Notice the EMERGENCY BROADCAST SYSTEM test recently?

Has anyone noticed an increase in the testing of the emergency alert system by your cable operator?

I have been out of town (North Jersey) and I sleep with the TV on when I'm on the road. Last night I was awoken 3 times by the beep of the emergency alert testing on TV and now this morning when I called my daughter in South Jersey I heard a tone on her end and asked her what it was, she said it was a test on TV for the emergency broadcast system. Hmmm... This is from 2 different cable companies. Now the weird thing about this is all the talk about a nuke on the west coast the weekend. Are we being warned? Anyone else notice the increase in the alert system?

1. What does the emergency testing thing do?
2. What's special or a give away about this emergency test bleep
3. Where did you hear there was a nuke on the West Coast? And what is this nuke supposed to be doing there? Is it being transported or is it an alleged terrorist threat?
4. Because if a nuclear weapon is just being transported then surely the emergency testing is probably just part of standard military exercise.

Still would like to know more about emergency broadcasting testing (and how to identify them).

I haven't noticed any emergency broadcasts in our area and I am in Mpls. But interestingly enough the SCIFI channel showed the movie "The Day After" with Jason Robards after the US getting hit with Nukes.
I thought in lieu of the chatter going around it was interesting that that movie was running last night.

The emergency alert system is a system that interrupts the cable channel you are viewing with instructions of what to do if there is an actual emergency. There is also the testing system where they will randomly interrupt the channels with a test tone and text announcement.

There is a rumor of a nuke on the west coast this weekend.
Here is the thread www.abovetopsecret.com...

Originally posted by Liberal1984

1. What does the emergency testing thing do?
2. What's special or a give away about this emergency test bleep
3. Where did you hear there was a nuke on the West Coast? And what is this nuke supposed to be doing there? Is it being transported or is it an alleged terrorist threat?
4. Because if a nuclear weapon is just being transported then surely the emergency testing is probably just part of standard military exercise.

Still would like to know more about emergency broadcasting testing (and how to identify them).

They are fine tuning it and making sure all the bells and whistles work for the dreaded soon to come day they plan to put it to use.

Originally posted by Liberal1984

1. What does the emergency testing thing do?

In theory the signal is supposed to warn us in case of emergency, but in practice there's something really fu'ed about it. They keep testing it many times day and night, but when a real emergency happens the warning signal goes silent, nada, no signal, we learn about the catastrophic events in the news before hearing any signal. They are probably just cracking themselves up interrupting our TV watching.

I may be wrong, but aren't the tests sceduled federally, and everyone has to test at the same time?

EAS is being tested nation wide actually for NWS/SPC/ITC Purposes, which is what was confirmed on 11/22/2005.

The reason was new alerting systems and updating systems for people to evacuate sooner by increasing warning alarm systems for Severe Thunderstorms and Tornadoes up to 25 minutes, and Tsunami Alerts up to a maximum evacuation period of over 12 hours, pending on the location of the root.

This is nothing out of the ordinary, as it's been on and about with noaa.gov and other government websites since last April.

Originally posted by ufiaIn theory the signal is supposed to warn us in case of emergency, but in practice there's something really fu'ed about it. They keep testing it many times day and night, but when a real emergency happens the warning signal goes silent, nada, no signal, we learn about the catastrophic events in the news before hearing any signal. They are probably just cracking themselves up interrupting our TV watching.

They tested the system in Indianapolis, Indiana in the last couple of days and thirty percent of the warning sirens failed to work.

Warning system fails to work

I realize that the siren warning system is different than the EAS system over the cable network but it is the same principle in that it is tested once a year to make sure it still works adequately. It is funny thinking back that with the last couple of tornadoes that we have had, the EAS never went off once. The news and NOAA radio had the warning, but no EAS.

JDub

Originally posted by BlueTileSpook
It is funny thinking back that with the last couple of tornadoes that we have had, the EAS never went off once. The news and NOAA radio had the warning, but no EAS.

This sounds like what happened here in July 2003, we had several funnel clouds over the city, and all sirens failed to reply.

NOAA's been investing SIGNIFICANTLY in improving their warning alarm networks and response times to ensure these events do not happen again.

There is a difference between a siren and EAS.

EAS is the basic Emergency Alarm System, it's used for literally everything, from Fire Weather Hazards, to Flooding, to Tornadoes, to Air Raids, and so on. It's conducted over radio and television frequencies and in most cases through SATLINK as well.

Sirens or Local Evacuation Alarms (LEA) is the signal for evacuation to take place, depending on your location, the time of the tests for these vary, for instance, in Indiana these are tested once a year, where as in Iowa they are tested weekly.

LEA is used to warn of incoming air raid's, all clears, Severe Thunderstorms, and Tornadoes ONLY, and is not used to warn of any other scenarios.

Yep, I gotcha on the difference. I live in a rural area and I do not have any warning sirens near me, so I depend on the news and NOAA for my warning info. As I said, the EAS system on our cable does not seem to work correctly.

BTW, when they have done the test of the EAS here, I have seen it early in the afternoon and near midnight. The last time, I had set the sleep timer on the tv when I went to bed and the EAS went off before the TV did. Scared the wickets out of me.

JDub

They do lie about one thing.

They lie about "we try to keep these away from quality programming."

I can not count the number of times I've been watching DNAngel or Maburaho and they have to pop in and spam my channel. :shk:

Annoying buggers they are. But the whole report is based on what the cable company reports. If they can't transmit, then something is wrong, and they have to look at it, and fix it ASAP, it suddenly becomes TOP PRIORITY, because EAS is vital to alerting the public. In conjunction with that, EAS would NOT apply to the World Trade Center attacks, while it would've with Pearl Harbor.

[color=#FF0000]EAS1: Nationwide Emergency - Based on CHAVSET668
EAS2: Regional Emergency - CHAVSET394
EAS3: State Emergency - SNAPS5593
EAS4: Local Emergency - *Local Federal Code
EAS5: Law Enforcment Alarms - Station ID (Such as Fire Department, Police Department, or Ambulance)

Red = Airwave Testing

I am from Alabama, where we have quite a few tornados each year. I have also lived in FL, and currently in GA. I remember EBS tests on every Wednsday at 3pm since I was a child. They would sound the sirens, activate TV and radio broadcasts, and even rang bells in schools. This is done every year during the warmer months in preparation for severe weather alerts. Still happens every year. Still, the sound of the sirens blaring outside is very eerie.

No I have'nt noticed the Emergency Warning Systems being tested more, recently.

The cable company (well actually companies, they merged twice) that I have does a scheduled one at around 3am two nights a week.
They've done this since about 1998.

One thing I have noticed, is an increase in using it for things that don't qualify as an emergency, like saying some 5 year old has been missing for a half hour and stuff like that.

Originally posted by iori_komei
One thing I have noticed, is an increase in using it for things that don't qualify as an emergency, like saying some 5 year old has been missing for a half hour and stuff like that.

That may be connected to the Amber Alert. I hope you might feel differently if it were your 5 year old.

Probably not, I'm rather apathetic about most things, and truthfully a half-hour is'nt that long.

Can anyone demonstrate that there has been an increase in tests, objectively? Subjectively noticing that there are more isn't reliable enough. Is there are record kept of the tests?

They keep testing it many times day and night, but when a real emergency happens the warning signal goes silent, nada, no signal

precisely. When 911 happened, i don't recall hearing any emergency broadcast signal. In theory, it'd only be going off in NYC, but still, i don't recall anyone ever hearing it.

If a nuke plant was having problems, the E. signal would go off in the evacuation area, and then it would be followed by a report like 'take standard evacuation routes now', etc.

[edit on 20-3-2006 by Nygdan]