Copyright ©1996, RF Specialties Group.
If ever there should be a town hall meeting of broadcast stations, it is now, when the new Emergency Alert System (EAS) is about to be established.
A meeting along those lines did, in fact, take place on November 15. The Society of Broadcast Engineers (SBE) held a 90- minute teleconference originated from the Broadcast Clinic in Madison, Wisc., that presented some of the points of an EAS primer, to be available in early 1996.
Although the deadline for EAS implementation is a year away, having been pushed back to January 1, 1997, there is little time to waste in planning for this system's elaborate web of technology and people - from the President's role on out to the role of every broadcast station in the country.
"The primer explains the entire system, and goes beyond that to help teach SECC people what they have to do as far as what their responsibilities are," said Leonard Charles, engineer with WISC-TV and an SBE board member.
The SBE is working closely with the FCC to clarify the responsibilities of the State Emergency Communications Committees (SECC) and Local Emergency Communications Committees (LECC), particularly as to the planning of which stations handshake with which stations during emergency alert, he said. "We're trying to give broadcasters a start on how to build the state and local systems," said Charles. Mapbooks, the location listings that identify stations' roles in the system, are being planned now.
Broadcasters can call SBE at (317) 253-1640 for pricing and information on the primer. For questions on new EAS equipment, contact RF Specialties.