[sbe-eas] Question -- are EAS alerts required to contain audio, or can they rely on stations' text-to-speech converters?

Dave Turnmire eassbelist at gmail.com
Fri Nov 18 13:52:00 EST 2022


Until the FCC changes the rules to eliminate the "read the log" (my 
term) requirement, I find relying on the TTS abilities of EAS boxes to 
be a poor choice.  And even w/o the regulatory issue, you are subject to 
the variable quality of TTS by the various EAS boxes, some of which are 
pretty poor IMHO.   Attaching the audio at the origination end bypasses 
the regulatory issue (though not for on-screen text) as well as gives 
more control of how it will sound.  On the other hand, for various 
reasons we didn't want our alert originators to have to deal with 
creating audio recordings.  So we paid our CAP vendor to create TTS 
within their system.  It is easy to preview the resulting audio and 
tweak the text to get it to sound right before pressing the send 
button.  That has worked well for us and I'm unaware of any problems.

Dave

On 11/17/2022 8:14 PM, k7cr at blarg.net wrote:
>
> Long before I retired as SECC Chair here in Washington, the decision 
> was made to NOT use TTS for the reasons you stated.  The policy has 
> been to attach an MP3 audio file.
>
> Clay Freinwald
>
> *From:* sbe-eas <sbe-eas-bounces at sbe.org> *On Behalf Of *Adrienne Abbott
> *Sent:* Thursday, November 17, 2022 4:38 PM
> *To:* mlangner at swcp.com; SBE EAS Exchange - a mail list for discussion 
> about the Emergency Alert System and other emergency communication 
> issues. <sbe-eas at sbe.org>
> *Subject:* Re: [sbe-eas] Question -- are EAS alerts required to 
> contain audio, or can they rely on stations' text-to-speech converters?
>
> Mike—
>
> We’ve had a similar problem here in Nevada. We’ve seen several EAS 
> tests and activations present with garbled audio, even though our 
> Authorised Alert Originators had uploaded properly formed audio 
> messages. The TTS audio was garbled to the point of being 
> unintelligible, virtually useless and leading to a flood of phone 
> calls and emails from angry, confused viewers to radio and TV 
> stations, state and local emergency officials, including the 
> governor’s office and to yours truly. We know the tests and 
> activations were properly formatted because we had them reviewed by 
> another CAP program vendor. We have not had a satisfactory response 
> from Nevada’s CAP provider.
>
> The problem is that writing for TTS is a specialised skill. You can’t 
> expect the CAP program to automatically and accurately translate your 
> written text to speech. When a CAP program such as the one used by our 
> state doesn’t accept the audio, it reverts to a TTS version of the 
> script and the result is a steaming pile of 💩
>
> Adrienne
>
> Sent from my mobile iThingie
>
>
>
>     On Nov 17, 2022, at 3:10 PM, Mike Langner <mlangner at swcp.com> wrote:
>
>     
>
>     Hello everyone !
>
>     May I please ask a question --
>
>     Our New Mexico Department of Homeland Security tells me that their
>     IPAWS origination equipment won’t accept a spoken message in the
>     alert.
>
>     As a result, alerts go out from time to time with data, alert
>     tone, and dead air.
>
>     Are all EAS participants required to have text-to-speech
>     converters?  Are IPAWS originating points required to be able to,
>     and to place verbal spoken information in alerts?  Or is this an
>     undefined “gray” area?
>
>     Many thanks for your guidance!
>
>     Mike/
>     _________________________________________
>
>     Mike Langner, Chair
>     SECC-NM
>     929 Alameda Road NW
>     Albuquerque, NM 87114-1901
>
>
>     (505) 898-3212 home/home office
>     (505) 238-8810 cell
>     mlangner at swcp.com
>
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