Another "Fake" EAS

[NECRAT]

I don't know the exact details, but a friend of mine who does contract engineering posted on facebook that during the Jimmy Kimmel show tonight, they aired a segment which contained both EAS header tones and EAS alert tones as part of the segment...

[Chris from Milwaukee]

Correct. I was here at the pooter and Kimmel was on the TV. I can't give you details about the segment (I wasn't paying attention until the duck fart went off) but they did do it.

[eadler]

http://www.hulu.com/watch/328163/jimmy-kimmel-live-thu-feb-9-2012 appears to be the episode in question. I found a bit starting at 11:09....

[Muadeeb]

if I was at the office, I'd hook it into our test rig and see what it decodes as

[eadler]

I found some software called SeaTTY which gave a shot at decoding the SAME, here's what it spit out (I jumped through the clip playback rather than wait through the whole thing):

Code: Select all

ZCZC-PEP-EAN-011001+0015-3131903-Comcast -__u___
ZCZC-PEP-EAN-011001+0015-#131903-Comcast -__W__Z
_SZC-PEP-EA_
__14
ZCZC-@_P-EA_%0010:#:0015-__
____

[NECRAT]

I found some software called SeaTTY which gave a shot at decoding the SAME, here's what it spit out (I jumped through the clip playback rather than wait through the whole thing):

Code: Select all

ZCZC-PEP-EAN-011001+0015-3131903-Comcast -__u___
ZCZC-PEP-EAN-011001+0015-#131903-Comcast -__W__Z
_SZC-PEP-EA_
__14
ZCZC-@_P-EA_%0010:#:0015-__
____

Is That the national alert from November?
EAN and FIPS 011001 (Washington DC)

[techboywi]

it was sent with a EAN code? Umm...oooops!

[LA3A]

I was wrapping up after the 11:30pm news when I heard the EAS tones coming out of our Master Control. I went running in, thinking "Wow the monthly test was Wednesday for Tampa Bay area.... what is this coming in!" Then I saw on the TV monitor with the black & white slate saying "This is a iguana alert system". I felt relieved but then thought, will we be tagged for ABC network doing a fake EAS test?
We have Comcast cable now doing test over our cable signal, plus the one we run for monthly, two test in an hour! The local Comcast doesn't mute our audio, just lowers it. I thought the EAS rule is to break audio and not lower main program. Is Cable rules different than Broadcast? LA3A

[eadler]

I found some software called SeaTTY which gave a shot at decoding the SAME, here's what it spit out (I jumped through the clip playback rather than wait through the whole thing):

Code: Select all

ZCZC-PEP-EAN-011001+0015-3131903-Comcast -__u___
ZCZC-PEP-EAN-011001+0015-#131903-Comcast -__W__Z
_SZC-PEP-EA_
__14
ZCZC-@_P-EA_%0010:#:0015-__
____

Is That the national alert from November?
EAN and FIPS 011001 (Washington DC)

It appears to be. Note that SeaTTY doesn't produce the same exact result every time (I'm guessing it has something to do with subsampling the audio and the fact that I'm looping back 48kHz audio from an unknown rate source and it samples at 11025... but I digress). That output text seems to line up with the EAN test clips that I have from the FEMA webinar... And yes, it decoded two of the headers.... (ok, it missed a "3" in the second one...) so this could have in theory tripped something down the line. I hope no one monitors an ABC station.

3131903 being 313th day (Nov 9) at 1903Z (2:03 PM EST).

[PID_Stop]

I hope no one monitors an ABC station.

Happily, none of our ABC stations are monitored in the New York state plan -- including the one just up the street from you.

The FCC's prohibition of simulated emergency tones is nothing new, and I cannot fathom how a network would allow this to happen... even if only for the sake of their O&Os, if not their affiliates.

-- Jeff

[eadler]

Well, hopefully, if anyone does monitor an ABC, everyone has their EAS box not set to "allow any timestamp". I do notice that the alert only has a day-of-year and time-of-day timestamp, no year timestamp... so even if someone is allowing just a few hour window (to account for some oddball situation or for testing), if that airs on Nov 9, 2012, it could capture a station....