Three seconds of audio could end up costing Fox $500,000 Despite being a well-known illegal sound that many film and television productions have been fined over, US media titan Fox stands accused of playing the Emergency Alert System attention tone to promote an NFL show on dozens of TV channels. The Federal Communications Commission, which polices use of the sound to protect its …
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The range of freedom you get also depends on if you belong to certain groups.
Such as comments made after the God Emperor won in 2016 by a dried up has-been pop star or those made by members of a particular side of the great uniparty encouraging certain activities during the 2020 summer of mostly peaceful fires.
By which definition? The UN Article 19 has limitations. As does the EHCR Article 10.
Even in the USA, where first amendment rights are talked of often, there are limitations. This article being an example of one of them.
Other examples - threatening someone, the classic "shouting fire in a theatre", etc...
Freedom of speech is not absolute.
"There have been multiple people prosecuted for shouting fire in a theatre"
Citation needed.
https://youtu.be/hua7EQjPGJk?t=64
Anyway, you can read the article here:
https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theatlantic.com%2Fnational%2Farchive%2F2012%2F11%2Fits-time-to-stop-using-the-fire-in-a-crowded-theater-quote%2F264449%2F
"In 1969, the Supreme Court's decision in Brandenburg v. Ohio effectively overturned Schenck and any authority the case still carried. There, the Court held that inflammatory speech--and even speech advocating violence by members of the Ku Klux Klan--is protected under the First Amendment, unless the speech "is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action" (emphasis mine)."
If there was a law against inciting panic then we could have the entirety of the main stream media locked up.
Again... it depends on jurisdiction. We don't all live in the USA.
And even then, in the USA, there's a case listed on the Wikipedia page about this topic showing a man was arrested in 1884 for doing exactly this.
And yes, there are laws against inducing panic. For example, in Ohio, 2006 Revised Code - 2917.31
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Happiness is irrelevant. We live in civilisations/societies. Without believing in the supernatural, the buck stops with us.
And even if you do believe in a god of some form, they don't appear to get involved with our daily struggles, so the buck still stops with us whilst we're alive.
So, a right is only a right, if the rest of civilisation agree it is.
"Freedom of speech is an inalienable right "
Says who? It may be in the USA (it isn't, or at least it doesn't give you immunity from consequences of your speech) but that doesn't apply in may other countries.
Under Article 10 of the Human Rights Act 1998, “everyone has the right to freedom of expression” in the UK. The law goes on to say that this freedom “may be subject to formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society."
HRA1998
Human Rights Act 1998
These may be “in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary.”
In the USA the first amendment is limited - forms of speech that aren’t protected include:
Obscene material such as child pornography
Plagiarism of copyrighted material
Defamation (libel and slander)
True threats
Speech inciting illegal actions or soliciting others to commit crimes aren’t protected under the First Amendment, either.
two simultaneous tones of 853Hz and 960Hz
So, two slightly detuned tones are illegal tones.
Please tell the musicians to prevent hitting the wrong synthesizer keys! They are on the hook for about $150000 per second. Unless... the rich musicians may want to do the Right ThingTM and write a complete song with these two notes. Like watching paint dry. That must be an instant hit! Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock, tick tock...
That's right, that combination of those two tones are illegal to [re]broadcast.
As it should be.
Brits wouldn't understand the importance. When we hear the tone we STOP what we're doing to listen to the alert, pretty much 'period'. They use EAS to broadcast a variety of major alerts from dangerous flash flood warnings, to tornado alerts, to (of course, and thankfully never used in my lifetime) Presidential alerts of national importance. And your attention is instantly drawn to the announcement thanks to the tone.
The tone is SERIOUS stuff. So much so that we have (I don't know if Brits do) the alert system embedded into our cell phones to carry the alerts to a personal level, including "Amber alert" - the notification of a child abduction and an all-points-bulletin to keep a lookout for the suspect (that information is communicated in the alert).
Oh, you and me both. Being woken twice in succession at ~2AM in Northern Oregon for an Amber Alert about a missing child in southern California did not put me in a good mood.
OTOH, you've just given me an idea.
The EAS tone would make the most annoying ring-tone ever. <Evil cackle>
To the downvoters: I once drove from southern CA (Palm Springs) back to home. It took me ~15 hours, and that was at 70+ on the interstate all the way, pausing only to refuel every 400 miles.
If anyone can kidnap a child down there, and be likely to get to Oregon in time to justify an Amber alert 30 minutes later... it's not phone alerts you want, it's anti SR-71 Blackbird missiles.
An analogy for our European readers would be: you get an alert siren on your phone in Nottingham to tell you that a child has gone missing in Sarajevo.
There are a lot of unexplained downvotes on this particular thread. Generally I ascribe mine to my stalkers if they are on merely factual posts, but there are too many other posts affected for that to be the only issue here. Maybe the Register could consider listing the log on account names of up and down voters in future - oh, but that would require an IT upgrade or software to be written with all the specifications, coding etc. that Register readers report going -so well- out there in 'the real world'. As you were.
Happy New Year Everyone!
Judging by the tally of unexplained down votes (eleven at time of writing) the down voters wish to remain anonymous. Other sites have listed up and down voter account names for posts, so it is not unheard of. I very rarely down vote, and I very rarely post as AC, and only when it is necessary to protect the innocent, or very personal.
It would be interesting to see how many of the down voters would have the courage to be identified with down voting without explanation, rather than doing so completely anonymously. I once thanked 'Bombastic Bob' for having the courage and integrity to explain his downvote of one of my posts, and at least he had a cogent reason for doing so. We could then have a conversation about our differing views. I am genuinely interested in why people disagree with my posts and finding out is difficult without any explanation. And maybe I am too sensitive, but then maybe that could also be said of people who down vote without explanation or revealing who they are - why are they hiding away, we are pretty much anonymous with our self generated 'handles' anyway?
Expecting loads more down votes for this post too.
"udging by the tally of unexplained down votes (eleven at time of writing) the down voters wish to remain anonymous"
Or possibly haven't the time to go into detailed dissection of your comment at the time. It's a handy shorthand. For example, if someone writes something mildly annoying or foolish it gets a downvote and I move on. If it's fundamentally stupid/racist/sexist I will respond. We've had this demand for removal of anonymity before, nobody bar a few people wanted it.
Can you explain what benefit it would be to anyone to have your user ID linked to your up or downvote? Yes, it would reveal the serial downvoters that some of us seem to collect, but beyond that? It seems to be an easy way to target people who don't agree with you.
Oh and the downvotes on your post? People are taking the piss, largely.
@ David 132 "the most annoying ring-tone ever."
The gallop from the William Tell overture.
(There is a reason they are called MOBILE phones, it means you can take it with you instead of leaving it on your desk and alerting the entire office to the fact that someone is trying to get in contact with you.)
You should search:
Japan earthquake alert sound OR warning
There are a few, but everyone around instantly knows the meaning when any one person’s phone starts sounding.
And I don’t get this warning system’s sound. It is two unchanging, seemingly arbitrary pitches. I’m guessing there are sensors in the mix that listen for those pitches and act when detected, but for human ears, unless you’re one of the less than 0.1% of the people with perfect pitch, 1,000Hz and 870Hz is going to be indistinguishable (from 960 and 853). Shouldn’t it be a recognizable changing pitch (that sustains at 960 and 853Hz)?
Though people may not be able to distinguish an A from a C (say) in isolation, play two tones together and they will have an opinion on whether the combination is pleasant or unpleasant. This would be due to the "beat" present in the resultant waveform. This is why, I suspect, the alert is made up of two frequencies - the additive beat is designed to be dissonant to the point of being objectionable.
I turned the Amber Alert notifications off as in almost all cases they are child custody disputes. At least in California. I honestly cannot remember the last time an Amber Alert was for a genuine stranger abduction. 10 years ago? More? Which should be their only purpose. Stranger kidnappings. But for child custody dispute, not interested. And in those cases the local media will pick it up soon enough.
Well, I can see from these posts that the system is being abused - from too many (irrelevant?) messages to messages sent at stupid o'clock, if it's pissing off people to the point where they deactivate it, then it's failing in its purpose.
Bud. I hate to tell you but there are actual crimes out there where someone has kidnapped a child in a custody dispute and done things. I remember reading about this one case where a mother took her son from school. They're not sure what happened to the son but the mother died.
I always figured amber alerts were MOSTLY divorced dads late on returning the kid to the wacky X he divorced because she was wacky, but the courts "saw fit" to give HER custody for political reasons, and therefore he's constantly being subjected to excess scrutiny...
(at least they do not go over the emergency alert system any more, like they did at first)
icon, for snarky reasons
I would argue your emphasis in the sentence is in the wrong place.
"That's right, that combination of those two tones are illegal to [re]broadcast."
The creation of the tones, use of the tones, listening to the tones is not illegal but it is illegal to broadcast the tones in public.
Against all rhetoric the smooth brains that hear from Joe Rogan, Musk or who ever is empty media head of the year, speech in the US isn't absolute. It was more restrictive in the past in-fact, and more free now.
But waiting to hear about the Fox News byline stating that 'Biden's FCC is out of control and a tool for the nanny state'.
Yes, in addition, all the air raid towers in my neighborhood are tested at noon, every first Wednesday of each month.
"Ear-splitting" is not an exaggeration, so I've learned to avoid my local park during those times.
Even though annoying, alert systems still make sense, especially for those of us who live in the "tornado alley".
"So what would happen if there was an actual air raid at noon on the first Wednesday of the month?"
I worked in a building where on one occasion a fire in the switchroom had been discovered by the person sent there to do the weekly fire alarm test.
There was apparently some difficulty getting people to evacuate the building, so the rules were changed. When I worked there everyone now had to leave the building when the alarm went off - unless told not to by the fire wardens.
At one place I worked which was particularly diligent about alarm tests and suchlike (perhaps because all of the security team were ex-forces), every test was preceded by a live spoken announcement (most likely just because that was the easiest way to run the test - i.e. no need to provide the ability to play a recorded announcement - although it also had the benefit of avoiding any risk of a pre-recorded one being played accidentally during a real alarm) informing us that the test was about to begin, followed by another announcement after the alarm had stopped sounding to remind us that the test was over and any further alarms we heard should be taken seriously.
Also the only place I've worked (probably again because of the inherent levels of security on the site) where they made use of the access control logs to double-check who was showing as having been inside the building when the alarms sounded and who therefore ought to now be standing outside in the car park... The fire drills we had there were easily the most organised I've ever experienced, despite them always being genuine surprises - unlike some places where *everyone* knows full well there's about to be a drill, this place did it right. Shame they got so many other aspects of providing a decent working environment well and truly wrong, but meh, it's all but an increasingly distant memory in my career journey.
You'd hopefully know about the risk of one and the test system would be changed to deal with the risk. For at least some places with warning sirens used for storm activity, the test procedure specifically involves postponing testing if the weather looks stormy to enable it to warn of a real event, conducting the test at the next sunny day that fits the schedule.
It's been MANY years, so I don't remember the precise time, but when I was young I could hear the weekly test of the Broadmoor sirens. I think it was at eleven am on a Monday (don't quote me on it), followed about ten or so minutes later by a different siren (the all clear).
One day, the sirens sounded on time. And a little while later they sounded again, not the expected all clear signal. I remember thinking to myself that finally somebody was smart enough to try to get out during the regular testing.
The cordon is 5 miles around Broadmoor, which includes most of Bracknell.
I lived there for ~20 years and only heard the alarm (except the Monday test) twice - once the day we moved in - "what does that mean".
The other time when I was in 6th form at school. The alarm sounding meant my Mum had to come and collect me (aged 19) and my brother (aged 17) (both over 6ft4) from school.
You mean if, during a regular scheduled test of a warning system, the actual thing the warning system was supposed to be warning against, actually happened, for real?
There's a clip on YouTube: https://youtu.be/mlj0si3MBDI
We to implement the air raid towers everywhere, again. We used to have them cause we lived close to a coal mine, they are for emergency of government and if something happened in the mine. I read an article about some place in Europe where they are actively upgrading there siren towers over the whole country. America needs to grow up and bite the bullet, per-say. I can almost say that every state I have been to in the union has had at one point in time some sort of siren towers or air raid towers, spend some of your money you send to all these other countries and upgrade our first response system. When you think about it, it is a very important and strategic equipment to have operating at it highest potential. USA, and it’s government is a joke they want to help people in other countries before fixing our own broken system.
That's right, that combination of those two tones are illegal to [re]broadcast.
As it should be.
Brits wouldn't understand the importance. When we hear the tone we STOP what we're doing to listen to the alert, pretty much 'period'. They use EAS to broadcast a variety of major alerts from dangerous flash flood warnings, to tornado alerts, to (of course, and thankfully never used in my lifetime) Presidential alerts of national importance. And your attention is instantly drawn to the announcement thanks to the tone.
The tone is SERIOUS stuff. So much so that we have (I don't know if Brits do) the alert system embedded into our cell phones to carry the alerts to a personal level, including "Amber alert" - the notification of a child abduction and an all-points-bulletin to keep a lookout for the suspect (that information is communicated in the alert).
Yes, it’s not a welcome sound to hear at any point as it’s serious news. I’ve sat through two of them in recent times and they both indicated that a particularly nasty storm was on the way. The first one was for a Hurricane.
The one time I heard that for real was about 10 years ago. My wife called me from her work, which was about 20 miles west of me. They had got hit with a massive thunderstorm all the power was out. I looked out the window and saw it was a bit breezy. Then the baseball game I had on went to the alert. About 2 minutes later we got slammed with the "derecho" - 70MPH winds, lightning and flash flooding. The whole thing was over in 10 minutes. But we (and most of the rest of the US east coast) were without power for days.
We do have the emergency alert system embedded in our phones. It has never been used yet. Our severe weather is generally not so bad that it needs that sort of immediate attention. The last major Tsunami was about 300 years ago, the last major earthquake was about a similar length of time ago, and the last volcano about 350 million years ago.
That must be peaceful. Here is gets used in some cases when Mom or Dad takes the kids and the time doesn't agree with the court order it seems. Once it was used to tell us to turn down the heat in our homes on a chilly night. The regular weather alerts seem to be used in place of the tone associated emergency broadcast system here now. Of course there really is no need, the sirens are already blaring, and they can be heard at 100+db from every inch of my sprawling suburban community.
The $500k seems like money grab unless previous warnings were ignored or real harm was done. With all the delays in broadcast to prevent clothing malfunctions, you'd think they could figure out some software to mute the expensive tones if they are even played.
I finally had to turn off the warnings on my phone for "severe thunderstorms" - since they were going off dozens of times a year. I wouldn't want to fly a kite in that weather, but waking me up at 2 AM to tell me the weather's nasty outside was way too much.
Tornado warnings, however, are definitely still enabled.
Fascinating stuff. We don't have anything like it ("the tone") in the UK to my knowledge — I've listened to it and it's unpleasant but doesn't stir any feeling in me other than mild annoyance. I guess you have it conditioned into you when you've grown up with it and have to deal with the sort of weather you get over there.
That said, I could be wrong; I haven't listened to or watched a broadcast medium in years except for the odd radio in a taxi or TV on at someone's house. I'm sure we've got local systems for the same sort of stuff, and if e.g. you live in an area prone to flooding you'd be conditioned to whatever signals they use.
Smoke and fire alarms are the only things I think I'm conditioned to in terms of "STOP: SERIOUS THINGS AFOOT". Very occasionally hear emergency services sirens, but other than that nowt.
I think Canada's alert tone has managed to be more unpleasant than the U.S.'s tone. Here's an example on YouTube, in case you're interested. The volume is also important to how painful such tones can be to hear.
Back when I used to put commercial radio on in the morning whilst I dozed, ads featuring the sound of ringing telephones or doorbells used to drive me nuts.
I still sometime wake with a start to the sound of "bing-bong", manufactured entirely inside my head since my doorbell doesn't make that sound.
I'm sure that some "creative" type persuaded the advertisers that this would promote "awareness", rather than apoplectic rage and the smashing of my alarm radio into smithereens.
-A.
> Nothing worse than driving around a roundabout and hearing sirens and trying to work out where they coming from.
I read, maybe about 20 years ago, that research in the UK had shown that people are really bad at spatially locating normal siren sounds, meaning that a typical driver will waste valuable time looking around and trying to figure out where the noise is coming from. White noise, however, is much easier to place, albeit much less of a "get the hell out of the way" imperative.
And so there was talk of modifying emergency sirens to incorporate a few seconds of white noise - sort of "nee-naw, nee-naw, fsssssh, nee-naw, nee-naw, fsssssh" (I had fun typing that) to blend the advantages of both types of sound. "Get the hell out of the way! I am approaching from BEHIND you!" as it were.
Did anything come of that? Do sirens in the UK now "fssssh" periodically, other than when they're on the blink from lack of maintenance?
Inquiring minds want to know.
"people are really bad at spatially locating normal siren sounds"
Exactly. A few years ago I was on a motorbike at a big crossroads junction in Nottingham at the front of my lane at red lights. A siren started blaring and the traffic lights turned to green. I didn't move, looking left and right trying to figure out where the emergency vehicle was. Eventually I gave up and moved forward. Turned out there was a police car behind a van behind me. Blue lights not visible in my mirrors because of the van. So the siren actually slowed the police car from being able to get away quicker!
These days I just pull over as far as I can to the nearside*. Unless you can actually see the blue flashing lights there's no point in trying to second-guess the best way of getting out of the way.
Sometimes the vehicle[s] behind will (try to) pass you. This is because their drivers are cunts and not worthy of your anger.
-A.
*I was going to add the caveat that on dual carriageways you might want to move to the offside if that's further from the centre. But on reflection I think that I was right the first time.
> Do sirens in the UK now "fssssh" periodically ?
No, they do not. I have heard some sirens that occasionally substitute "nee-naw, nee-naw" with "ooweeeeeuuuuuuwoo" i.e. a continuously rising and falling tone, which I have always interpreted as a different message, the continuous tone being "I'm on a blue-light mission" and the nee-naw being more of the "Pull over, Coming through" meaning.
Tom Scott did a piece ?recently? aobut the change in backup warning sounds behing changed from beep beep beep to a white noice because the source of the white noice is much easier to locate than beep beep beep. Here's his video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fa28lIGuxq8
It happened briefly and sounded ridiculous, the public didnt react to them. So we got "gtfo" buttons instead, really loud, jarring electronic bullhorns. You rarely hear them but they work really well. Ive seen people literally hit the car roof when they go off. Water fairies love them.
As someone who has lived in the UK a long time, decades ago they changed siren style and the "new" ones made it extremely difficult to estimate the location of the siren compared to the old style.
.. The "new" sound, was audible from further away though, so maybe that was deemed a good reason to replace the easy to locate one as people had longer to try and find the sound... Though given how many people drive with sound system on loud*, they probably don't hear sirens until they are close by.
* I don't - but that's because I find the radio distracting when I drive
"Smoke and fire alarms are the only things I think I'm conditioned to in terms of "STOP: SERIOUS THINGS AFOOT". Very occasionally hear emergency services sirens, but other than that nowt."
It's been a long time since I moved out, and dad has long since passed, but that to me is the sound of "Dads burnt the toast again"
Twice in the past month I've had Amber Alerts sent to my work phones - no exaggeration- every 5 minutes for my entire 12 hour shift. Our work phones are Kyocera flip phones that don't have the ability to disable alerts. Thankfully my Samsung Galaxy has advanced alert filtering so that I can eliminate Amber Alerts along with any others that I don't want to receive.
A few nights ago I was awakened at 2am by an Amber Alert from Dallas, which is 300 miles away. As reluctant as I am to shut off my work phone, after the third rebroadcast of the same alert, I shut it off so I could get some sleep.
Don't these fools running these systems realize that transmitting multiple alerts for the same missing kid, or alerts for simple custodial disputes makes the entire system useless, as we simply disable alerts or click them off with out even looking at them. It's like that damn boy that cried wolf so often.
Growing up on the other side of the pond, we get those tones about once a month: "This is a test of the emergency broadcast system. If this was an actual emergency..."
Also on Friday mornings at 10am, there was a local siren with a similar tone. But everyone knew that if it was for real, we could kill our ass goodby.
Serious stuff? I guess that's why they have these endless practice alerts that don't desensitize anyone. Your right that obnoxious sound comes up on the cell phone for demented seniors who went out for a drive, or amber alert for kids living 500 miles away with limited description. That thankfully is something we can turn off on our cell phone, which I have as well as everyone I know. It's meant to be light hearted and it is only a reminder of the emergency sound, 500k seems a little over the top.
British people can not lecture us on free speech because they absolutely do not have any free speech protections.
When a government says we will allow you to have a right to free speech, as long as you don't offended certain people, then that means there is no right to free speech. It's as simple as that.
Also I have personally witnessed on video the police in England arresting people for mean tweets and other social media posts. By the way these were not threats or extortion or anything like that.
Most Americans don't realize how good we've got it as far as free speech rights.
I still do not have a problem with the FCC fining people for using that tone. If entertainment wants to do some kind of alert they can pick another sound. We take notice when we hear it because nobody else uses it.
" I have personally witnessed on video the police in England arresting people for mean tweets and other social media posts"
In other words, you watched a video. Apparently without understanding what was happening and why. People aren't arrested for "mean" tweets. People were arrested for hate speech aimed at football (soccer to you) players after the Euros 2020 final - they crossed the line from "mean" (whatever that s in your world) to outright hate speech and racism. Try that in the US and see what happens.
actually when I hear the lead-in and two tones I'm using profanities because "I was trying to listen" and it's always something irritating like a monthly test or 'yet another storm//flash-flood warning' when you have been hearing them all day and it has been raining all day.
I recall at one time AMBER ALERTS were going over this system (think missing kid except probably just some divorced parent late on returning the kid from "visitation" and wacky X waiting for an opportunity to "GET HIM" but I digress). This practice QUICKLY stopped.
if there were an actual nuclear war, I live within a few miles of several important Navy and Marine bases. I would never hear it. *BOOM*
"So, two slightly detuned tones are illegal tones."
Two solid tones, yes. And they're not slightly off musical scales; they're quite well off them. If you're using the typical 440 Hz = A4 scale, then 853 is between G#5 (830.61) and A5 (880), and 960 Hz is between A#5 (932.33) and B5 (987.77). Those are some big frequency differences. Your synthesizer needs to be weirdly calibrated to hit both those frequencies, and even if it was, you'd also need to be using a musical system not based on the typical 12-note scale because the two frequencies aren't an exact number of semitones apart.
That's not the main point, though. If someone accidentally played these two frequencies on an instrument during a song (which would be a rather discordant song), it wouldn't set off the warning. Only sine tones played simultaneously would do that, and that's using the emergency tone as a sample in your music. If you plan to do that, you're fine to perform live or sell copies, but it would be illegal to play that music on a broadcast medium.
A musician would know:
- Small numbers of sine waves sound awful. They need distortion, modulation, and chords.
- Modulating a tone adds harmonics. Any musical modifications will alter the balance of harmonics so it deviates from the alert.
- 853 and 960 Hz were chosen to create irritating non-musical harmonics.
It's not going to happen by accident.
> 853 and 960 Hz were chosen to create irritating non-musical harmonics.
I note that 960 has a large number of small factors (2^6 * 3 * 5) while 853 is prime. Being a Brit, I have never heard the EAS tone(s), so I may have to generate an example for myself.
If I remember correctly, tone dialling works this way - the phone key matrix is encoded by combining two pure tones.
>I may have to generate an example for myself.
Takes about 30 seconds in Audacity. And it's quite unpleasant. Why anyone would want to use it in an advert is beyond me - it's akin to thinking "hmm, if I begin my advert with the sound of fingernails scraping down a blackboard it'll get people's attention and help sell my product". But then, hey, that's advertising people for you. Bill Hicks was right.
The factors of a frequency don't matter much, as a frequency is just the number of pulses per second. There is no problem using non-integer frequencies, and in fact most music wouldn't work if you limited yourself to integer frequencies (high and medium pitch notes are far enough apart that you could get away with it, but the low notes are close enough together that people with perfect pitch would start hating you). Thus the factors of a frequency or that one is prime have basically no importance to their use. I'll stop here before I bore you with too much information.
heh - I just did that.
But, to totally mess with people, use left for one tone, right for the other. listen with headphones. *SPACEY* (not even remotely the same!)
[using speakers loses the effect]
warning: do not try at home when intoxicating chemicals are involved
Decided to find out what kind of TV producer would be so stupid as to OK using the EBS/EAS tone for an on air promo. Looks like someone called Stephanie Medina. And looking at her resume she strikes me as exactly the sort of LA TV "talent" who would do something that stupid. KTLA and Comedy Central etc. Not sure which is worse. Probably KTLA.
If she was the one who OK'ed the promo she should be fired. This is pure criminal stupidity. What she did is the exact equivalent of shouting Fire in a Movie theater. I knew there was a reason why I hated all "talent" in the Biz in LA. The "trades" tend to be OK.
For background the EBS/EAS tone is one that is familiar to everyone in California. It is used for all serious emergencies. Like tsunami alerts, toxic cloud spills / fires, evacuation warnings during floods and wildfires etc. Not for earthquakes, too slow. Thats what the MyShake app is for. Also used for volcano and tornado alerts in other states. The Four Minute Warning (actually more like 25 plus Min Warning in the US) is its least used feature. But the system is tested on a regular basis.
There are videos on youtube that will give you an idea of what one part of the system sounds like. In cities like San Francisco. The siren and the outdoor loudspeakers of the Outdoor Warning System. They are very very loud. Tested every Tuesday at noon. Except during upgrades. As traditional (and more dependable) than the fog horns. Probably the scariest sound one can hear is the sirens spooling up and it not being noon at Tuesday. So far, always precautionary. But someday on the radio when the tone comes on an the voice does not say - "This is a Test. This is only a test...".
Hope never to hear that in my lifetime.
ShakeAlert is the system but MyShake is the "official" app. I thought it was a very good name because for the target audience the first association would not be an ice-cream beverage. Although now that you mentioned In-N-Out...
Its actually a very good app. Simple and well thought out. One feature I'd love is if it used the tones and chimes used by the Japanese Earthquake Alert system. They are both kinda Japanese 'cute'zy" but with a very menacing undertone. I remember watching the live Japaneses TV coverage in 2011 after the Tohoko earthquake when the aftershocks triggered the warning system and it would cut in on the live TV feed. Even after many large aftershocks every new earthquake warning still made you hold your breath. So full marks to whoever chose those Japanese warning chimes. They still scare the crap out of me. Which is as it should be.
I wonder how difficult it would be to tie in the warning app with the almost live preliminary data from the USGS in Berkeley. Usually within 30 sec after last S wave decay the USGS has epicenter, depths and approx magnitude. The where and the how deep is the important one. Foreshock prediction is weak with strike / slip but with thrust faults the prediction can be moderate to strong. The only problem is that most of the local thrust faults quakes seem to be on "previous unknown faults". But I have to say both the Berkeley Hills series over the last decade plus the recent quakes near the Garlock and Santa Monica faults did get my attention. As the Channel Island fault sequence is way over due for a few mid size pops. Around the same mag as the 1925 earthquake which did so much urban renewal in Santa Barbara.
Around the same mag as the 1925 earthquake which did so much urban renewal in Santa Barbara.
LOL at your turn of phrase there!
Although it does remind me of the exchange in the book Wyrd Sisters:
'Exactly how,' she said, eventually, 'does one go about knocking over the houses of people one does not like?'
'Urban clearance,' said the Fool.
'I was thinking of burning them down.'
'Hygienic urban clearance,' the Fool added promptly.
'And sowing the ground with salt.'
'I suspect that is hygienic urban clearance and a programme of environmental improvements. It might be a good idea to plant a few trees as well.'
There was a bit of a local joke in that turn of phrase.
Santa Barbara like most cities had a City Beautiful Movement organization the early 1900's. We have one of the most beautiful natural settings in the world, they said. We have perfect climate, they said. We have a long Spanish and Californios history. Basically the oldest real town in the state. But downtown looks like every other cow town in the Central Valley. If looks like Freso, goddamit. Lets build a beautiful Spanish Revival city that compliments its setting.
But the downtown property owners and businesses said, but thats going to cost us a lot of money. Not interested. So they kept buying their prefab wooden building sections from San Francisco. And putting up buildings that made it look like Fresno.
Then on June 29, 1925 Mother Nature solved the biggest problem for the Architectural Committee. By knocking down most of downtown. At the next committee meeting three weeks later it was basically, well the first item on our agenda has been dealt with. Now on to item two. Rebuilding. So everything was rebuilt in Spanish Revival style and the result was something that was as pleasing on the eye as the fantastic natural backdrop. The mountains and the ocean.
Now the driving force behind all this was a force of nature named Pearl Chase. A local legend and local hero. Given her ability to stop the unstoppable, i.e CalTrans, etc, it was said only half-jokingly that she used her influence to arrange the earthquake. Which removed all opposition to a Spanish Revival style city at a stoke.
Its that kind of place. A bit like Big Sur. Only tentatively connected to the real world of the here and now.
That makes me think of Napier in New Zealand. The town was destroyed by an earthquake and fire in 1931 and completely rebuilt in what was then the current trendy style - Art Deco. Many towns have one or two Art Deco buildings left, it's both amazing and bizarre to see so many of them in one place.
> aftershocks triggered the warning system and it would cut in on the live TV feed
I do wonder how that will work going forward as live TV and radio are no longer a thing. Mobile notifications obviously but can such a system cut in on streaming services I wonder?
Reminds me of the nut-job sirens where I live. I don't think they use them any more but they used to be there to warn people when someone had escaped from the Broadmoor secure psychiatric unit (we're talking Hannibal Lecter-grade loonies, not your common-or-garden fruitcakes). They used to test them on a Monday morning IIRC.
On the first Monday morning at home after I moved there, I had no idea what the sirens were that had suddenly gone off and whether I should do anything in response - close the windows, hide under the table, get in the car and get as far away as possible as fast as possible, repent my sins immediately and prepare a last meal? Funnily enough, I didn't think of Broadmoor; I was wondering whether they'd had an accident at the (also not-that-far-away) Atomic Weapons Establishment or one of the nearby military bases.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzW3G-XUFHw
Ah, that brings back memories. They only went and put one right in the middle of Sandhurst school, didn't they?
It's gone now (decommissioned them), but here's a look from Google's Street View a few years ago - https://maps.app.goo.gl/cxd1qk6oA2Z5q1pH8
I'm a (ok, recent) Brit ex pat to Cali, never heard this until I clicked through the article to the wiki clip
Would get the gist if the radio made the noise, but wouldn't have known otherwise - don't get alerts on my phone as its not American either
I'll be the first to go!
It is not just about desensitizing listeners. The EBS two-tone will 'capture' other broadcasters so they too send EBS tones.
"...nearby radio and TV broadcasters, ...legally required..to pick up and start delivering the message ...as soon as received."
Maybe the 'wurdlwirdleuurdllee gooshhhgooshe' tone after that confirms the level and area of the alert, but even tickling the system could be very expensive.
Especially if partial-alerts lead the station staff to unplug the EBS monitor just as the bombers arrive...
(finally a proper use for the icon)
That's not how it works; EBS worked by Teletype notices, and later by phone calls from the white house or from the network HQ, that had to be authenticated by called back. Now it's a digital broadcast. It's never been "if you hear the tone anywhere else, start broadcasting it immediately," however that could possibly work.
That's incorrect. That procedure is not used now, but that was the expected activation procedure for the original system, using authenticated messages only to a small number of powerful stations which were to seed the airwaves with the signal. Here's Wikipedia's summary of the original system's activation procedure:
Actual activations originated with a primary station known as a Common Program Control Station (CPCS-1), which would transmit the Attention Signal. The Attention Signal most commonly associated with the system was a combination of the sine waves of 853 and 960 Hz—suited to attention due to its unpleasantness. Decoders at relay stations would sound an alarm, alerting station personnel to the incoming message. Then, each relay station would broadcast the alert tone and rebroadcast the emergency message from the primary station. The Attention Signal was developed in the mid-1960s.
Before they had lines or satellite feeds going to all the stations or functionally so, and when they feared that an attack would take down those lines, the idea was that you could have more secure lines going to specific stations which could be heard by local stations. Therefore, you'd only have to successfully send the emergency message to one station in a region for every one to cut over to the alert. The only part of the description that's not true is hearing the signal anywhere else, as it would have been a small number of possible source stations that had to be monitored. That system is no longer used, but back in the days of analogue technology, that's really how they decided to do it.
They should be high enough to feature in a Chapter 11 filing and a criminal hearing for a good couple of educational years in jail as far as I'm concerned. I'm done with morons abusing safety features and then claiming it was all for fun or a mistake - a slap on the fingers with a wet noodle only encourages them.
There should be a standard minimum level of fine, plus an additional amount depending on the use. Advertising some event should cost the company twice the ticket sales and advertising revenue for said event.
This is nearly equivalent to genuinely shouting "FIRE" in a crowded place just to get someone's attention, so when there really is a fire people don't take the warning seriously and die.
Or am I over-reacting like usual?
And that will be extremely useful for all the young'uns who have their smartphones grafted to their hands.
Might be an idea to actually get that alert sound out into films that the youngsters watch, because they don't stand much of a chance of recognizing it otherwise.
The phone carriers in US all have an emergency alert system too, alerts will show on the phone. I was in the middle of Fry's Electronics (RIP) and it was crazy, since they had a tornado warning and it was crazy, 2 or 3 phones started playing the alert tones and within about 20 seconds the 20 or 30 phones around were all playing it. No tornado hit the store but I had to admit (taking a look outside) it looked a bit green out there (severe storms likely to form a tornado can get this sickly green tint from the hail in the air, with strong updrafts you can have all this hail up above but none hitting the ground.)
Since the emergency message is automatically sent in text form to the phones, if they do have their phones in their hands, they'll be able to read the message before the tone ends and the automatic voice reads it on the TV or radio. I think they'll probably be fine.
I don't know how accurate the site is, but https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/ would suggest that if one broadcast an alert every time, the alert would likely be disabled (or, ironically, shot at until it malfunctioned) due to never shutting up.
First factor out suicides. People in other countries just use other methods at pretty much the same rate when guns are not available.
Next just make the notifications city / county local. In most parts of the US the non-suicide notifications would be few and far between. But in about two dozen cities / counties the notifications would be almost non stop. All these cities / counties have very strict gun control laws and the majorly of the gun violence perps in these places already have no legal right to possess firearms under Federal and state laws. Due to prior offenses. The person was already committing a felony before they even pulled the trigger.
The problem is not the guns. Or who owns them legally. But the attitude toward violence (or all sorts, with all types of weapons) by a very small minority who are responsible for most gun deaths in those two dozen odd cities and counties. To give just one example. A demographic that is less than 1% of the population of San Francisco accounted around 90% plus of all gun deaths in the City last year. And almost all the perps (if / when prosecuted) already had a criminal record. Mostly gang related. Usually involving firearms. A pattern that is repeated across the US.
The pattern of gun violence the US in the last 100 years has been very straightforward. Lock up people who commit violent gun offenses for a long time and the murder rate goes down. Way down. This is what happened in the 1930's. And what happen in the 1990's. Dont prosecute gun law offenses, dont lock up offenders, shut down the PD Anti-Gang Units and the murder rate goes up. Way up. This is what happened in the 1960's. And in the last ten years.
Because despite what you might read in the media the majority of gun violence is committed by previous offenders. In about two dozen cities and counties. So for example, last weekends tally of over 30 shooting and 7 deaths in Chicago got zero coverage outside of the Chicagoland local media . Because it happens every weekend since they stopped locking up the serious gang-members who account for most of these shootings.
And your point was? Because your irrelevant "gotcha" comment sounded just bloody stupid to those of us who have to pay close attention for where the current drive-by shooting hot spots are. I'd hazard a guess not a risk in your neck of the woods.
Didn't downvote you, but... really? This shouldn't ever be "normal".
"to those of us who have to pay close attention for where the current drive-by shooting hot spots are"
You're right that I'm from a country where this sort of thing isn't a risk. But I'd have to disagree with you and say that it is the availability and access to guns that is the problem. Every country has its share of nutjobs, the United States isn't any different in that respect, but around these parts it's usually knife crime (which is a problem) simply because access to firearms is that much more restricted.
So whats normal? Every country has its own "inexplicable". So is it normal that the biggest political party in one part of the UK murdered thousands, tortured hundreds, and is little more than an organized crime outfit? See what I mean.
Dont know if you have been paying much attention to gun crime in the UK, especially London, over the last few decades but making handguns illegal and almost all forms of long guns does nt not seem to have made much of a difference. Quite the opposite. Criminals never have a problem getting their hands on weapons. And guess who does most of the killing?
As I said, remove the gangs from the gun crime equation and US gun crime rates are not that different from large parts of Europe. Gun crime rates in the US tracks closely over the decades the incarnation rate of gang members. And have since the 1930's.
As for drive-by's. The main risk is from people with bad aim. As a bystander. Whereas with knife-crime in London... You do know that only difference between gun wounds and knife wounds is the survival rate. When you start totting up knife attacks causalities in most European counties (and the UK) it does not look so peaceful when compared with most of the US. I am far more like to be attacked in the UK than in the US. But if attacked in the US the result is likely to be more serious. I think I'll take lower frequency.
One of the more interesting facts about gun crime in the UK over the last 100 plus years is than back when gun ownership was very common and gun laws were as lax as anything in the most gun owner friendly states the gun crime rate was minuscule. But over the decades as the UK gun laws got stricter and stricter to the point were most firearms are illegal for almost everyone gun crime is at its highest rate probably since the 18'th century.
Not a good advertisement for gun control laws. And if you look at US states those with the least controls have the lowest gun crime rates. Interesting correlation dont you think. Access to guns has never been the problem. Do farmers have the highest gun crime rate in the UK.? Dont think so.
The situation with gangs is worse than that. All the US cities that have had a huge surge in gang shootings the last few years had stood down or disbanded their PD anti gang units. Those cities which kept their traditional PD anti-gang units active dont have such serious problems. Now Memphis, thats another story. Lets fill the gang unit with...former gang members. That will end well.
To give just one small example of how this works in real life. The City DA in San Francisco a few years ago shutdown a gang control measure for members of one of the most notorious gangs in San Francisco. Out of the Western Addition projects. Which mean that gang activity was no longer an automatic serious breaking of probation and back to prison. A few months ago there was a gang related shootout on the freeway in Oakland. The culmination of a whole bunch of previous "disagreements". A two year old kid, Jasper Wu, was killed in the crossfire while in his mothers car on the freeway. Killed by the crossfire. The killers were all gang members that were covered by the gang control measure that had been cancelled by the SF DA.
So who killed that little kid? It was not "easy access to firearms". Because every single person shooting that day had no legal right to carry arms due to previous criminal records. That toddler was murdered by a bunch of worthless scum (you should see the mugshots) who would have been in prison if it had not been for "criminal justice reform". So if you want to get technical the person most directly responsible for the death of Jasper Wu was George Gascón. Who shutdown almost all anti-gang prosecutions to further his own political career. He is now creating total mayhem as City DA in LA.
I never totted up how many crime victims would be still alive if were not for George Gascón's "criminal justice reform" measures. Probably a lot more than Chesa Boudins 30 plus crime victim deaths before he was recalled and booted out of office. Although Gascón tally never reached the utter depravity of a 7 month old baby, Synciere Williams, beaten to death because Boudin seemed to never prosecuted domestic violence cases. No matter how severe.
So a very different real world story from the very facile opinions of some - there would be no gun violence if we made gun control laws more onerous. Not even wrong. But definitely uninformed and stupid.
It is sad what has been done in the same of 'social justice' and 'harm reduction'. The soft bigotry of low expectations and equity instead of equality. And the cause of a lot of this? The wealthy 'progressives' who live in their gated communities out of touch with the world.
These 'progressives' are not progressive at all, they just want the status quo with them at the top. It doesn't matter what side of the political spectrum they come from.
"Dont know if you have been paying much attention to gun crime in the UK, especially London, over the last few decades but making handguns illegal and almost all forms of long guns does nt not seem to have made much of a difference. Quite the opposite. Criminals never have a problem getting their hands on weapons. And guess who does most of the killing?"
Amazingy, gun deaths in the UK have remained roughly the same for years, there is no huge spike.
"When you start totting up knife attacks causalities in most European counties (and the UK) it does not look so peaceful when compared with most of the US. I am far more like to be attacked in the UK than in the US"
Ah, so you're claiming that guns make you safe (while ignoring the sizeable pachyderm in the corner)? If you look at levels of knife crime in the UK and US (and remember that merely being found carrying a knife is a crime here) they should logically be much lower as a percentage of the population in the US 'cos guns, right? Unfortunately, that isnt true - knife crime is at about the same level per head in both countries. I'd love to see where you get the data that you are much more likely to be attacked in the UK - I suspect, sadly, that it actually made up. A study in the USA shpws that violent crime is much higher there simply because criminals expect you to be armed, and act accordingly. Gun crime in the UK remains a tiny number.
Gun deaths UK 2019 (total ) = 0.2300 per 100k population.
Gun deaths USA 2019 (total) = 12.2100 per 100k population
(That's 53 times higher, in case numbers aren't your thing)
Homicide rate per year UK = 0.0600
Homicide rate per year USA = 4.4600
That's 74.3 times higher in the USA - plainly guns keep you safe. Total gun deaths per year in the UK were 155 (higher than average for us), in the USA it was 40175 (yes that includes suicides), which is around 259 times higher.
In the UK 2020/21 there were 235 knife deaths - from a population of around 67 million 0.00035 deaths per head of population
In the US 2020/21 there were 1035 knife deaths - from a population of around 331 million 0.00031 deaths per head of population.
Both the population and number of knife deaths are approximately the same for both countries, while gun deaths are hugely different. I wonder what the main factor could be?
Why is it always sports? It was used in ads for Olympus has Fallen (and worse, the ad was formatted to appear to be an emergency alert), I hadn't heard about the Jimmy Kimmel one.. the other times I heard about fines, it was a sports ad, another sports ad, and a sport radio show TALKING about one of the sports ads (and playing the offending clip on their show.) Seriously. And the other big reason they fine for this (besides the desensitization thing), the alert tones have sometimes triggered "downstream" stations to repeat the alert, so you get this cascade of stations playing an alert and... well, since there's no real alert I don't know what they play after the alert tones, if they then play dead audio, or forward the audio of the upstream station and you obnoxiously have it playing part of a sports ad or what. I also was at my parents while they were watching a live game, some team was firing up a civil defense siren every time they scored which also seemed pretty stupid to me.
In the midwest, these alerts are almost always for severe weather; severe thunderstorms (high winds, the threshold is like 60MPH or so) and large hail (don't know what the size cutoff is but I've seen golfball sized hail multiple times and one time we got this giant like grapefruit sized ail which really smashed up a lot of roofs and cars). And tornado warnings (a minimum tornado has about 70MPH winds, ranging up to F5 with 250MPH+ winds, with 70-120MPH winds most common.) The civil defense sirens, I suppose they were installed for nuclear attacks or whatever back in the day but are now regularly used in the midwest to provide severe thunderstorm and tornado warnings, if you're within audible range of one you can be warned that way instead of relying on phone, TV, or radio (... it sure was audible in my old place, the darn siren was about 50 feet outside my bedroom window, it was so loud I was sure it was going to crack the window or something, luckily I never had it go off when I had the window open.)
I get that too and I'm also far too young to remember it. I don't even recall seeing my Nan react to it (simply because I don't think I was ever with her when a siren was tested nearby). I know she hated thunderstorms, though, because they reminded her of the Blitz - she would go and sit in the airing cupboard which was in the centre of her maisonette well away from the outer walls so the sound was quietest there.
I think, at least in my case, it's a kind of "cultural conditioning" - I've seen so much footage of the Blitz, almost invariably accompanied by the sound, that it's become indelibly associated with death and destruction. It's also a very mournful, rather eerie sound anyway (although some of that may just be because of the association).
I've never heard them for real either (well, maybe a couple of times, presumably in error or testing or whatevs; I imagine they've all been decommissioned by now anyway) but I remember my grandmother telling me about the noises the German bombers made flying overhead. I also played in the bomb crater next to my cousins' house when I was a kid: there was still quite a bit of visible bomb damage on Tyneside even when I was growing up in the '70s and '80s but I think by now it's all been sold to developers long ago. You can still see where they fell by looking on Google Maps where the various telltale modern terracotta tiled roofs appear at random among the sea of older grey slate ones.
When I saw the headline I thought that this was perhaps some thoughtless accidental use, perhaps in a drama or educational program.
To use it intentionally in an advert is criminal stupidity. The fine needs a few more zeroes, and the person who authorized it should have been fired on the spot.
Since the point is to not have alerts that often and the tone should be rather annoying when they do come in, I'm not sure that configuring it to a tone of your choice is that important. It's designed to get your attention, so perhaps loud and screechy is an asset.
> so perhaps loud and screechy is an asset
No, I'f Im driving and my phone starts doing that I'm likely to kill someone. All you need is a constant beep beep that you cant turn off till you dismiss the message, no need for anything "screachy" this isnt the 1940's
What the hell for?
Ok we pretend we have storms once in a while but its nothing compared to a real issue TM.
Also, no system targeting TV or radio? If im driving I'm not going to be looking at my phone to read the message am I? I take it this only works on smart phones. What about feature phones?
It's just cell broadcast which has been around since 2G, with annoying notifications in Android and iOS.
If you've got e.g. an old candybar Nokia you can probably set the channel numbers to receive in the Cell Broadcast settings. If you want a list of channel numbers you can find them here (section 9.4.1.2.2 in version i00).
I used to have the Protect and Survive jingle as an SMS alert. Then someone sent me a text when I wasn't expecting it and gave me a nasty surprise. I now have something a bit more neutral.
The FCC had to specify that the EBS test should be spoken with no background music because at least one radio station did it as a catchy jingle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YRHAro1iTE.
I found this copy on Youtube. Although now I'm not sure if that's the right thing. It's a bit menacing with a high drone, but it's got a really basic 1970s-style base which takes a lot out of it. Maybe I'm missing the context that it went with, as I heard that the Protect and Survive information was harrowing to watch.
Since we're talking about sirens and tones, I have a question to ask.
When I was at boarding school (85-90), the fire alarm was like fwee-wee-wee, high pitched and the sort of annoying that rattles around in your head.
At work (nowadays), the fire alarm is more like ooh-laa-ooh-laa-ooh-laa, a much lower pitch and not so much annoying as just loud.
Is there a technical reason for the difference (like lower sounds carrying better), or is it just that they picked a different sort of siren?
Or, maybe, the higher pitch is better at waking children in the middle of the night?
Waaay back, as a young adult, I spent some years installing and maintaining alarm systems.
Sirens were mostly loud. The loudest were powered off the mains and sounded like a warning that the Luftwaffe were on their way. Then some new piezo-electric devices came on the market which were loud, yes, but which did something with harmonics which was like being whacked rhythmically in the eardrums. Certainly you wouldn't stay in the same room any longer than you had to. Since they ran off 12v DC, we loved them.
During one installation we (by which I mean my apprentice) connected one up with reversed polarity. When we tested, it made no sound. So we investigated, corrected, and tried again. Now it made a very loud mad noise like a demented pigeon yodelling, which was exceeding funny. We replaced it, despite the fact that any intruder would probably have been incapacitated by hysterical laughter. It would have looked bad on the insurance claim.
-A.
"But alerting the entire country at 2am because of a missing child thousands of miles away, sometimes at "Presidential Alert" level,"
From a quick online search, the presidential alert level has been used exactly once, and the message read in part "This is a test. No action is needed." Where did you start assuming that this highest level of alert would be used for child abductions? As others have already noted earlier in these comments, the Amber alerts that are used for child abductions can be disabled without disabling other types of emergency alerts.
see this ugly yellow stain? imagine what smoking a pack a day, every day, could do to your teeth!
But look, here's T***, the smoker's tooth polish, helps remove all kinds of superficial tobacco stains...
er bzzzt beep beep beep
this is not an emergency, the broadcasters in your area in cooperation with the ftc have
designed this test to keep you informed in the event of an emergency.
had this been an actual emergency you would have been provided with information
on what the hell to do.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming..
...ust use T89pl week after week and watch your teeth get brighter AND BRIGHTER!!
I may be wrong. But it certainly sounds like there is more going on with that than two simultaneous tones. More like an actual modulated digital signal.
The problem would then be that its unpermitted use would not just desensitize the population but trigger receivers to display an emergency alert. Smarter people would sit down with a modem and serial terminal program and encode either nonsense (which would not trigger a receiver). Or scroll a banner ad for the upcoming NFL game (which may still be illegal, so forget I said that).
There's 107 Hz between the tones, which is also in the audible range. You'll hear this too, as a beat frequency. That's why it sounds modulated.
The tones used for tone-dialling (DTMF : dual-tone-multi-frequency) are somewhat similar: pairs of tones that, heard together, trigger more combinations than the tones alone. There are 8 tones but played in pairs 16 combinations (0-9,#,*. Also A-D but those aren't oftewn encountered on keypads. In addition, the combinations are a lot less likely to be encountered than random single tones.
"the Emergency Alert System (EAS), which can take over practically any television or radio channel in the States."
It's not only the FCC, there's also a covert military unit involved as well called ECOMCON. All we know about it is that it's located at a secret base called site Y somewhere in Texas.
"The use of the sound is prohibited to prevent people becoming desensitized to something you should only hear in the most dire circumstances."
But if people don't know what the emergency sound is, then it's actually counter productive to not get people used to hearing it.
The way it works in the US is that at any time in their lives someone listened to the radio, watched TV, or went to school they would have heard at least one EAS/EBS test. As a rough estimate I would say I have heard several dozen test broadcasts over the decades. And one genuine non-test one. For a chemical plant fire. If those two tones break into any broadcast it gets your immediate and undivided attention. The tests are always per-announced and never break into broadcasts.
In fact the only people I can image who never heard one of these test broadcasts was someone who grew up and lived in the deep back-country in somewhere like Alaska or maybe the High Rockies. Inland Alaska because the coastal settlements all have tsunami alerts systems of some sort. And if you live somewhere that deep into the back-country an EAS alert is the least of your problems. Bears and mountain lions tend to be a more pressing concern. If you have ever got the "You are now in bear country..." talk you will know what I mean.
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