Re: EAS system

[brouder@juno.com]

Chip wrote:
"In our neck of the woods, in the seacoast of New Hampshire, I seem to
remember representatives from the Seabrook power plant were doing
occasional inspections of the units, and then when EAS was in place, they
came and took back some or all of the EBS equipment, which apparently
they owned..."

This is true.  Back in the early 80s (or whenever the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission finally granted Seabrook its license), the plant was required
to supply certain equipment to fortify public warning facilities in
southern NH/northeastern MA.  This included warning sirens...fixed-tune
radios for residents of nursing homes and school populations...law
enforcement communications gear...and an enhanced EBS among the stations
then in existence.  

The station gear included EBS encoders/decoders and cassette decks
depending on a particular station's needs.  Some stations were already
well equipped and required nothing; others took advantage of the
opportunity to upgrade.  When EBS went away, so did the nuclear plant's
need to provide equipment for an obsolete technology.  Some stations,
which had appropriated the tape decks for other station uses than EBS,
had to give up the machines.

Ironically, EAS was activated twice today for a scheduled Seabrook drill
supervised by the NRC and FEMA.  As the primary station for the seacoast
operational area, WOKQ was aware of the activations but no listeners
heard anything; the activations were coded as "demos" which most stations
program their EAS boxes to ignore.  Both of today's voice messages were
preceeded and ended by "This is a drill."

Ed Brouder, Chairman
NH State Emergency Communications Committee



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