WY EAS tests

[CAwasinNJ]

I had a thought this morning. How would a Wyoming licensed Salt Lake rimshot operating from Humpy Peak but being programmed from somewhere in the metro coordinate a Wyoming EAS test? I don't think any Wyoming radio stations other than rimshots can be heard from Salt Lake in the daytime. What do they do to monitor for EAS activation?

[seattlefollower]

If they can manage to get U of Wyoming's translator in Evanston (which, I'm guessing from the main they might) they could detect a Wyo. EAS. Or, if someone were to fund KNYN's tower being re-built (hint, HINT), they could monitor KNYN without issue.

[CAwasinNJ]

I think this is where we all start either singing "High Hopes" or pretending we're The Little Engine That Could. The only U of WY translator I can find near Evanston is K228AB. That one has zero chance of being heard in Salt Lake. It's only 1 watt pointing mostly due south from a point northeast of Evanston. That doesn't even take into account first adjacent K-Bull from Farnsworth that would easily drown out anything on 93.5, especially that far away.

If I'm reading what you're saying correctly, I think you want the EAS decoder at the main on Humpy. There might be nominal studios there, but there's still an issue of having to feed the boosters as well. I suppose they could feed the EAS message backwards through whatever they use for an STL back to the real studio in the valley and then feed that out to the boosters or just cut the boosters off completely during the announcement, but that gets a little hairy. even then, I don't think that little 1 watt translator is going to make it through all those mountains. The signal barely makes it to Evanston itself, let alone the remaining dozens or miles or whatever it is.

You're right though. KNYN or any of a number of other stations actually located in Wyoming would probably be able to be picked up from the Humpy site even now. Then you just have that hairy mess of getting the feed back to home base. It seems more doable than I was thinking when I first posed the question.

[michaeljwyo]

You raise a very interesting point, CA. I had never thought about it either. I know when we had KOTB (106.1) our monitoring assignments were the same as they are for KEVA here. I can tell you from the beginning, they had us monitoring KQSW-FM out of Rock Springs for Wyoming activations. That was basically because KQSW was able to pick up KTWO-Casper, whereas we can't pick up KTWO here. Back in the early 90s when I started here at KEVA, we monitored KMER in Kemmerer since they were able to pick up KQSW there in Kemmerer. Shortly after that the whole EAS plans changed where Evanston was also included in the UTAH plan so we started monitoring KSL as well. Since then I've worked with our state emergency coordinator here and John Dehnel there in Utah and we monitor stations to cover us on both ends......although signals were marginal. I recently installed an antenna amp and we are able to get KSL 102.7, the 93.5 UW translator here, and KQSW 96.5 from Rock Springs. Yes this is all quite involved and by no means could I imagine Bustos doing this for KOTB 106.1. Who knows....maybe they DO have a receiver up at the transmitter tuned to KNYN so that they can get any necessary activations that we get. I would certainly think that'd be the easiest thing to do, although in most cases EAS equipment is at the STUDIO, not the transmitter - that way if something mucks up, it's fixable without having to make a trip up the mountain. Here in Evanston, it's been a little interesting and unique since we became part of the Utah plan. We get most of the weather/amber alert eas activations that you guys get, even though we're in Wyoming. I haven't been listening to 106.1 to see if there are any forwards when EAS activiations get auto-forwarded here so I am not sure what they do. Interesting thought, though.

Michael n Wyo