New WV EAS Plan - April 2016

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The-Hammer
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New WV EAS Plan - April 2016

Post by The-Hammer »

The latest revision of the WV EAS Plan has been published on the WVBA website.

http://wvba.com/resources/public-resour ... ystem.html
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Re: New WV EAS Plan - April 2016

Post by Tom Taggart »

This clause has attracted some criticism:

"Clustered AM/FM Stations
All stations that are clustered in one location may use a common EAS Endec unit for receive/re-transmit EAS messages, providing that all stations are licensed in the same operational area. In the event that any station(s) in a cluster is licensed in another operational area, or is assigned to receive a station from, or transmit to another operational area, MUST incorporate its own Endec system. A notice stating different monitoring assignments must be posted at or near the stations EAS equipment."

Two of my stations overlap operational areas--(Wheeling/Parkersburg) so I monitor sources from both areas.Plus both stations cover portions of two Ohio counties which are covered differently by NWS radio
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Re: New WV EAS Plan - April 2016

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WDNE-FM is consistently referred to throughout the plan as being on 99.3.

Except on page 55, where it changes to 99.9.
Last edited by Dave Harman on Wed May 04, 2016 9:09 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: New WV EAS Plan - April 2016

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I never have understood what the need was to play the EAS, EBS , duck fart tones thru to the general
public was. I was ok for activating downstream equipment, but why play the tones on cable and TV?
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Re: New WV EAS Plan - April 2016

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genlock wrote:I never have understood what the need was to play the EAS, EBS , duck fart tones thru to the general
public was. I was ok for activating downstream equipment, but why play the tones on cable and TV?
Even worse, those damn duck farts play on our Verizon smart phones (and my friends' at&fee phones) when a weather warning is issued. It was horrendous when 7 iPhones went off one day while all of us were in my car on a road trip (cough, Costco booze/beer run) to tax free Delaware.

Although, I have to admit when I received a Tornado Warning last year I just had enough time to get my car out from under the tree I park under when the storm hit, so using the tones as a general warning alarm is not bad. But..... The issue that I have with weather warning and alerts is that the storms are about 5 minutes ahead of where the radar indicates on the Internet or even on the local TV stations in Philly. Again, last summer, we had a second tornado warning and this time the storm was on us by the time the alarm sounded and was past our neighborhood by the time the local station sounded the alert. It was during this event that I began monitor the actual weather conditions versus what was being displayed on WPVI, KYW-TV and my National Weather Service website radar feed and could see the 5 minute delay. This past February, I was again able to compare the conditions outside versus when radar indicated squaw lines were passing over The Encampent and again, the 5 minute delay still persisted.

Now I know why flight and drive tracking apps delay the actual location by 5 minutes, but it seems to be a huge risk to issue storm warnings based on data that has a 5 minute delay built into equation.
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Re: New WV EAS Plan - April 2016

Post by Cameron »

Looks good despite the fact that the Chareston stations can't be received in Huntington due to all the adjacent channel and IF garbage. (Oh and written permission to monitor metronet 1. That seemed to be omitted from the plan - again).
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Re: New WV EAS Plan - April 2016

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cgarison wrote: The issue that I have with weather warning and alerts is that the storms are about 5 minutes ahead of where the radar indicates on the Internet or even on the local TV stations in Philly....Now I know why flight and drive tracking apps delay the actual location by 5 minutes, but it seems to be a huge risk to issue storm warnings based on data that has a 5 minute delay built into equation.
Real-time radar data is available from the NWS, but, when it comes to delivering it to the mass public, the issues of cost, scaling, and pipes are almost incomprehensible. And the major flight-tracking websites are now all real-time or within seconds of it (they've done it by generally dumping the delayed FAA data and getting it, themselves)...I even suspect one site of calculating planes' headings and speeds and placing them on the map there ahead of time because, by golly, I've seen planes "over" me on the map up to a minute before actually coming overhead!

I cannot imagine Philly TV stations wouldn't have their own radar or the NWS real-time....in the past, maybe, but, now, stations down to Podunk and sometimes even East Podunk do....I can even tell you some radio stations that take weather seriously seriously do! You buy (license) software for it and make sure you have the internet and network for it, and voila...you are just that awesome, just like that!
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Re: New WV EAS Plan - April 2016

Post by genlock »

Real time flight tracking (crowd-sourcing) data networks use this kind of box.

http://www.rigpix.com/specialized/airna ... tation.htm

This would get around the rich and powerful people censoring their flight positions
as they do now on the popular flight tracking websites.
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Re: New WV EAS Plan - April 2016

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Yep, ADS-B receivers.....FlightRadar24 and FlightAware are operating their own networks of them.

By the way, I told a recently-retired, big-plane cargo pilot about that (that it's now real-time)....he had to think a moment about what was what re: ADS-B, but, once he'd remembered which thing that was, it freaked him out...admitted nervousness about it.....according to him, the guys (and girls) were at least a little disturbed by these sites coming online but were somewhat comforted by the five-minute delay.....about the now-real-time nature of them, he said, "wow, that would increase the 'pucker factor' on landing...for me, it would, at least!"

They are NOT fans of every Tom, Dick, and Harry -- and (insert various Middle-Eastern names here) -- knowing EXACTLY where they are, especially as they get lower and closer to the ground......as you might expect........
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Re: New WV EAS Plan - April 2016

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Arp2 wrote:
cgarison wrote:I cannot imagine Philly TV stations wouldn't have their own radar or the NWS real-time....in the past, maybe, but, now, stations down to Podunk and sometimes even East Podunk do....I can even tell you some radio stations that take weather seriously seriously do! You buy (license) software for it and make sure you have the internet and network for it, and voila...you are just that awesome, just like that!
I absolutely agree on the ease of obtaining the data versus what I have been seeing on the forecasts in the Delaware Valley. The 5 minute delay problem became an issue after the stations rolled out the 'dual scan' doppler feature on their weather forecasts. They would show supposedly live images on the TV that were not accurate as to where the rain/snow was located in accordance to our house. Being that our house is at a pretty noticeable place on a political map (near US 202, PA Turnpike, Schuylkill Expressway) it is pretty simple to make a comparison of what is happening outside versus what is on the radar images on TV. It also is pretty easy to bring up the radar image on my iPad/Galaxy S and see that the images on broadcast screen were surprisingly close to the images on my mobile devices. 8O

The part that is interesting is that the two stations that I have issues with in Philly are getting a bunch of their data from other sources. WPVI (Owned by ABC/Disney) use AccuWeather for the source for their extended forecasts and KYW (owned by CBS) is using WeatherBug. Perhaps they are using the radar graphics from those sites as well and not realizing the impact of the lag in their data vs. that of a true NWS feed. Also note that the Philly market is the redheaded stepchild of the NYC metro area where WABC and WCBS get the big dollar network resources to support their news and the Philly market feels like it is sucking on the packaged dregs of NYC.

And of note, I have not checked things out in the last 8 weeks as I have spent more time in the Ohio Valley and not in Philly. Perhaps when storm season hits this summer and I am back in Philly, then I can see if this lag is still holding true. In the big blizzard that we had in February, the delay was still present. Also, I have not checked WCAU (NBC10) in Philly to see if they have more accurate radar images.
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Re: New WV EAS Plan - April 2016

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You could....
  • Call them and ask them.

    Call them out on social media and ask them.
They'll probably tell you that the radar imagery and the maps it's shown atop are actually two different things being put together in a piece of software with inevitable small offset errors, which is true. In the past, if you asked a meteorologist how to read and use these things, he or she likely, rather, told you how NOT to read and use them; HOWEVER, many have near-complete confidence in them these days and may not have the reservations they had in the past, which you see when they confidently zoom into a neighborhood and start calling out street names (but they might be doing that just for the station's own weather image, not necessarily indicating personal 100% confidence).
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