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VA-EAS.ORGVirginia State Emergency Communications Committee |
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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
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:
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
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.
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:
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.
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.
PN STATIONS MONITOR: WQPO 100.7 mHz is STATE RELAY
The Shenandoah Valley Local Area is:
051165 ROCKINGHAM CO. VA
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