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It looks like this is the incident as broadcast: https://youtu.be/-AKV57rtYfo https://youtu.be/-AKV57rtYfo Also: The FCC document references the 18 Fox owned s

It looks like this is the incident as broadcast: https://youtu.be/-AKV57rtYfo https://youtu.be/-AKV57rtYfo Also: The FCC document references the 18 Fox owned stations and says nothing about the 200+ affiliate stations. Are those stations culpable if they also broadcast Fox produced content that was in violation of EAS rules?

jacquesm 4y ago
No low that advertisers won't stoop to, apparently. Incredible that they thought this was a good idea and that nobody put a stop to it. Maybe they figured that whatever the penalty they'll make it up in sales?
- Waterluvian 4y ago
  I think it’s more thoughtlessness than anything. The ad contractor probably thought it was a cool campaign theme. Like when they throw sirens and car horns on radio ads. It’s not like those times that Hanes Underwear played the “brown noise” on AM radio. What a commute that was.
  - bagels 4y ago
    Is this a joke?
    - Waterluvian 4y ago
      The brown noise is just an urban legend. But I’m confident that FOX isn’t calculating the trade-off for a fine. I think they just had an advertising contractor who didn’t know any better. Thought it was a cool angle for an ad.
      - ibejoeb 4y ago
        I'm not even sure if there's a car audio system that could reproduce that range.
        jacquesm 4y ago
        It's just DTMF I don't see why not. The base frequencies are all around the 1 KHz band which even the most boneheaded amp + speaker implementation should be able to reproduce.
        throwanem 4y ago
        I think the question is whether a car stereo could reproduce the so-called "brown note", which as I recall is supposedly somewhere around 12Hz. SAME BFSK uses frequencies iirc between 1 and 2 kHz, and the attention signal is an equal mix of 853 and 960 hertz.
        jacquesm 4y ago
        Ah yes, you are right. Indeed, that's way lower than any stereo other than the weird ones that some kids build into the backs of their cars (note to self: do not lend your car out to junior employees that like subsonics, hi R. I know you're reading HN). Besides that, those would be filtered out on the transmitter end long before they were allowed to modulate the signal. Especially AM transmitters may do some pretty wild stuff when you drive them with frequencies that low, fair chance that you'll find that you hold them 'on' long enough that you're going to find the limits of either the power supply or the cooling system. Both on the high end (5KHz and up in theory, but more like 3KHz in practice) and on the low end (100Hz in theory, but you can go as low as 50 Hz in practice). So I highly doubt that story is true.
- antiterra 4y ago
  It seems incredibly boneheaded like some production team possibly didn’t even know these tones were still a real & serious thing. Whatever oversight existed around content also completely failed. If there was evidence that the creators actually did a calculation to determine that the base fine of $144,000 was worth it, that’d be a nightmare for them
  - duxup 4y ago
    Yeah there had to be an adult along the line who said "guys this is a bad idea, these tones are for real emergencies".
    - ryandrake 4y ago
      You'd be surprised at what happens in a lot of companies, totally open loop, with no adult in the room to advise caution. Especially when all you're thinking about is "Lumbergh said this is my last chance--I gotta hit my marketing numbers this quarter or I'm out of a job!"
  - scotty79 4y ago
    > ... didn’t even know these tones were still a real & serious thing. Why are they though?
    - Retric 4y ago
      Many people have a TV or radio on as background noise. Even a minute warning for things tornadoes etc can save lives, but this only works if people associated these sounds with significant issues and start paying attention.
capableweb 4y ago
So just so I don't misunderstand, it is illegal to reproduce that sound? Just for TV or in general, literally illegal tones? Seems to be just two tones put together (853 and 960 Hz), weird if you could make such a thing illegal. According to what I can find, it's missing something called a SAME header that the tones are supposed to be prefixed by, maybe that's why FOX thought they could get away with it? Edit: For clarification, the particular message that needs o be sent to be considered "Emergency Broadcast" is not just the "Attention signal", it's has many other vital parts (like the header in the message that it begins with). Besides that, the Attention Signal has to be at least 8 seconds long as long, otherwise I'm assuming it should be considered one. The one FOX broadcasted seems to have been ~3 seconds.
- dekhn 4y ago
  It's obviously more complicated than that. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Alert_System#Tone_usage_outside_of_alerts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Alert_System#Tone_us...
- MBCook 4y ago
  I would assume it’s illegal on public airwaves when not an actual emergency where EAS was activated. This makes sense because advertisers could misuse it to grab attention (exactly as Fox did) and cause people to start to ignore the sound due to false signals. Just like it’s usually illegal to have lights and sirens on your car. I’d be interested in the story of how this happened. How did no one say “that’s probably not a good idea”? Even without knowing the law existed?
  - throwanem 4y ago
    > I would assume it’s illegal on public airwaves when not an actual emergency where EAS was activated. Correct. CFR Title 17, Part 11 [1] specifies the technical and operational aspects of EAS. Section 45: > No person may transmit or cause to transmit the EAS codes or Attention Signal, or a recording or simulation thereof, in any circumstance other than in an actual National, State or Local Area emergency or authorized test of the EAS. Broadcast station licensees should also refer to §73.1217 of this chapter. [1] https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CFR-2010-title47-vol1/pdf/CFR-2010-title47-vol1-part11.pdf https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CFR-2010-title47-vol1/pd...
neodypsis 4y ago
Why does it look like it was made in the 80s?
- renewiltord 4y ago
  It's supposed to imitate this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rF4BCMs-8BE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rF4BCMs-8BE
  - scotty79 4y ago
    It doesn't explain why 2011 invention looks like 1960 jank.
    - worthless-trash 4y ago
      Its probably a combination of "this shouldnt look like regular tv" and "This needs to work reliably in really crappy situations". The font also looks like the subtitles that some local teletex stations used to use. I wonder how much of that broadcast is teletex/subtitle aligned to work well. If it had some smooth jazz with helvetica playing in the background I wouldn't take it seriously. That EAS font (to me a foreigner) screams "This isn't daytime television".
  - sokoloff 4y ago
    Amusing that that alert for Washington DC has an “effective until” time in mm/dd/yy format and in Pacific Standard Time (3 hours behind DC’s Eastern Standard Time).
duxup 4y ago
Holy smokes yeah that sounds just like the EAS tones. We can't be desensitizing folks to legitimate emergency announcements. Fine them to high heaven.
- scotty79 4y ago
  When was the last legitimate emergency of this kind? I'm not from USA.
  - dave78 4y ago
    Our governor (ab)used the EAS system to announce COVID lockdowns. The false Hawaii missile warning comes to mind too. Somewhat interesting is that I don't think they were used on 9/11.
    - throwanem 4y ago
      I don't know of anything in the relevant regulation that would prohibit a statewide EAS activation for a public health emergency.
    - scotty79 4y ago
      Other comments links to video of when it was first introduced and tested. It's from November 2011
      - dave78 4y ago
        No, EAS was rolled out in 1997, and it replaced the very similar EBS which was from the 60s. 2011 is just the first time they actually attempted a nationwide alert, which was always a capability but had never been used to that point.
    - palmscenter 4y ago
      Wireless Emergency Alerts use the same tones, but didn’t exist on 9/11. EAS did exist, but the alerts are supposed to include the protective action to be taken. What protective action would you have recommended the public take? And since broadcast news widely covered the attacks, what contribution would an EAS alert make?
palmscenter 4y ago
“The FCC document references the 18 Fox owned stations and says nothing about the 200+ affiliate stations.” Im fact the FCC mentions the affiliates several times. One example: “Therefore, we find FOX responsible for broadcasting the Promotional Segment containing the EAS Tones on 18 of its owned-and-operated broadcast stations, transmitting the Promotional Segment to 190 of its network-affiliated television broadcast stations, and causing the transmission of the Promotional Segment on Fox Sports Radio and the Fox Sports on XM channel.” > Are those stations culpable if they also broadcast Fox produced content that was in violation of EAS rules? Station licensees are responsible for the content they broadcast. In this case at least the FCC went after the content source, which is itself also a licensee.

jacquesm 4y ago

No low that advertisers won't stoop to, apparently. Incredible that they thought this was a good idea and that nobody put a stop to it. Maybe they figured that whatever the penalty they'll make it up in sales?

Waterluvian 4y ago
I think it’s more thoughtlessness than anything. The ad contractor probably thought it was a cool campaign theme. Like when they throw sirens and car horns on radio ads. It’s not like those times that Hanes Underwear played the “brown noise” on AM radio. What a commute that was.
- bagels 4y ago
  Is this a joke?
  - Waterluvian 4y ago
    The brown noise is just an urban legend. But I’m confident that FOX isn’t calculating the trade-off for a fine. I think they just had an advertising contractor who didn’t know any better. Thought it was a cool angle for an ad.
    - ibejoeb 4y ago
      I'm not even sure if there's a car audio system that could reproduce that range.
      - jacquesm 4y ago
        It's just DTMF I don't see why not. The base frequencies are all around the 1 KHz band which even the most boneheaded amp + speaker implementation should be able to reproduce.
        throwanem 4y ago
        I think the question is whether a car stereo could reproduce the so-called "brown note", which as I recall is supposedly somewhere around 12Hz. SAME BFSK uses frequencies iirc between 1 and 2 kHz, and the attention signal is an equal mix of 853 and 960 hertz.
        jacquesm 4y ago
        Ah yes, you are right. Indeed, that's way lower than any stereo other than the weird ones that some kids build into the backs of their cars (note to self: do not lend your car out to junior employees that like subsonics, hi R. I know you're reading HN). Besides that, those would be filtered out on the transmitter end long before they were allowed to modulate the signal. Especially AM transmitters may do some pretty wild stuff when you drive them with frequencies that low, fair chance that you'll find that you hold them 'on' long enough that you're going to find the limits of either the power supply or the cooling system. Both on the high end (5KHz and up in theory, but more like 3KHz in practice) and on the low end (100Hz in theory, but you can go as low as 50 Hz in practice). So I highly doubt that story is true.
antiterra 4y ago
It seems incredibly boneheaded like some production team possibly didn’t even know these tones were still a real & serious thing. Whatever oversight existed around content also completely failed. If there was evidence that the creators actually did a calculation to determine that the base fine of $144,000 was worth it, that’d be a nightmare for them
- duxup 4y ago
  Yeah there had to be an adult along the line who said "guys this is a bad idea, these tones are for real emergencies".
  - ryandrake 4y ago
    You'd be surprised at what happens in a lot of companies, totally open loop, with no adult in the room to advise caution. Especially when all you're thinking about is "Lumbergh said this is my last chance--I gotta hit my marketing numbers this quarter or I'm out of a job!"
- scotty79 4y ago
  > ... didn’t even know these tones were still a real & serious thing. Why are they though?
  - Retric 4y ago
    Many people have a TV or radio on as background noise. Even a minute warning for things tornadoes etc can save lives, but this only works if people associated these sounds with significant issues and start paying attention.

capableweb 4y ago

So just so I don't misunderstand, it is illegal to reproduce that sound? Just for TV or in general, literally illegal tones? Seems to be just two tones put together (853 and 960 Hz), weird if you could make such a thing illegal. According to what I can find, it's missing something called a SAME header that the tones are supposed to be prefixed by, maybe that's why FOX thought they could get away with it? Edit: For clarification, the particular message that needs o be sent to be considered "Emergency Broadcast" is not just the "Attention signal", it's has many other vital parts (like the header in the message that it begins with). Besides that, the Attention Signal has to be at least 8 seconds long as long, otherwise I'm assuming it should be considered one. The one FOX broadcasted seems to have been ~3 seconds.

dekhn 4y ago
It's obviously more complicated than that. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Alert_System#Tone_usage_outside_of_alerts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Alert_System#Tone_us...
MBCook 4y ago
I would assume it’s illegal on public airwaves when not an actual emergency where EAS was activated. This makes sense because advertisers could misuse it to grab attention (exactly as Fox did) and cause people to start to ignore the sound due to false signals. Just like it’s usually illegal to have lights and sirens on your car. I’d be interested in the story of how this happened. How did no one say “that’s probably not a good idea”? Even without knowing the law existed?
- throwanem 4y ago
  > I would assume it’s illegal on public airwaves when not an actual emergency where EAS was activated. Correct. CFR Title 17, Part 11 [1] specifies the technical and operational aspects of EAS. Section 45: > No person may transmit or cause to transmit the EAS codes or Attention Signal, or a recording or simulation thereof, in any circumstance other than in an actual National, State or Local Area emergency or authorized test of the EAS. Broadcast station licensees should also refer to §73.1217 of this chapter. [1] https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CFR-2010-title47-vol1/pdf/CFR-2010-title47-vol1-part11.pdf https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CFR-2010-title47-vol1/pd...

neodypsis 4y ago

Why does it look like it was made in the 80s?

renewiltord 4y ago
It's supposed to imitate this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rF4BCMs-8BE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rF4BCMs-8BE
- scotty79 4y ago
  It doesn't explain why 2011 invention looks like 1960 jank.
  - worthless-trash 4y ago
    Its probably a combination of "this shouldnt look like regular tv" and "This needs to work reliably in really crappy situations". The font also looks like the subtitles that some local teletex stations used to use. I wonder how much of that broadcast is teletex/subtitle aligned to work well. If it had some smooth jazz with helvetica playing in the background I wouldn't take it seriously. That EAS font (to me a foreigner) screams "This isn't daytime television".
- sokoloff 4y ago
  Amusing that that alert for Washington DC has an “effective until” time in mm/dd/yy format and in Pacific Standard Time (3 hours behind DC’s Eastern Standard Time).

duxup 4y ago

Holy smokes yeah that sounds just like the EAS tones. We can't be desensitizing folks to legitimate emergency announcements. Fine them to high heaven.

scotty79 4y ago
When was the last legitimate emergency of this kind? I'm not from USA.
- dave78 4y ago
  Our governor (ab)used the EAS system to announce COVID lockdowns. The false Hawaii missile warning comes to mind too. Somewhat interesting is that I don't think they were used on 9/11.
  - throwanem 4y ago
    I don't know of anything in the relevant regulation that would prohibit a statewide EAS activation for a public health emergency.
  - scotty79 4y ago
    Other comments links to video of when it was first introduced and tested. It's from November 2011
    - dave78 4y ago
      No, EAS was rolled out in 1997, and it replaced the very similar EBS which was from the 60s. 2011 is just the first time they actually attempted a nationwide alert, which was always a capability but had never been used to that point.
  - palmscenter 4y ago
    Wireless Emergency Alerts use the same tones, but didn’t exist on 9/11. EAS did exist, but the alerts are supposed to include the protective action to be taken. What protective action would you have recommended the public take? And since broadcast news widely covered the attacks, what contribution would an EAS alert make?

palmscenter 4y ago

“The FCC document references the 18 Fox owned stations and says nothing about the 200+ affiliate stations.” Im fact the FCC mentions the affiliates several times. One example: “Therefore, we find FOX responsible for broadcasting the Promotional Segment containing the EAS Tones on 18 of its owned-and-operated broadcast stations, transmitting the Promotional Segment to 190 of its network-affiliated television broadcast stations, and causing the transmission of the Promotional Segment on Fox Sports Radio and the Fox Sports on XM channel.” > Are those stations culpable if they also broadcast Fox produced content that was in violation of EAS rules? Station licensees are responsible for the content they broadcast. In this case at least the FCC went after the content source, which is itself also a licensee.