Dennis Thompson
Yes Virginia, there will be a meeting of the SBE Central Valley Chapter 66 on Thursday July 27. We will be gathering for a no-host lunch (12:00 noon) in the banquet room at the Mitsui Buffet in Clovis. Nothing specific on the agenda, but as always if you have frequency coordination questions, our frequency coordinator Mr. Pat Fennacy will be in attendance. Maybe you have questions about the upcoming 2017 National EAS test and re-registration process. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), in collaboration with the FCC, will conduct a nationwide test of the EAS on September 27, 2017 at 2:20 PM EDT. The ETRS was designed to increase the reliability and value of the EAS, while minimizing reporting burdens on EAS Participants by accurately charting how alerts were propagated during an EAS test, identifying potential single points of failure, poor transmission paths, and coverage gaps before they could potentially cause a system failure during an actual alert. All EAS Participants must complete the 2017 ETRS Form One on or before August 28, 2017. Each EAS Participant should file a separate copy of Form One for each of its EAS decoders, EAS encoders, and units combining such decoder and encoder functions. On or before 11:59 p.m., September 27, 2017, EAS Participants must submit any updates or corrections to their 2017 Form One filings and must file the “day of test” information sought by ETRS Form Two. On or before November 13, 2017, EAS Participants must file the detailed post-test data sought by ETRS Form Three. Among the improvements made to the ETRS in 2017 is that filers will now use a single account to file on behalf of multiple FCC Registration Numbers (FRNs). Here is a link to the ETRS new user registration, login, password reset and user profile updates: REGISTER. If you’ve started the registration process, stop by the meeting and let us know how it’s going or if you’ve encountered any problems.
While you’re wearing that EAS cap, why not pick up a fresh copy of the 2017 EAS Operating Handbook HERE.
Remember the phone calls you received from TV viewers during the 2009 digital transition? What will the upcoming spectrum repack do to your switchboard? Congressman Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) has just introduced the, Viewer Protection Act of 2017. It offers approximately one billion dollars of relief to reimburse TV stations as well as FM stations that are harmed by the coming Spectrum Repack activity. Read about it HERE.
It’s always nice to have free money available. Now if we could just figure out how to get a free lunch now and then.
Remember to let the attendants at Mitsui Buffet know you’re with SBE when you enter—you’ll pay on the way out, see you at the meeting.
