i heard that...
Posted on 10/22/2011 11:57:55 AM PDT by eak3
Obama comes on the Radio and TV saying test test test vote for me vote for me vote for me. This has been a test of your emergency White House Station!
Not if your running s pirate radio station, then you are in good shape !
The government doesn’t have to test my audio/video equipment......I turn everything off that broadcasts anything from obama or members of his lapdog administration.
I just wish there was a way I could notify the White House each time I do it.
EODGUY
They interrupt broadcasts to issue emergency announcments. A system of this type has been in place since the 1950's when it was called CONELRAD (CONtrol of ELectomagnetic RADiation). A crude system compared to its successors, one of its purposes was to impede enemy bombers using commercial broadcast signals for direction finding.
Later systems were called EBS (Emergency Broadcast System) and EANS (Emergency Action Notification System). The mission of the systems evolved from defense against nuclear attack to a broader range of civil emergencies, and the methods of dissemination and control became more sophisticated with successive implementation of teletype, leased audio lines, satellite and finally internet distribution.
99.99999% of all EBS tests are done on a weekly basis at each broadcast station. The lower-level stations in the hierarchy also have to log receipt of test messages from points higher in the hierarchy. But a top-down systemwide test is very rare.
30 or 40 years ago, they did one at a time that the primary distribution of top-level notifications (i.e., directly from the DOD or whomever -- this was before FEMA) was done by teletype.
Somebody at HQ loaded the wrong punched tape into the master transmitter; namely, the REAL emergency tape! Most stations down the wire had the good sense (I guess!) not to broadcast their REAL emergency scripts, probably because it happened at the exact time the test was scheduled.
A prime example of Murphy's law. I suspect that someone scribbled the names of the various scripts illegibly in pencil on the little coils of black paper tape ≤}B^)
Oh, yes. There were a couple of ready-made CONELRAD receivers available to broadcasters, which would fit in a standard 19 inch rack. They were built to decode the 15 seconds of 1 KHz tone coming in from the regional master station, close a relay that would unmute the audio to the built-in speaker, and actuate whatever else you wanted, like a flashing light or a buzzer.
The cheapie receiver that most small stations used was a “Miratel;” basically a standard 5-tube chassis mounted on a rack panel with the tone detector and relay circuit added on. It went for about a hundred bux back in 1960. Of course almost the same radio in consumer table radio form would have been about 10 dollars at the time.
You monitored a station upstream in the hierarchy (usually a large regional or clear channel) who had direct connection to “HQ.”
When the alarm went off (and if it was NOT A TEST) you’d tune to, as you said, either 640 or 1240, where a regional CONELRAD station would go on the air (where it might already be on the air full time as a regular broadcaster). It would have the teletype connection to get the actual emergency message read out on the air, and to stay on the air during the emergency.
If you were a downstream station, your only obligation at that point was to notify your listeners to tune to the CONELRAD frequency, and then get off the air yourself.
You did, however, conduct weekly tests at various times when you could spare a cheap minute of air time. Every station had either a 1 KC (the Hertz wasn’t invented yet!) oscillator, or a 1 KC tone on tape or disc. Best of all was when you had the whole test announcement on tape. Then you could go for a (quick) break, because the whole test was canned.
Ah, the ravages that time doth wreak upon mine memory!
You had to be there at the beginning of the test anyhow, because you also had to dump the transmitter and bring it back a couple of times before the tone, so that cut down on your possible break time
I don’t care, so what! The Feds cannot take over all the media. Will Free Republic go dark?
That baby’ll have to be about 12 miles long to load up resonantly, though.
I’m hoping John Galt cuts in.
Once SkyNet is operational...
i heard that...
2:00 PM in the afternoon is a "demonstration".
A demonstration of power and control.
Katie bar the door!
ECOMCON
Sounds like a great present to me. I’ll vore for that!
Given that I do not listen to Radio or TV, how will I know there is an emergency or a test?
Since the Morse Code requirement was removed, General Class Amateur (Ham) licenses are easy. Suggest all get one.
Will Site Y be activated as well?
We interrupt this broadcast because the Department of Homeland Security has found it necessary, ....
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