RE: My Research on Minot, ND

[Aaron Read <aread@speakeasy.net>]

At 08:32 PM 4/7/2003 -0400, Sid Schweiger wrote:

>(snip)
>would have doomed local EAS participation from the start.  As it is, there 
>have been several notorious examples of just the opposite of what happened 
>in Minot, when either local stations or FEMA botched tests that ended up 
>taking over the programming on radio stations with "properly" installed 
>EAS equipment (i.e., in the program lines), with no immediate way to cut 
>it off other than pulling the plug on the EAS box.  Such incidents don't 
>exactly instill confidence in the sy!
>  stem and are the reason why some owners opt out altogether.
>
>Sid Schweiger


You're absolutely right Sid, but you've also exposed a double-edged sword 
here....because participation in EAS is so spotty, there's never been the 
real incentive to work all the bugs out of the system.  If EAS were used 
more, I have little doubt it would be improved dramatically.

This is the same logic why I strongly encourage all my college clients to 
have me set up their EAS to run as if it were unattended, but it will 
forward virtually every EAS event they can get away with.   That way it's 
more likely that DJ's will have some experience with EAS and are less 
likely to freak each time it goes off....but since it's set to largely run 
automatically, their ability to foul something up unintentionally is 
minimalized.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Aaron "Bishop" Read             aread@speakeasy.net
FriedBagels Consulting          AOL-IM: readaaron
http://www.friedbagels.com      Boston, MA