[BC] EAS vs. EBS

[Harold Hallikainen]

> Anyone point me to documents, etc. and/or explain the differences between
> EAS and EBS???
>
> I have some old EBS units. I'd like to make a poor man's EAS out of it. I
> don't need advanced funtions. I just want to make something that will pick
> up EAS signal and switch the audio from program over to the off air
> receiver
> and air the emergency message audio. if this works I want to start modding
> old EBS equipment for this purpose for people who run AM 1000 Rangemasters
> under part 15. I really hate to see equipment go to the junk pile that can
> be recycled to some other purpose :)
>

There are substantial differences between EBS and EAS.

When I started in radio (1969), EBS was an outgrowth of Conelrad.
Signalling was done through carrier drops and 1kHz tones. Later, EBS moved
away from the carrier drops and single tone to a tone pair of 853Hz and
950Hz. EBS receivers detected these two tones and unmuted the receiver.
These two tones are now the EAS attention signal described at
http://www.hallikainen.com/FccRules/2006/11/32/ and are run in an
emergency. The EAS protocol is described at
http://www.hallikainen.com/FccRules/2006/11/31/ . It is an audio frequency
shift keyed data signal that includes information about the emergency
including the type of emergency, the date and time, the duration of the
emergency, and the geographic area of the emergency.

I suspect all you'll be able to use out of EBS receivers is the receiver
portion.

Harold


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