations and the National Association of Broadcasters, had been discontinued in favor of a series of Internet webinars, “due mainly to financial concerns.”
But according to the account, Bob Fisher, president/CEO of the Nevada Broadcasters Association, said those national summits represented the first time all players involved in EAS had been in a room together, and that significant progress in public warning had resulted.
The spring regional summit would likely involve Nevada, California and Arizona.
