Draft:Emergency Alert System
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Background
The Emergency Alert System is the USA's national warning system. Designed originally under the Emergency Broadcast System to allow the President to speak on all TV and radio systems in case of a national emergency, the EAS was an upgrade allowing for better localized alerts. SAME tones were introduced to help transmit data to encoders, to identify locations of any event. This system was implemented in 1997.
EASyPLUS Screen (2004-2016?)
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Visuals: On a black background, there is white VCR OSD Mono text. This text is in 3 lines, the top reading "EMERGENCY ALERT SYSTEM", the middle line displaying the alert sender, the next to bottom line reading "issued a", the bottom line displaying the alert. Between the first and second line, a scroll line reads "[ALERT SENDER] has issued a(n) [ALERT] for the following counties/areas: [LOCATIONS]. Effective until [TIME].
Variants:
- Some cable providers use a gray background with white text.
- A few used black text to go along with the gray background as well.
- Some cable systems changed where the scroll goes, often to the middle of the screen.
- During the 2011 EAS test, under the Emergency Action Notification code, the top header read "NATIONAL ALERT". This would likely be protocol for all EAN alerts and Emergency Action Termination (EAT) alerts.
- Dish used another CG layout where it would clearly alert the listener that the alert was a test, repeating TEST in the screen many times.
- The Local Access Alert variant is all caps, on a very dark gray background. The top text reads "LOCAL ACCESS ALERT", the 2nd line reads "A LOCAL AUTHORITY", the 3rd line unedited except it is in all caps, and the bottom line reading "DIRECT COMMUNITY ACCESS". There is no scroll text.
- There was a variant in use with TV station slides and the DirecTV 2011 EAS Test slide where the EASyPLUS generated a black bar with white scrolling text.
Technique: Trilithic EASyPLUS, EASyIPTV, or EASyCAST Character Generator/EAS Encoder.
Audio: The SAME tones, followed by the EBS alert tone, then the audio message, then the EOM tones. For Local Access Alerts, only the audio message would play.
Audio Variants: On some weather alerts, the 1050Hz tone from NOAA Weather Radio system plays, often because the EASyPLUS monitors weather radio channels to relay alerts.
Availability: Used by many cable providers from 2004 to the early 2010s, this was a common screen to come by, being retired around 2016 in favor of CAP compatible EAS encoders. Dish and Comcast were some examples of cable providers with these encoders.
Legacy: As the most common EAS screen during the 2000s and early 2010s, this had a major impact on EAS enthusiasts, often many of them creating EAS "mocks" with this screen.
