Sage Alerting Systems will no longer manufacture its Sage Digital ENDEC EAS encoder.
The company said it has no current plans to manufacture new EAS encoding hardware going forward. The Model 3644 encoder has been in production since 2008.
President Harold Price says it has plenty of parts on hand to continue to repair the encoders and honor existing warranties.
The model has been popular, but “EAS has always been an odd niche business with a very bursty sales rate,” Price said of the ENDEC’s sales.
But he said that enough time has passed where it is more difficult to acquire parts to produce new inventory. With added uncertainty as far as the FCC’s consideration of a software-based EAS infrastructure, Price is hesitant to commit to a new hardware release timeline.
“Existing stations are happy with the equipment that they have for EAS and it’s built to last,” Price told Radio World.
Sage plans a free maintenance release for minor bugs and to enable the Missing or Endangered Persons (MEP) alert code, sometime around the beginning of the new year.
Price pointed to Sage’s history of backward compatibility of the ENDEC’s firmware to avoid having broadcasters make wholesale changes as far as their EAS alerting equipment is concerned, including through the use of EAS and WEA alert templates.
“Anytime you make a change, you have to consider the existing user base and not make decisions arbitrarily,” Price said.
He said Sage will continue to provide user support via its usual protocol of email and phone calls.
