Constant Alert Tone "CAT" on WHAS

[lestep]

I was surprised to hear WHAS-AM using the old CAT or "Constant Alert Tone" during the recent October tornado outbreaks. It was nice to hear the heavily promoted feature being utilized again. For those of you who aren't familiar with it, they sound a brief tone burst every 5 or 10 seconds behind regular programming when a tornado warning is in effect for the Louisville metro area. To my knowledge, they may be the only station in the country that has such a feature. I remember the old radio promos that relaly played this feature up. Before this last outbreak, the last time I had heard it was during the January 2006 severe weather outbreak during a U of L basketball game.

I was surprised, however, that the on air folks apparently don't realize when the EAS is overriding them with a weather warning from the National Weather Service. Often the EAS would break in and then when it was over the announcer was still going on like nothing had happened. They also don't seem to be rebroadcasting the EAS cut-ins on the Internet, so you often get some very awkward moments of silence there that go unexplaned. At least in this most recent event, a studio producer gave a recap of the alerts that had just came over the EAS for those who were listening online.

[John Quincy]

I don't know how WHAS' studios are wired up, but if they're anything like the news/talk station I work for, when you're broadcasting in delay mode (8 seconds in our case) both the producer/board op and local talk show host are listening to the station in their headphones and studio monitors off "program" mode (right off the console before the processing chain) instead of hearing the on-air signal (which is delayed by a few seconds so you can prevent dirty words and other inappropriate comments from going over the air). The EAS receiver is wired in the air chain after the console and before the transmitter. This means when it kicks in, you can't hear it unless you're monitoring off the air.

Our EAS reports don't go over our Internet stream either, probably because the signal that gets fed to the stream is split before it hits the EAS unit.

[bctate]

It's interesting that people still notice things like the Constant Alert Tone. I beleive it was instituted from the April 3rd, 1974 outbreak. It is a very useful tool as you only get one shot to get the EAS warning.
In my travels, WTVN 610 in Columbus and WHIO 1290 in Dayton use a 3 short beep tone, every 5 seconds, (Sounds a lot like the alert feature on a Nextel phone) for any severe weather event, not just for tornado warnings.
I don't care for the EAS warnings as compared to the old EBS warnings. EAS warnings only mentioned the warned area once and if you get in on it midstream, you don't have an idea of who the warning is issued to. Additionally, counties east of Louisville such as Anderson, used to get warnings that now don't recieve them anymore. TV is your only hope, there.
In the "old days"at WHAS radio, they would interrupt programming with "Please stand by for a severe weather warning, while WHAS activates special weather receivers", you hear the EBS tone, then Chuck Taylor or Ken Schulz would announce and repeat the warned area. And they issued warnings for areas as far east as Lexington, Richmond and Mt Sterling.
I feel today, however, that WHAS would not be able to cover a severe weather event of the April 3rd "Super outbreak", adequately.
They now partner with WAVE 3 for their weather (strange relationship) instead of Channel 11 and not being in the same building anymore as Channel 11, has in some ways degraded WHAS radios weather coverage. I know WHAS radio and TV have been under seperate ownership for many years but maintained a working relationship until 4 years ago. That's when they contracted with WAVE 3 for their weather. It used to be radio covered severe weather in an excellent manner, and TV did a crappy job. Now its the other way around!
Great site!!!

[geno404]

Now that isn't totally true...just email the severe weather warning down to the voice track gal in Tucson. She does our market on Thursday, and we can have your severe weather warning on the air next Wednesday. ;D

[Travis]

Before the EBS (emergency broadcast system) switched to dual-tones during the early to mid '70s, the tone was merely a 1 kilohertz tone. It worked well, but WHAS radio was the primary EBS station at the time (and may still be) and was playing music at that time. Some of the artists could hit notes that would emulate a 1 kilohertz tone and that would set off EBS monitors at schools, hospitals, radio stations and wherever.

Johnny Nash's "I Can See Clearly Now" is one such song. About midway through the tune Johnny does a long wail which not only hits the 1 kilohertz mark, but is also long enough in duration that it always set off EBS monitors whenever WHAS played it. There were other tunes as well by Barbra Streisand, Beach Boys and others that would do the trick as well. When the EBS switched to the dual-tone system (2 tones at 2 different frequencies broadcast simultaneously) it put an end the nuisance.

To this day whenever I hear Johnny Nash doing that long wail in "I Can See Clearly Now" I always remember the old 1 kilohertz EBS monitor activating in the studios of WFPL-WFPK.

[bytranscription]

i recall working at WFKY and our transmitter was on the Kentucky River Near lock four everything would knock it off the air storm wise that it required us to keep reading while the other operator would re hit the remote control panel getting us back on the air it is a miricle we ever got out anything. I also recall at WCLU in Covington watching lightning hit the tower and spin to the ground knocking the old Gates x mitter off the air

John Owen

[lestep]

I've noticed that WHAS-AM now doesn't air weather alerts for the Lexington area now also since they started using the NWR broadcasts. Problem is I believe they only monitor the 162.475 mhz. signal on KIH-43 out of Louisville, which means they only get the counties which are covered by that particular transmitter. Why they don't use a closed circuit feed with the NWS office so they can pickup any NWR broadcasts on any of their frequencies is a very good question.

I was asked the other day if EPIC (the Emergency Public Information Circuit) still exists. That would have been another alternative to the NWR feed. I remember it still being in the WDRB-TV control room up through 1999 but I'm not sure when it had last been used. The Louisville DES used it occasionally to broadcast Rubbertown alerts. I have posted one of the old EPIC alerts from WHAS on my You Tube at www.youtube.com/indylre along with many other classic clips from Louisville TV.

Something interesting regarding this discussion. KMOX-AM in St. Louis missed a couple of tornado warnings this afternoon for the eastern part of their metro area. They rely on The Weather Channel for weather updates with no local meteorologist voice at all. News or on air talent reads the warnings most of the time, but sometimes like today they drop the ball for whatever reason. They never use the EAS/EBS except for SARA (missing child/Amber) alerts. I've suggested the CAT tone idea to them but they don't seem interested. Seems it is easier just to casually mention the alert between commercials and hope the listener catches it.