Some of my frequent readers know that, years ago, I had a career in the broadcasting industry and still do. Currently, I am a tracking DJ for three radio stations around the country. If you want to know more, Google is your friend. Simply put, I am a DJ on three radio stations around the country and I record my material at home. I make it sound as if I’m local when I’m not. I was also a master control operator. That means that I literally ran the show. I ensured that programs and commercials aired as scheduled and I made sure that FCC paperwork was maintained.
One of my duties was to operate the Emergency Alert System. I wrote about in great detail last year. One of the duties of a MCO is to conduct weekly tests. I was also required to respond to a monthly test by airing it within fifteen minutes of receiving it (now within an hour). It is mandated.
Not much about the EAS has changed, but one thing that I did not have to deal with back then is the National Periodic Test. As the name implies, a national test be aired on every television and radio station in the nation. Back then, the testing was done internally and stations played no role in testing a critical function such as that.
The NPT was first conducted in 2011 and it was a complete failure. Multiple things failed and that’s a good thing. It’s wonderful that it failed, giving us time to fix it before an actual nationwide activation is needed. So far, the national alert has never intentionally been tripped. An accidental activation occurred in 1971 however. But that was due to an idiot combined with problems with authentication words. Back then, it was the Emergency Broadcast System. Under the EAS, codewords are not part of the procedure.
Sooner or later, there will be a real national emergency. Let’s face it: that will happen when (not if) Russia nukes us. But I’ve already written about this.
The way the test works in regards to testing is that the station originates a weekly test. It is usually scheduled and is therefore in the official log. The MCO has advance warning of that. Then there’s the monthly test. The test comes into the EAS terminal (or through a web-based interface).
From there, the MCO has one hour to put it on the air. Every station’s different. Most just run the monthly test over programming. Some have a slide that shows it’s just a test. In most situations, only the chief engineer knows when it is scheduled for. As the MCO, I never had warning and that’s the point of this article: when you need to test someone you don’t let them know in advance. Otherwise, there’s no point.
Well, folks, a national test will be conducted next month, which is funny, because just the other day I had a shower thought: when will they do another NPT? And here we are. The test will occur on November 17th at around 2:20 pm E/T. We’ve gone three years without this test when, in my opinion, it should be tested twice a year.
Now, engineers and MCO personnel know when it’ll happen, so it won’t be a true test. This time around, the test will be for only television and radio stations. A separate test will need to be conducted to test mobile devices.
As things escalate overseas, it is imperative that the EAS works properly. But you’ve got to test not only the equipment, but the personnel as well.
Preferably without warning.