Partial County Alerting (PCA): Targeting the broadcast of Emergency Alert System (EAS) messages

Broadcast Engineering and IT Conference , Core Education Collection , Core Education Collection: Connect Series

Originally Aired - Monday, April 15 | 12:00 PM - 12:30 PM PT

W220-W221

Pass Required: Core Education Collection Pass

Don't have this pass? Register Now!

Create or Log in to myNAB Show to see Videos and Resources.

Videos Resources

Videos

Resources

Click to Join the Zoom Meeting

{{resource.title}}

Resources

{{resource.title}}

This Session Has Not Started Yet

Be sure to come back after the session starts to have access to session resources.

Partial County Alerting (PCA) is an available, but underutilized, technology allowing broadcasters to tailor the dissemination of EAS messages to affected areas, thereby reducing the number of EAS interruptions for their audiences. This capability is included in the FCC Part 11 Rules and today's engineering specifications for EAS encoder/decoder equipment. With no added costs and after coordination with local officials, EAS equipment can be easily configured to accept, process and forward EAS messages using partial county location codes. The National Weather Service (NWS) already employs this capability at five offices and will be expanding this capability to other areas beginning in 2024. A description of this capability will be provided by the project leader from NWS Headquarters. We will showcase the successful employment of PCA in Clark County, Nevada with the local NWS Warning Coordination Meteorologist and the EAS Chair from the Nevada State Emergency Communications Committee (SECC). We will discuss which organizations in your area you would work with to implement PCA for a county or counties in your operational area.