The Emergency Alert System (EAS) is a critical infrastructure element that most Americans recognize but few truly understand. As explored in our recent podcast episode, this mechanism serves as a vital communication channel. It connects government authorities and the public during emergencies. This mechanism’s importance can’t be overstated—it provides immediate, reliable information when other communication ways fail during crises.
Category: Episodes
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Mailbag: When Engineers Collide: A Facebook Fact-Check Gone Wild
The Emergency Alert System (EAS) is one of those broadcast technologies that most people recognize but few truly understand. As a broadcast engineer, I’ve noticed widespread misconceptions about how these alerts actually work. I recently encountered these misconceptions firsthand after posting a simplified explanation on social media.
A fellow engineer named Joe Fleming made a minor technical correction. This turned into a valuable opportunity to clarify how emergency alerts actually work. The interaction highlighted an important distinction: what triggers EAS equipment isn’t what most people think. The iconic two-tone attention signal – that jarring sound we all recognize – doesn’t actually start the alert system. Instead, it’s the less-noticed digital data burst at the beginning of the transmission that holds the crucial triggering information.
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Cable Giants Merge, Local TV Fights Back: Why OTA Still Matters
The cable television landscape is undergoing dramatic shifts as major providers combine their power. The proposed $34.5 billion merger between Spectrum and Cox Communications is one significant industry deal. It will fundamentally change how viewers access local television. Alongside this, Verizon’s $20 billion acquisition of Frontier Communications further concentrates market power among fewer companies. These mega-mergers raise serious questions about the future of local broadcasting. They also bring up concerns about retransmission agreements. Ultimately, this affects viewer access to critical local content.
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Unraveling the Puzzle: When HD1 Drops But HD2 Doesn’t
The Mystery of HD Radio Dropouts: When Digital Isn’t Always Better
In the world of broadcast engineering, few technical challenges are as frustrating as intermittent audio problems. Recently, we encountered a particularly perplexing issue with our HD Radio transmission that left us scratching our heads for weeks. Our HD1 audio signal would randomly drop out for brief periods—anywhere from 0.3 seconds to 3 seconds—while the HD2 signal continued operating flawlessly. This contradiction immediately caught our attention because conventional wisdom suggests that if there’s an issue with the transport stream or the exciter, all HD channels should be affected. But that wasn’t happening in our case, making this technical mystery even more intriguing.
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Engineers can finally study anywhere with SBE’s new web-based certification tools
The broadcast engineering landscape is rapidly evolving, and professional development tools are finally catching up. The Society of Broadcast Engineers (SBE) has made a significant leap forward by transitioning their CertPreview practice exams to a fully web-based platform. This development represents more than just a technological upgrade—it’s a fundamental shift in how broadcast professionals can prepare for certification and advance their careers in an increasingly mobile work environment.
For years, broadcast engineers faced unnecessary hurdles when studying for SBE certifications. The previous system required local installation of software that often created compatibility issues, leaving engineers spending precious time troubleshooting rather than studying. If you were moving between work locations—from studio to transmitter site to home—accessing your study materials meant being tethered to whichever computer had the software installed. This outdated approach stood in stark contrast to the evolving nature of broadcast engineering work, which demands flexibility and mobility from professionals who are rarely confined to a single workspace.
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When Your Backup Plan Needs a Backup Plan: The Slow Death of a Generator
There’s a special kind of dread that comes with finding metal shavings in your generator’s oil pan. That unmistakable sign of internal engine breakdown couldn’t have come at a worse time for our critical broadcast site.
The story of our Cummins 400kVA generator is one of changing technology and infrastructure planning challenges. Installed around 2002, this diesel workhorse was appropriately sized for an era of power-hungry tube transmitters that could each draw 30-50 kilowatts. Fast forward to today, and our modern solid-state equipment—a 32kW TV transmitter, two FM transmitters (18.5kW and 3.6kW), and a 1kW NOAA weather radio transmitter—barely scratches the surface of what this generator was designed to handle. Our monthly power consumption rarely exceeds 200 kilowatt hours, even in peak summer months.
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Free Software, Priceless Results: Essential Open Source Tools for Broadcast Engineers
Dive into the world of free and open source software that’s revolutionizing broadcast engineering! We’re peeling back the curtain on the powerful tools that keep stations running without breaking the bank.
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From Engineers to Babysitters: How Corporate Consolidation Transformed Broadcast Technology
Remember when your local TV station actually felt local? When engineers knew every inch of the equipment and could fix problems with a screwdriver instead of a help desk ticket? Those days are rapidly disappearing as corporate consolidation reshapes the broadcast landscape.
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FEMA Restores Critical Funding for Public Broadcaster Safety Systems
When disaster strikes, every second counts. Behind those emergency alerts that interrupt your favorite radio shows is a critical infrastructure. It saves lives. It just received a major lifeline.
FEMA has lifted a freeze on emergency alert grants for public broadcasters, promptly releasing $9.6 million to 22 media organizations nationwide. This decision seems like bureaucratic paperwork. Nevertheless, for communities across America—especially in rural and remote areas—it means receiving prompt warnings about approaching wildfires. They get alerts about tornadoes or other life-threatening emergencies. Otherwise, they will be left in the dark.
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Public Access TV: When Everyone Had a Voice, Not Just a Channel
Whatever happened to that weird channel where your neighbor ranted about aliens one hour and the high school poetry club performed the next? Before YouTube, public access television was America’s original media democracy experiment—and it disappeared while we weren’t looking.
Growing up in Tampa, my media career began at the local public access station where duct tape was as essential as cameras. I learned every job from audio mixing to directing, sometimes all in one chaotic hour. But public access wasn’t just quirky programming—it represented a radical social contract. Cable companies funded these channels in exchange for using public infrastructure, creating spaces where anyone could broadcast regardless of money, connections, or production polish.
What made public access revolutionary wasn’t just that anyone could create content—it was that everyone had equal access to the audience. Unlike today’s platforms where algorithms determine visibility, public access gave the conspiracy theorist the same airtime as the city council meeting. No metrics, no viral pressure, no optimization required. Just show up, follow basic rules, and you were on television.
The system began declining in the 2000s as cable companies consolidated and states eliminated franchise fee requirements. From over 3,000 PEG (Public, Educational, Government) channels nationwide, many stations disappeared quietly, replaced by infomercials and eventually overshadowed by YouTube. While today’s digital platforms technically allow anyone to create content, only about 3% of YouTube’s 51 million channels reach significant audiences.
As media scholar Patricia Ofterheide noted, “Public access television was the most radical media experiment in America. It said: here’s the channel, you make the content.” We’ve gained better tools, broader reach, and sleeker production, but we’ve lost the institutions that guaranteed every voice—not just the popular or profitable ones—had a place in our media landscape.
Have memories of your town’s public access legends? Send me your stories through the link in this episode. Remember the karaoke lady, the puppet show host, or the guy with the overhead projector? I want to hear about them all—especially if fog machines were involved!