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The Shenandoah Valley Local Area



Chairman: Bill Fawcett
WMRA
821 S. Main Street
Harrisonburg, Virginia 22807
Voice: (540) 568-3809
Fax: (540) 568-3814

LOCAL AREA PLAN



Shenandoah Valley EAS - AMBER UPDATE

  1. LP station upgrades are finally available - LP stations are now able to Broadcast CAE (AMBER) EAS activations
  2. The State Police AMBER website is now active - instant info is available
  3. Stations should insure that they have upgraded their EAS equipment
Are you "Good to Go?"

amber alert logo

AMBER ALERTS

There may be many components to local AMBER ALERT PLANS, some unique to the individual locality.
Many components do not involve broadcasters and are not discussed here.

1. The AMBER alert EAS activation request MUST be routed by the appropriate law enforcement agencies to the Virginia State Police (VSP). VSP will evaluate the request using the attached criteria and flowchart from the state AMBER plan.

2. VSP will initiate any EAS activation. Initially, such activations will be made with a statewide location code (051000) and will be broadcast statewide by NOAA weather radio to the LP stations (WQPO and WMRA) for rebroadcast. As resources permit, a more targeted system will be developed.

3. Receipt of an AMBER alert via EAS is a cue to individual stations to GO TO THE STATE AMBER website for supplemental information. Local agencies may, as always, issue press information to broadcast outlets, and are encouraged to do so.

Stations should closely monitor the Virginia AMBER website for the duration of the event, There will be NO EAS activations for additional information or cancellations. The Virginia AMBER website will include photos when available for television station use.

4. Stations are encouraged to broadcast once the EAS activation (LP stations will broadcast these alerts). Additional information may be broadcast by stations just as they would any late-breaking news story. Participation in AMBER is completely voluntary; stations operating unattended will likely be able to only broadcast the original EAS activation (automatic relay).

The purpose of the EAS activation is to notify stations that there is such an event occurring in a rapid manner. Stations are not expected to transcribe or record the original AMBER message from the EAS broadcast.

5. Additional announcements may be made by the stations as they deem appropriate. The suggested schedule, as contained in the state AMBER plan, is this:

  • At least every 15 minutes for the first two hours
  • Every 30 minutes for the next three hours.
  • After five hours, hourly updates for the next 7 hours or as appropriate

6. Supplemental information via facsimile may be targeted only at the region of concern, even though the EAS alert will be distributed statewide. Therefore, if you do not receive any information via fax, or cannot find any information on the Virginia AMBER website you may in fact not have anything to broadcast. Disregard the event.

7. Stations monitoring the EAS activation may delete the event if it does not seem applicable. An abduction in Tidewater is of no concern to this area until such time as law enforcement may believe the victim has been transported to this area. LP stations will rebroadcast ALL AMBER EAS alerts using the CAE code.

8. Stations are reminded that EAS activations contrary to the State and Local Area plans may be considered "false or deceptive EAS transmissions" as per 47 CFR 11.45. ALL AMBER ACTIVATIONS MUST ORIGINATE WITH THE VIRGINIA STATE POLICE.

9. Further information is available on the web.

Local EAS Plan       plandex.html
State EAS Plan       vaplan.pdf
State AMBER website       www.vaamberalert.com current alert info
State AMBER plan       stateamber.pdf
Missing Children       http://www.missingkids.com/html/amberplan.html


click here for current alerts
Participating Stations are encouraged to place the AMBER logo on their station website with a link to the Virginia AMBER website. This will make it easy for your announcers to quickly obtain AMBER information and will identify your station to the public as an AMBER station. If a photograph is available you can point your listeners to this link.


New FCC Rules and the Local Area

On February 22, 2002, the FCC released Report and Order FCC 02-64 which makes some substantial changes to the EAS. It does not, however, mandate that you purchase new equipment to fully take advantage of these changes. Most of the changes will filter in slowly.

From this point on, RMT's originated by our LP stations will be sent with a 90 minute expiration time. The new rules permit stations to rebroadcast the RMT up to 60 minutes after reciept. The extra time encoded in the expiration allows for clock differences. This should be of great benefit to television stations who may wish to postpone the alert until the next station break. Of course, if your equipment is set up to autoforward within 15 minutes, it still will do so.

This change will allow some tests to be moved to the xx:19 time as opposed to the traditional xx:49 time slot.


The LOCAL AREA PLAN has been revised to incorporate these changes into it. Of special note is Section 8-D and Section 7-C which contain AMBER specific information.

Too Much To Ask?

Occasionally we hear of station managers who determine to limit EAS activity to the bare minimum: RMT's, RWT's and required national level events. As long as the system is in place, it would seem reasonable to offer a certain level of public service. Is it too much to ask?

Let's look at the ACTUAL RECORD and see what is involved. The SVLA LECC suggests that stations carry all "short fuse / critical" warnings in addition to the mandatory events. These are the same events which the LP stations have agreed to carry.

They are:

    svappxb
  • CAE AMBER ALERT
  • TOR TORNADO WARNING
  • TOA TORNADO WATCH
  • FFW FLASH FLOOD WARNING
  • BZW BLIZZARD WARNING
  • CAE CHILD ABDUCTION EMERGENCY
  • HUW HURRICANE WARNING
  • EVI EVACUATION IMMEDIATE
  • CEM CIVIL EMERGENCY MESSAGE

We specifically EXCLUDE:

If you feel like you are activating too often, the first thing to check is to see if you have indeed excluded HWW, SVR and WSW from your auto-forward setup. A good summer week of thunderstorms could bring a dozen SVR's, so it will seem excessive if you broadcast those. Don't do that to your listeners!

Let's face it, there already is a built-in audible and visual warning for thunderstorms. And the 6 o'clock news will tell us of a winter storm 3 days before it arrives. These warnings are not needed.

The analysis

In the two-year period ending 3/31/99, there were 14 SVLA activations. This means about 7 activations/year. In many cases, several of those activations may occur on the same day; in fact the average time between days with an activation was 13 weeks.

LP-2 station WMRA serves 15 locales in 4 local areas, because it simulcasts its programming on 4 stations. Even with this extra load, there were only 9 activations/year, and an average time between days with an activation of 10.4 weeks.

Click here to view the Excel spreadsheet with the actual data.

It really isn't that big a deal. Consider this: with the advent of LPFM and satellite video services, isn't this something that you can do that will give you an aspect of "localism" that will distinguish your station from the rest? It costs nothing.



SVEAS 2008 RMT SCHEDULE
Month Day Time Orig, Note
January 22 1049 WMRA
February 19 0449 WQPO
March 18 0945 NWS tornado drill
April 22 0619 WMRA
May 20 1449 WQPO
June 17 0719 WMRA
July 22 1919 WMRA
August 26 0249 WQPO
September 23 1419 WMRA
October 21 0549 WQPO
November 18 1319 WQPO
December 23 1719 WMRA


STATE PLAN

PN STATIONS MONITOR:
LP-1 WQPO 100.7 mHz, backup LP-3 WSVA 550 kHz
LP-2 WMRA 90.7 mHz

WQPO 100.7 mHz is STATE RELAY
LP-1/LP-3 ALSO MONITOR NOAA WX
LP-2 Monitor NOAA via EMnet

The Shenandoah Valley Local Area is:

051165 ROCKINGHAM CO. VA
051660 HARRISONBURG VA
051015 AUGUSTA CO. VA
051790 STAUNTON VA
051820 WAYNESBORO VA
051139 PAGE CO. VA
051171 SHENANDOAH CO. VA



 
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Questions or Comments on this Page | Information Provider: WMRA
(06-23-2006)