Station Compliance›FCC Watch

This is the week that set your autumn calendar.

The nationwide EAS test

The Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau announced a nationwide EAS test in Public Notice DA 26-989, released September 16:

The backup date is December 3. If the test moves there, Form Two is due December 5 and Form Three January 18, 2027. Form One stays October 30 either way.

The notice does not mention § 11.35(d). It does say, in a footnote, that failing to receive or transmit the test because of an equipment failure "may subject the EAS Participant to enforcement action."

Why people are connecting the test to the security rule

Radio World asked communications attorney David Oxenford, who said: "Where an alert is not received by a station that has not updated its EAS equipment, that station could be found to be in violation of the new rules." (Radio World, September 20)

That is an attorney's reading, not an FCC statement. But the logic is plain: the test runs through exactly the equipment the security rule covers, and a box that missed its patches is a box that may miss the alert.

A Notice of Violation worth reading

The Enforcement Bureau cited WSDS in Salem Township, Michigan, after a July inspection: no EAS test log (the encoder's memory held entries dated 1997), the wrong monitoring sources, daytime power of 1,104 W against 808 W authorized, daytime power after sunset, and a defective antenna monitor. (Radio World)

This is not a § 11.35(d) action — it is the older EAS logging and monitoring rules, and a power violation. It is a fair picture of what an inspector looks at when they are in the building, which is the point at which the security rule becomes reachable too.