Emergency Alert System (EAS) as Fast As Possible
Techquickie
·Techquickie
·2017-05-06
·
877 words · ~4 min read
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this is not a test this is an actual Techquickie episode and for your own
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safety I recommend you do not leave your computer for the next 5 minutes of
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course real emergency alerts are designed to warn you of things that are
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somehow even more important than new YouTube videos but they've always been
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kind of mystifying with their weird combination of robotic voices and
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disconcerting sounds wouldn't it just be
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easier for a human announcer to get on the air and warn us of an impending
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pandemic hurricane or Godzilla attack
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well no the emergency alert system or
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EAS used in the United States is designed to get messages out as quickly
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as possible and this is difficult to do without automation I mean in certain
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kinds of emergencies like an approaching tornado you might only have a couple of
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minutes to prepare so there isn't necessarily time for a human being to
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scoot off to the recording studio do a few takes apply some autotune then sort
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out where the message should go by then
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you'll probably be a couple miles off the ground chatting it up with the
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Wicked Witch of the West and speaking of where the message should go those three
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extremely harsh sounding tones you hear at the beginning of a warning work kind
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of like those annoying sounds that you'd hear from a dialup modem they sound like
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random screeches but they actually contain critical information about where
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the warning needs to go they are called same headers and when they reach a TV or
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radio station from whichever government Authority issued the warning special EAS
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equipment at the station can decode them and automatically forward information to
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listeners about what the emergency is which area it's affecting and what time
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the warning expires and since same code
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specifies specific geographic regions you won't have to worry about getting
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that super important show you're watching interrupted by an e warning for
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Los Angeles if you're living in New York
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the next thing you'll hear is an attention
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tone which as you can probably guess is
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there to annoy you to get your attention
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so hopefully you'll look up from your 3DS for long enough to learn there's a
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serial killer on the loose so although many have complained about how harsh the
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tone sounds I doubt they're going to be changing that anytime
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soon finally comes the voice that sounds
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like something out of your nightmares matter of factly delivering all the Gory
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details of your impending doom or maybe
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it's just a minor flood 20 mil away it can be kind of hard to understand for
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some people again the automated EAS
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voices were designed to make message dissemination quicker even if that comes
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at a creepy cost with that in mind the US's National Weather Service has tried
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to improve proed the voice over the years going from something that sounded
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suspiciously like old school Microsoft Sam a slow moving storm system will move
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across the Northern Great Lakes Region today and tonight to a voice that
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actually isn't that terrible anymore
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Zone forecast for Central and Southeast Montgomery County for the rest of the
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overnight mostly clear well that's cool in all lus but TV
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radio please I stream everything why is
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the EAS relying on such ancient technology well there are advantages to
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using radio to warn people it's a simpler technology than the internet and
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is likely to be more reliable if a major
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emergency knocks out power and internet service with it you're going to be
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pretty happy you've still got that battery powered radio in fact you can
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buy same compatible radios that pick up special frequencies that will
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automatically broadcast EAS alerts but stay quietly in the corner otherwise but
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if you don't want to do that many cellular carriers are now broadcasting
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EAS messages directly to smartphones anyway so you won't be left in the dark
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if you're just not a TV or radio person
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subscription thanks for watching guys like dislike subscribe leave a comment
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