This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Community Corner

National Emergency Alert System Test Today at 11

First ever nation-wide test of the EAS; duration between 30 second and three minutes; possible disruptions, all broadcast media to be affected.

Anybody out there watch TV on Comcast? On DishTV? Or on broadcast? Or, for that matter, listen to the radio? If so, you may be in for some technical interruptions next Wednesday.

According to a message sent to customers by Comcast Customer Service, at 2 p.m. EST (11 a.m. PST) this Wednesday, FEMA and the FCC will conduct the nation’s first ever Emergency Alert System test. The test is “to assess the readiness and effectiveness of the current system and identify incremental improvements to better serve our communities in the preservation of life and property,” according to the FEMA website.

We’ve all heard those brief interruptions on the radio, and aside from the irony of phrases like “Had this been an actual emergency,” we’ve pretty much stopped paying attention.

Find out what's happening in Petalumawith free, real-time updates from Patch.

But this one is different, because it’s not just radio, but television this time. “All local, cable, and satellite TV stations across the country, as well as radio,” will be involved in the test, which will last “approximately three minutes.”

Which means that for the duration of  a pop song, every household, car and business in America – except for NOAA weather radio -- will be pulsing, squawking, hissing and whistling a test message that begins with the ominous phrase, “This is a test.”

Find out what's happening in Petalumawith free, real-time updates from Patch.

It turns out that this national test is necessary becomes several earlier regional tests or actual emergency alerts came up short. On Jan. 6, 2010, a test was broadcast across the state of Alaska which, although successful overall, revealed “several operational and technical issues were identified for mitigation.”

Similarly, on March 23 of this year, a test tsunami warning alert sent throughout the Caribbean “involved challenges with localized signal reception and audio quality of the message.”

Perhaps in anticipation of a less than fully successful test, Comcast sent subscribers their warning, saying that while users will be returned to “your regularly scheduled program,” there may be problems after all.

For one thing, if you’re using your DVR at the time, recordings too will be interrupted by the test, and may fail altogether.

For another, your cable box may need to be reprogrammed, either by tuning the channels up and down, or rebooting the box altogether by unplugging it, waiting 30 seconds and then plugging it in again.

Once you’ve done that, it may take up to 20 minutes to refresh the information in the channel guides and any video on demand services.

As Nov. 9 nears, and public awareness of the test spreads, the FCC is showing some signs of trepidation. They announced earlier today that the duration of the test is being shortened from three minutes to 30 seconds, presumably to reduce public disruption.

But doing so compromises the point of the test, because 30 seconds is apparently not long enough to validate the “national code” that is being tested. “So, with the test shortened, there's no way to really confirm that the code is working,” observes a blog on the  Emergency Management website.

Doubtless there will be conspiracy theories about the test, its true purpose and effect. Quite possibly there will be disruption in the lives of many, who don’t know why their daytime TV has been interrupted by a screenful of static. Maybe there will even be local panics, along the order of H.G. Welles “War of the World” broadcast on Halloween, 1938. (There’s a thought – maybe the FCC should have held this test 10 days earlier).

After all, we survived that media crisis, as well as the Year 2000 bug, and at least two end-of-the-world predictions for this year alone.

But most likely, there will just be a lot of cable viewers cursing their remote and cable provider.

So what else is new?

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?