Here we go again: Another live EAS test planned

[gcheno]

STATEWIDE TORNADO DRILL APRIL 14 WILL UTILIZE LIVE CODES AND PUBLIC NOTICE SHOULD BEGIN BY APRIL 1

This year, Severe Weather Awareness Week will be observed in Colorado April 11-17. The National Weather Service will initiate a statewide tornado drill on Wednesday, April 14, between 9:00 a.m. and 11 a.m. using EAS and NOAA weather radios. The Colorado broadcasters have received a waiver from the FCC to participate in this exercise using the EAS. All broadcast facilities are urged to participate in this drill. The National Weather Service will be activating using the TOR code.

For radio stations, your EAS unit will activate and a message will be heard from the National Weather Service explaining that this is a test. For television stations, if you are set to pass on activations, a crawl will appear on the screen notifying viewers that this is a tornado warning. You will need to make your operators aware of this and be certain that you air the audio explaining that this is only a test. In addition, all stations are requested to publicize the test at least two weeks in advance so that the general public will understand that this event is a test to determine the readiness of EAS equipment and emergency radio receivers located in broadcast facilities, schools, hospitals and other public buildings. All EAS receivers and weather radios that are set to receive tornado codes should receive the drill message between 9:00 a.m. and 11:00 a.m. on April 14.

Marilyn C. Hogan
President and CEO
COLORADO BROADCASTERS ASSOCIATION

 

[poltergeisty]

Why not April 1st?

Great! Now I can see if this damn thing works. :lol: Tis the season. Lets hope their aren't any.

 

[dracer777]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7D11 Safari/528.16)

Yay!

And I have to disagree with you. I hope nobody gets hurt. But I'm praying there are lots of tornadoes.

 

[poltergeisty]

I live In loveland. So for the most part there arn't any, except for that HUGE sucker that went into Windsor! Naaa, after the warning on my WX radio, six touch downs around me and listening to coms on the scanner, forgetaboutit! :lol:

You live in a nice area there! *eek*!

 

[dracer777]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7D11 Safari/528.16)

I know. I remember when my parents were picking this house last summer: I kid you not, one week we travelled to my development 4 times in a week, EVERY TIME we were here, the area was under a tornado warning. It was great! Lol. I may have some good pics and vids I'll post this summer and link you guys.

 

[scanlist]

In Weld county Tornado chases you!

In 1980, Before SAME encoding and EAS, in the TOREX 80 exercise NWS toned out and announced a "Tornado warning" for every county in the metro area and "A tornado has been reported 5 miles SouthWest of your location moving NorthEast" at xx M.P.H.

From the mid 80's to the early 90's we didn't need hi-tech warning notifications. It was guaranteed that severe weather would hit the fan the last week of May through the 1st 3 weeks of June.

 

[rckydenver]

Well today is the day.

 

[rckydenver]

Just got the alert message(test).

 

[jimmnn]

This is a test message. Trndo wrng -
wash cnty in ne co
summt cnty in c co
sdgwck cnty in ne co
phlps cnty in ne co
park cnty in c co
mrgn cnty in ne co
logan cnty in ne co
lncln cnty in e c co
larm cnty in north c co
jefco cnty in ne co
jcksn cnty in north c co
grnd cnty in north c co
gilp cnty in c co
elbt cnty in e c co
dgls cnty in ne co
clcrk cnty in c co
arap cnty in ne co
bldr cnty in ne co
adms cnty in ne co
dnvr cnty in ne co
weld cnty in ne co
broomfield cnty in ne co

untl 930a

: This is a test message.

 

[gcheno]

Grand Junction NWR sent the TOR at 9:48. I think I heard "this is a test" at least 10 times...

Again this year, I'm curious if there's any Public Safety involvement (in other words, are they rebroadcasting this test in any way, shape or form?)

 

[rckydenver]

This is from 9news website, read some of people comments.

9NEWS.com | Denver | Colorado's Online News Leader | Tornado sirens set to go off across Colorado Wednesday

 

[scanlist]

I wouldn't be too reliant on broadcast radio in a real situation. NOAA toned, alpha message alerts and Weld tone out two-tone and DTMF signalling with no voice announcement on FIRE-A VHF at 9:15.

Heard nothing on RED-1 or Boulder FIRE-1 about it during the exercise.

KUNC radio (on a 102.7 repeater) had the EAS at 9:30. KBCO at 9:37. Granted a real scenario would yield at least a 30 minute warning though the only 2 FM stations receivable in the central portion of the building I'm in broadcast the warning after it would have expired.

Keep the scanner handy and those with messaging capabilities may want to considering getting weather alerts like Jim has mentioned in other message threads.

 

[jeffreyinberthoud]

A news report I heard said several areas, Broomfield was one, do not have sirens however they are planning on having some sort of auto call all cell phones with in the footprints of several cell sites to warn people Of course if you don't have a cell phone it would suck being you......

interesting technology

 

[poltergeisty]

Nothing here on the NOAA radio. I got an E-mail from LETA (Larimer Emergency Notification System) though.