Tuesday, June 26, 2007, is going down in the record books in Southern Illinois. One of the stations I service called for some reason, they were rebroadcasting a country station from Decatur instead of their own programming.
What at first was thought to be crossed STL paths, turned out to be a major burp in the Illinois EAS. During the encoding of a severe thunderstorm warning, the National Weather Service somehow buried the code for an EAN in the header. When this message was instantly rebroadcast by the LP-1 station in Decatur, WEJT, every station downstream from Decatur to the southern tip of the state instantly joined WEJT programming.
And since an EAN has its own particular end of message, not shared with any other alert, when the storm warning ended, those stations STAYED with WEJT, until the possessed station power cycled their EAS equipment.
This was reminiscent of the time UPI inadvertently ran an actual EBS alert, with authentication words and all, over the wire, causing news and engineering staffs to be called in on a Saturday afternoon, all over the nation.
So, be aware of what your station is running.
UPDATE:
Apparently, this was statewide. Reports are that someone was moving equipment at the state capitol, and pushed the button.
Reminds you of the poor kid that smacked a light pole with a stick in New York City the exact instantpower went out over all New England. Hid for three days.
Hint: If the front panel says "AUDIO: UNLIMITED TIME," it's locked into an EAN.
Last edited on Fri Jun 29th, 2007 12:04 pm by Buddy Dornster
|
