5 ms·

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 toge

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...
  - brewdad 4y ago
    Would setting this as my ringtone count as a transmission if I’m out in public or does this only apply to licensed broadcasters utilizing assigned frequencies?
    - throwanem 4y ago
      The latter. I actually do use a ringtone composed of three SAME headers and the attention signal; specifically, I use that ringtone for PagerDuty. It reliably raises me from the dead in the correct state of mind to respond to an alert, and also reliably turns heads when it goes off while I'm out and about. But I don't need to worry that the FCC's gonna come after me about it, as long as I don't have my phone plugged into a radio station when it goes off. That said, if I were doing a radio interview or something, I'd be sure to turn off my phone or at least remove PagerDuty's ability to override the silent switch.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
dbcurtis 4y ago
Two tones together are not illegal in general. However... think about 1950's cold-war era technology, and how much you could do with it. One of the conditions of license of being a broadcaster was/is to listen to an upstream station, and with automated equipment, detect that tone and switch your own transmitter into emergency mode and propagate that tone pair if you are an intermediate station. So, not illegal in general, but illegal to transmit it on broadcast channel. I would even bet that if you searched E-Bay long enough, you could find a 1950's-era vacuum tube AM radio with tone-squelch tuned to those tones so that you could leave the radio on and just hear the duck-and-cover message without the distraction of that nasty Rock-n-Roll music that the kids are all listening to.
- kstrauser 4y ago
  They didn't play the tones through the announcements, though, did they? I don't remember them doing that. Wouldn't it need to be continuous for tone squelch to work?
  - throwanem 4y ago
    They do not. An EAS message broadcast begins with a SAME header, which is followed by iirc about 30 seconds of the attention signal and then a verbal description of the alert (with onscreen text for TV broadcasts). After that, the message broadcast concludes with a SAME footer. The SAME header and footer are each repeated three times, and consist of BFSK-modulated data on a couple of frequencies I forget offhand. (If you're interested, they're specified in Section 31 of the regulation I linked elsewhere in this thread.) The header encodes the type and geographical applicability of the alert, and EAS receivers configured for the applicable area use it to automatically interrupt broadcast with the bulk of the alert. The SAME footer encodes no data but serves as an "end of message" flag; EAS receivers can use that to resume normal broadcast depending on configuration and the nature of the alert. (Sufficiently severe alerts may be repeated in entirety.) CONELRAD didn't use any in-band signaling of this type, in any case. The technology wasn't really there for it, and in any case the whole point of the scheme was not to continue transmitting from any one station for a significant length of time, in order to deny Soviet bombers navigation references which would help them drop nuclear bombs on American cities.
kube-system 4y ago
There are rules that must be followed when using licensed spectrum. Breaking one of those rules comes with consequences. The tones aren’t illegal. Misusing public emergency infrastructure is illegal.
colechristensen 4y ago
It is, more or less, illegal to broadcast the sound if you fall under the regulation of the FCC. You can put it in a movie and play it in a theater, you can play it on your stereo, put it on YouTube, etc. Basically you aren't allowed to distribute it over channels where the real alerts are distributed.
humanistbot 4y ago
It is illegal to reproduce that sound on US public airwaves in a non-emergency context. There are two syllables in English such that if you shout them in sequence in a crowded theater in a non-emergency context, it is also a crime: fi-re.
- astrange 4y ago
  It's legal to do that. That remark comes from a side comment in an overturned SCOTUS case prosecuting someone for protesting the draft.
- sokoloff 4y ago
  It never occurred to me that fire might be two syllables, but I guess it is “PHI-ur”.

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...
- brewdad 4y ago
  Would setting this as my ringtone count as a transmission if I’m out in public or does this only apply to licensed broadcasters utilizing assigned frequencies?
  - throwanem 4y ago
    The latter. I actually do use a ringtone composed of three SAME headers and the attention signal; specifically, I use that ringtone for PagerDuty. It reliably raises me from the dead in the correct state of mind to respond to an alert, and also reliably turns heads when it goes off while I'm out and about. But I don't need to worry that the FCC's gonna come after me about it, as long as I don't have my phone plugged into a radio station when it goes off. That said, if I were doing a radio interview or something, I'd be sure to turn off my phone or at least remove PagerDuty's ability to override the silent switch.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

dbcurtis 4y ago

Two tones together are not illegal in general. However... think about 1950's cold-war era technology, and how much you could do with it. One of the conditions of license of being a broadcaster was/is to listen to an upstream station, and with automated equipment, detect that tone and switch your own transmitter into emergency mode and propagate that tone pair if you are an intermediate station. So, not illegal in general, but illegal to transmit it on broadcast channel. I would even bet that if you searched E-Bay long enough, you could find a 1950's-era vacuum tube AM radio with tone-squelch tuned to those tones so that you could leave the radio on and just hear the duck-and-cover message without the distraction of that nasty Rock-n-Roll music that the kids are all listening to.

kstrauser 4y ago
They didn't play the tones through the announcements, though, did they? I don't remember them doing that. Wouldn't it need to be continuous for tone squelch to work?
- throwanem 4y ago
  They do not. An EAS message broadcast begins with a SAME header, which is followed by iirc about 30 seconds of the attention signal and then a verbal description of the alert (with onscreen text for TV broadcasts). After that, the message broadcast concludes with a SAME footer. The SAME header and footer are each repeated three times, and consist of BFSK-modulated data on a couple of frequencies I forget offhand. (If you're interested, they're specified in Section 31 of the regulation I linked elsewhere in this thread.) The header encodes the type and geographical applicability of the alert, and EAS receivers configured for the applicable area use it to automatically interrupt broadcast with the bulk of the alert. The SAME footer encodes no data but serves as an "end of message" flag; EAS receivers can use that to resume normal broadcast depending on configuration and the nature of the alert. (Sufficiently severe alerts may be repeated in entirety.) CONELRAD didn't use any in-band signaling of this type, in any case. The technology wasn't really there for it, and in any case the whole point of the scheme was not to continue transmitting from any one station for a significant length of time, in order to deny Soviet bombers navigation references which would help them drop nuclear bombs on American cities.

kube-system 4y ago

There are rules that must be followed when using licensed spectrum. Breaking one of those rules comes with consequences. The tones aren’t illegal. Misusing public emergency infrastructure is illegal.

colechristensen 4y ago

It is, more or less, illegal to broadcast the sound if you fall under the regulation of the FCC. You can put it in a movie and play it in a theater, you can play it on your stereo, put it on YouTube, etc. Basically you aren't allowed to distribute it over channels where the real alerts are distributed.

humanistbot 4y ago

It is illegal to reproduce that sound on US public airwaves in a non-emergency context. There are two syllables in English such that if you shout them in sequence in a crowded theater in a non-emergency context, it is also a crime: fi-re.

astrange 4y ago
It's legal to do that. That remark comes from a side comment in an overturned SCOTUS case prosecuting someone for protesting the draft.
sokoloff 4y ago
It never occurred to me that fire might be two syllables, but I guess it is “PHI-ur”.