Diane J. Squire; A request for your consideration

greenspun.com : LUSENET : TimeBomb 2000 (Y2000) : One Thread

Please see these posts copied from a recent mssg. The sincerity expressed in all of these is apparent. Could this board have a "tree" for this subject?

Emergency broadcast network tests?

greenspun.com : LUSENET : TimeBomb 2000 (Y2000) : One Thread

Has anyone been noticing an abnormal number of Emergency Broadcast Network tests in the past month or so? Maybe I'm just a bit more sensitive to the announcements right now, but it seems that I've heard them quite frequently on several *different* radio stations lately. And just now, CNN's "Talkback Live" was interrupted on my local cable provider with an EBN test. Anyone else?

-- Nom (nom@de.plume), November 24, 1999

Answers

Being a night person, I'm familiar with late night TV. About 2am each night, my cable is now interrupted by a 30-60 second EBN test. Didn't used to be that-a-way. Even saw that system used for real last summer for a tornado nearby. Tests didn't used to be so often.

-- Powder (powder@keg.com), November 24, 1999.

Yep...here in SoCal too. Been getting a lot of our State Insurance public service messages about preparing for the next "BIG ONE". Will the next big one be an earthquake, or...

-- Uncle Bob (UNCLB0B@Tminus37&counting.down), November 24, 1999.

Dito for the west coast. I'm a night owl too and they hit here just about every night at 1:00 to 2:00am. The EBC announces that "This is a monthly test" but it's just about every night.

They started on a regular basis about 2 months ago. Before that, about once per year.

-- DOC (DOC@...), November 24, 1999.

Northwest coastal area- same here, but with a British accent.

-- maid upname (noid@ihope.com), November 24, 1999.

Actually yes, for some reason they have been running them on PBS right at the start of Sesame Street in the mornings. Luckily the howls of my three year old drown out the annoying beeping, but I know this was not going on even three months ago. We watch Sesame St. three days a week at our house. It is wierd.

-- (iowa@iowa.com), November 24, 1999.

I'm so glad I'm not the only one noticing this! They run late at night, middle of the day... whenever. Sometimes just the visual notice, sometimes with the sound, sometimes just with the "crawl" at the bottom of the screen, sometimes with everything. Sometimes several tests, one after another. I live in the Louisiana swamp and get stations via cable from the two largest cities in LA.

-- Tee (teefleur@yahoo.com), November 24, 1999.

Ditto in Virginia. Digital thru Cox Cable switches to c-span automatically during the test, and most days when I get home from work my tv has been switched to c-span. (if you must know, I leave on the tube to entertain my dogs)

***On a lighter note, who was it that said: "You know you're getting old when you are relieved by the words...."This is ONLY a test"

-- Hokie (nn@va.com), November 24, 1999.

Hey UncleBob!,

There is so much stuff going on in this area re:Emergency preparedness kinds of things. I wondered if suggesting a "tree" of threads by state to SYSOPS would be accepted.

Just a list of factual (haha?) things with comments made elsewhere. It would or might give all of us a picture made of the pieces of this jigsaw.

One post here calls it weird.

If we could all see it by state on a "tree" of mssgs. I believe there would be no more guessing about whether it is weird...... or we/I am to talk about it.

What do you think UncleBob, SYSOPS?

-- maid upname (noid@ihope.com), November 24, 1999.

Here too in Delaware. But ours started back in early summer...at least that's when I first began to say, "Hey...didn't they just do that"?

beej

-- beej (beej@ppbbs.com), November 24, 1999.

-- maid upname --

I think its a good idea...I vote yes.

-- Uncle Bob (UNCLB0B@Tminus37&counting.down), November 24, 1999.



-- maid upname (noid@ihope.com), November 24, 1999

Answers

Ditto from central LA

-- Wm McBride (mcbri29@attglobal.net), November 25, 1999.

New category: Emergency Broadcast Network News/Tests (New)

(Should show up in a few).

Diane

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), November 25, 1999.


Cool. Watch what they're DOING. Yikes.

-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), November 25, 1999.

In Connecticut they call them EAS. Emergency Action Service - YUP

-- Steve King (parse@XOUT.net), November 25, 1999.

From: Y2K, ` la Carte by Dancr (pic), near Monterey, California

I had noticed an increase before discovering this thread. I saw two of them this week (one during Primetime newsmagazine show), and can't remember seeing any others since moving to this house about six years ago. I have never before seen a test of the system during the evening hours.

Is there any speculation yet as to any interesting explanation, other than that the local stations may have been encouraged by their trade leaders to more diligently perform the tests that they've been neglecting? Do you suppose they're trying to get us used to hearing this sound more often so that we won't freak when they have messages to convey? Or perhaps they'd like us to get so used to them that we won't even bother to check them out when messages are conveyed? Are we thinking that this in some way "implicates" the media who are simultaneously telling us that Y2K is a non-issue?

Why is this considered to be such a significant topic that it merits a category all its own on the forum (seeing as how there's only one thread about it so far)?

-- Dancr (addy.available@my.webpage), December 10, 1999.



... or maybe they'll pre-empt any alarmist programming to direct our attention back to Oprah.

-- Dancr (addy.available@my.webpage), December 11, 1999.

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