[sbe-eas] Next Gen EAS

[Skinner, Jim]

Greetings All:

We are having a demonstration from ComLabs in Lincoln Nebraska this
Monday April 19, 11:30AM at NET (Public TV & Radio building).  They are
bringing all the ComLabs gear from the NAB show.  This is a joint
meeting of SBE74 and Nebraska SECC.   

Anybody within driving distance is welcome to come.  Sandwiches will be
ordered at 11:30.  The presentation and questions will go until 1:30 or
2:00 PM.  

ComLabs just started showing a demo of their own EAS Encoder/Decoder.
They have applied for Part 11 Certification. Did anybody see it at NAB?
Do you have any observations? 

www.sbe74.org  or www.NE-EAS.org for more information.  

Sage will come to the Nebraska Engineering Convention in August.  I did
a SpectraRep PowerPoint at the SBE meeting last month.  My State USA is
talking to us.  We are trying to gather enough information to make good
EAS decisions.  

Any help is appreciated. 

Jim Skinner CPBE CBNT
NE SECC Chair
SBE74 Newsletter Editor
jskinner at kxvo.com


-----Original Message-----
From: sbe-eas-bounces at sbe.org [mailto:sbe-eas-bounces at sbe.org] On Behalf
Of Al Kenyon
Sent: Saturday, April 17, 2010 1:18 PM
To: 'SBE EAS Exchange - a mail list for discussion about the Emergency
AlertSystem and other emergency communication issues.'
Subject: Re: [sbe-eas] Next Gen EAS

Rich, 

Sorry I missed you at the FEMA/IPAWS booth. I attended a few sessions
early in the show that took me off the exhibit floor.

During booth set-up I noticed a couple of interesting TTS effects:  As
you noted, the TTS engines selected by various vendors are pretty good.
We had a typo in one of the earlier scripts creating the non-word
"demononstrate"
which was voiced as "demon-on-strate".  When we heard that we looked a
each other strangely and then picked on the script author.  In another
case, one of the guys was playing around and sent a message including
the non-word "whith" which the TTS engine spelled out as if it were a
call-sign.

Applying phonetic spelling during a CAP message creation is probably not
a good idea because it would appear to be quite odd in a crawl or text
formatted message.  Perhaps the CAP to EAS device vendors will include a
customizable look-up table for local names similar to the custom
pronunciation feature found in Text Aloud and other pc-based TTS
packages.
As I recall NWS added such a feature in the NOAA Weather Radio system.

I will make some inquiries regarding the possibility of demonstrating
CAP-EAS devices in the Taste of NAB Road Show.  Considering that a
device may need to be "trained" for local names that could be too
involved for the short set-up times that are available for the road
show.

Al Kenyon


-----Original Message-----
From: sbe-eas-bounces at sbe.org [mailto:sbe-eas-bounces at sbe.org] On Behalf
Of Rich Parker
Sent: Saturday, April 17, 2010 11:34 AM
To: SBE EAS Exchange - a mail list for discussion about the Emergency
Alert System and other emergency communication issues.
Subject: [sbe-eas] Next Gen EAS

I stopped by the FEMA/EAS/??? booth at NAB and had a quick CAP demo -
they had a software front end for producing the alerts, and a rack of
various vendors boxes a few yards away. It was very instructive to see
how each of them 'reacted' to the alert (and to hear the results).

Two things I noticed - the 'latest' version of text-to-speech was
actually quite good - a huge improvement over current NWS
implementations heard to date (the female voice in particular - the male
voice was not as good).

If I understood the explanation correctly, the T-t-S 'element' was
implemented within the the receiver itself - it wasn't clear if that was
something which could be implemented 'differently' by each manufacturer,
but if so that could be a huge 'selling point' - ie having a 'better' 
voice (and one that was 'upgradeable' as T-t-S technology gets better
over time).

One suggestion I made was that either the software front end (the
originator side) or the receive side decoders should have some kind of
'local dictionary' option for applying correct pronunciation for local
towns.

As an example, in Vermont we have the town of Calais - which is
pronounced "callus" - not 'Cal-ay' as the boxes did (I had them put this
in as an alert). I have also lived in southern Kentucky where we had the
towns of Versailles (pronounced 'Ver-sales'), and down the road,
Lafayette, Tennesee (pronounced Luh - Fay- et - with the accent on the
second syllable).

Having some kind of way to 'fix' these would be very important. Here in
Vermont we saw a Senate candidate 'from away' being publicly ridiculed
at length for improper pronunciation of local towns. Having 'emergency
management' or others mis-pronounce these would not help their
credibility at the local level.

I think it would be great if this 'demo' could be done in the same way
that Taste of NAB or other local/regional SBE shows are done - so that
folks could see and hear what is (or might be) coming and have the
ability to add input to what they are seeing and hearing.

I find that reading about all of this is perhaps the most mind numbing
and boring tasks I've ever had to do - but seeing and hearing it at the
show was a very eye opening experience.

As planning chair for the Association of Public Radio Engineers', Public
Radio Engineering Conference, held each year on the two days before the
NAB Engineering Conference, I am also hoping very much to be able to get
those folks to set up a similar demo as part of our program next April.

-rp


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