The old alerts (conelrad and ebs) were totally diffferent. Essentially the alert was mostly done manually by each local station on receipt of the alert. In a real emergency they would rebroadcast the alert they received, and might instruct you to tune to some specific station for additional info. The only non-test EAN (emergency Alert Notice) that was ever sent at was actually a mistake, but showed the system to have serious flaws. Many stations failed to send at the alert as required, and others didn't know what to do next, especially after they took almost half an hour to try and send a cancel alert message. They mistakely used the activation code word and took an additional 15 minutes to send the correct cancellation message.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Broadcast_System
Now the various authorities at the various level also have EAS plans and all can trigger a alert and it is more automated. The EAS SAME (Specific Area Message Encoding) includes digital header and trailer. And many more services are required to carry it include cable and Satellite providers, AM/FM, and Sirius XM. The recent test, the first national, however had enough errors that it shows they still have some problems to solve. No they didn't Broadcast Lady Gaga Nationally, but that's what some DirecTv subscribers heard. http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/09/its-only-a-test-but-what-a-test/?smid=tw-nytimestv&...
Whether this emergency test alert was national this time, it made no difference to me because I was at work where I don't get to watch TV. I wasn't aware that you must be glued to your TV just to be notified of emergencies. I'm failing to see the significance of this whole thing. How did we manage before? It's petty stuff. Or was this one of the reasons why it was so imperitive for the country to go digital, that it had to be signed into law so this whole "digital revolution" and increase in business for the cable companies could be forced on everyone?
And what on earth happens then if an emergency occurs between now and the next time this test is run, before all the kinks are cleared up?
There is definitely an agenda behind the whole thing which nobody talks about: more profits for the electronics manufacturers, electronics stores, and the cable companies, all now due to the fact that it's not just the technology, but now that you must pay to get decent TV reception and throw away the analog TV (even if it's otherwise working well), all for the sake of progress. The big corporate giants have gotten even bigger now. And now-a-days if you don't want any of that, then that means no TV at all unless you're lucky to have a good rooftop antenna. It makes no sense.
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