Do you remember what the EOTW message said? Can you tell us?
It just was basically from a script provided by the FCC that said that it was a national emergency as ordered by the President. It also said we’d remain on the air and would pass on important information and news, and to stand by for further instructions. It was designed to be played over and over again until either A) we’d received further instructions or B) we vaporized in a nuclear fireball.
When you’re sitting in a radio studio, you’re alone, and it’s 2 o’clock in the morning, and you’re listening to this...it’ll give you the screaming willies.
I actually DID have to relay an EBS message once. It was weather-related. I was alone on a weekend, and it was dark, rainy, and windy. All of a sudden, I hear the two-tone EBS signal go off BEHIND me. I nearly jumped out of my skin! What happened was that we monitored the Primary station for our area and when THEY fire off the tone, the monitor triggered in our instrument rack behind the operator and relayed the tone and message until we reset it when the message was done. Our engineer rigged a tape recorder to automatically start whenever the monitor went off. All I had to do was rewind the tape, cue it to the message, pot down the music, and say in my most serious and stentorian tones...
“We interrupt this program for a local emergency. Important information will follow.”
I then hit the EBS Tone button on our board, waited until it stopped, then played the message. It was something about high winds and power outages. When it was done, I fired a station ID and played the next song in rotation. After I’d logged it, I then attempted to re-start my heart and get my breath back with the firm knowledge that I NEVER wanted to do that ever again.