FEMA Announces Adoption of Common Alerting Protocol (CAP)

On Thursday September 30, the Department of Homeland Security's Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) published a press release announcing its adoption of the Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) v1.2 standard as the digital message format for the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS). IPAWS incorporates and expands upon the traditional Emergency Alert System (EAS) supported by free over-the-air radio and TV broadcasters, and was being discussed by FEMA at their exhibit at the NAB Radio Show held this week in Washington, D.C. (see photo – shown here is Alfred Kenyon, Project Manager, IPAWS Program Office, National Continuity Programs).

CAP is a data interchange protocol developed by the emergency management community and is used to distribute all-hazard safety notifications and emergency warning information. CAP is described in a technical standard published by the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) and can be found at www.oasis-open.org/.

In the EAS Second Report and Order, released in July 2007 http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-07-109A1.pdf, the FCC mandated that all EAS participants must be able to receive CAP formatted EAS alerts no later than 180 days after FEMA publishes the technical standards and requirements for FEMA-generated alerts. Thus, by section 11.56 of the FCC’s rules (47 CFR 11.56) the 180-day clock started on Friday, October 1, 2010. However NAB, some equipment manufacturers and others have asked the FCC to extend this time frame and it is expected that they will consider doing so in the very near future.

In order to assist in evaluating new alert and warning systems, FEMA is conducting an assessment program to ensure equipment adheres to the IPAWS CAP profile. A list of pre-screened products that meet the profile will be published at the FEMA Responders Knowledge Base, to aide federal, state, territorial, tribal and local officials in purchasing emergency alert products that comply with IPAWS CAP. Vendors can apply for these assessments at www.nimssc.org/ipawsconform.

The three documents defining the FEMA IPAWS technical standards and requirements for CAP and its implementation are:
(1) OASIS CAP Standard v1.2;
(2) IPAWS Specification to the CAP Standard (CAP v1.2 IPAWS USA Profile v1.0); and,
(3) CAP-EAS Implementation Guide.

The CAP-EAS Implementation Guide can be found on the website of the EAS-CAP Industry Group. The full FEMA press release is available online at www.fema.gov/news/newsrelease.fema?id=52880.

ATSC Digital Television Transmission System Seminar
The Future of Terrestrial & Mobile Television
KNME-DT, Albuquerque, N.M.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

An updated one-day seminar will be presented on the ATSC's digital television vestigial sideband (VSB) transmission system. The seminar will cover the fundamentals of the new mobile DTV transmission standard and its relationship to the legacy 8-VSB system. It will also cover practical broadcaster recommendations for improved DTV service and viewer education as learned from last year's post June 12 field tests. The seminar is conducted by Gary Sgrignoli, DTV transmission engineer with Meintel, Sgrignoli & Wallace. This seminar is for broadcasters, broadcast consultants, equipment manufacturers, translator/LPTV operators and cable operators. For more information at KNME-DT contact Jim Gale at 505 277 2049 or Dan Zillich at 505 277 1251. You may also contact the instructor Gary Sgrignoli at 847 259-3352.

The Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC)
Announces Upcoming Events
ATSC Fall 2010 Mobile DTV Seminar
Thursday October 7, 2010 - 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Washington, D.C.

More information, including registration and a newly updated preliminary agenda, are available online.

ATSC Symposium on Next Generation Broadcast Television
Tuesday October 19, 2010 - 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
The Westin Alexandria Hotel - Alexandria, Va.
More information, including registration and a newly updated preliminary agenda, are available online.

Plan to Attend
The IEEE Broadcast Technology Society
60th Annual IEEE Broadcast Symposium
October 20-22, 2010
The Westin Alexandria Alexandria, Va.

Keynote speakers for this year's symposium include James Martin, Director, ISR Programs for the U.S. Department of Defense and James O'Neal, Technology Editor, TV Technology, USA. Additional details on the technical program and how to register are availale on the IEEE Broadcast Technology Symposium website. The advance registration deadline is October 1!

Submit Your Proposal Now for
2011 NAB Broadcast Engineering Conference
Las Vegas Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada
Conferences April 9 - 14, 2011/ Exhibits April 11 - 14, 2011
Deadline for submission is October 22, 2010.

The 2011 NAB Show will host the 65th NAB Broadcast Engineering Conference. This world-class conference addresses the most recent developments in broadcast technology and focuses on the opportunities and challenges that face broadcast engineering professionals. Each year hundreds of broadcast professionals from around the world attend the conference. They include practicing broadcast engineers and technicians, engineering consultants, contract engineers, broadcast equipment manufacturers, distributors, R&D engineers plus anyone specifically interested in the latest broadcast technologies.

In order to be considered, proposals must explain what attendees can expect to learn from the paper, must not be a sales pitch and should be no more than 200 words in length.

Papers accepted for presentation at the 2011 NAB Broadcast Engineering Conference will be eligible for the NAB Best Paper Award. Established in 2010, the Best Paper Award honors the author(s) of a paper of exceptional merit published in the NAB Broadcast Engineering Conference Proceedings. The yearly proceedings, published as both a book and a CD-ROM is a compendium of these technical papers, and an important archive of the leading edge of broadcast engineering issues.

Technical paper proposals submitted for the 65th annual Broadcast Engineering Conference will be accepted until the October 22 deadline. If you have any questions, contact John Marino, VP NAB Science and Technology at (202) 429-5346.