A History of the Emergency Alert System & Its Predecessors

And welcome back to The Chronicles of Trevor, the only blog whose owner's uncle can OutPizza the Hut and get away with it!

So after the recent EAS test, I wanted to showcase the history of Civil Defense broadcasting in the US..

It all started in 1951, the same year CBS introduced its Eye-conic logo, designed by William Golden, based on the All-Seeing Eye symbol, seen on Pennsylvania Dutch barns to wade off evil spirits. But I digress. The US Government's now-defunct Federal Civil Defense Administration, alongside the Federal Communications Commission, launched a new system called CONELRAD (CONtrol of ELectronic RADiation), which was administered via AM stations on 640 and 1240 kilohertz (then known as kilocycles). This system was developed in case a nuclear attack on our country was ever devised.

This is an ad for CONELRAD from the 50s.

After the development of the Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM), CONELRAD was shelved, and as such, the true predecessor to the current EAS was devised in 1963, the Emergency Broadcast System (EBS). At first, the EBS worked much like CONELRAD, where TV stations repeatedly turned off and on their transmitters to gain attention, dubbed the "EBS Stress Test" since it stressed out said transmitters and sometimes caused them to malfunction. Later on, the FCC came up with a solution, the infamous "Attention Signal", which is made of two tones, 853 Hz, and 960 Hz. These tones were chosen specifically due to their unpleasantness on the ears, and since they needed a sound like that in order to get the attention of TV viewers or radio listeners. The EBS was also used frequently for weather alerts from the National Weather Service and its predecessor, the US Weather Bureau. 

This was an unofficial logo for the EBS, called the "EBS Eggs". This is a screencap from ABC affiliate KSTP-5 in St. Paul/Minneapolis, MN.

The EBS usually was tested during commercial breaks, usually during Saturday morning cartoons. For instance, If you were watching, say, "The Misadventures of Mumbly Moe" (yup, I made that up) and during commercials, you'd have this thing shoved in your face.

You'd not be pleased, but hey, at least you aren't missing any of your show.

In 1997, the EBS was replaced with the Emergency Alert System (EAS). 

This is the current logo for the EAS, used since 2007.

It was built to provide timely information, so it can interrupt your show. Say, you're watching the classic SpongeBob episode where the little square dude delivers a pizza with Squidward,

and all of a sudden, your cable starts emitting "ERRRRRRRRR! ERRRRRRRRR! ERRRRRRRRR!" You'd be annoyed, and somewhat devastated, since "Pizza Delivery" is one of the best Season 1 episodes!

But I digress. The "ERRRRRRRRRR!" sounds are actually bursts of data that repeat thrice. So if a Required Weekly Test issued by ABC affiliate WTSP in Tampa was issued for Hillsborough County, Manatee County, Pasco County, Pinellas County, and Sarasota County in Florida, the test's data bursts, when encoded as text, read:

ZCZC-EAS-RWT-012057-012081-012101-012103-012115+0030-2780415-WTSP/TV-

Which, when decoded for us humans, reads:

"An EAS Participant has issued a REQUIRED WEEKLY TEST for the following counties/areas: Hillsborough FL, Manatee FL, Pasco FL, Pinellas FL, and Sarasota FL at 12:15 AM EDT on October 5, 2005. Effective until 12:45 AM EDT. Message from WTSP-TV"

Today at 2:20 EST, the 7th Nationwide Test of the Emergency Alert System was sounded. I recorded a video of the test on Boston independent station WHDH-TV, during an airing of Byron Allen's reboot of Funny You Should Ask (no loss there, lol, even though I think Byron Allen is a great entrepreneur with a great TV stations group). The video below shows the test's crawling message, with FYSA in the background, followed by a Pizza Hut Melts commercial. 

     This was recorded off of my phone, so excuse the potato-quality.

It would've been goofier if it was during a Gold Bond commercial. Speaking of which, they made a new ad that got rid of the squeaky trumpet blare. \(*v*)/ But I digress. The EAS has evolved to the point that you can receive alerts and tests on your phone. I wonder if game consoles will ever be able to receive EAS alerts. Imagine playing a Mario game, and suddenly, BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP! BEEEEEEP! BEEEEEEEP!

That would be annoying, especially for speedrunners.

Thanks for reading!