This is a test of the Emergency Alert System: Vote for Dick Mountjoy!
In an apparent violation of FCC rules, conservative talk radio station KFBK 1530 AM in Sacramento transmitted a paid political advertisement to an unknown number of other stations in the area, using the Federal Emergency Alert System (EAS), thus automatically forcing the ad onto the stations' airwaves. This is according to a press release issued today by KDVS-FM, a non-commercial community station in Davis that received and inadvertently aired the transmission.
I really have no words to describe this.
From the SA Forums:
This morning Monday, Nov. 6th at 10:02 am my radio station recieved an Emergency Alert System (EAS) test that came through with a radio advertisement for republican senate cantidate Dick Mountjoy coming on after the familiar "this concludes this test..." message.
EAS is a system where two or three stations per county are Local Primary (or LP) stations that iniciate system tests or actual warning messages in times of an emergeny such as a natural disaster. The alert is broadcast over their normal signal in the form of data tones followed by a voice or video message pertaining to the alert (or a voice saying "this has been a test.. etc). Radio stations are required to have an EAS unit that listens to these LP stations, and when an EAS broadcast comes through it interrupts the normal air feed to rebroadcast whatever is coming from the LP signal.
Upon further investigation we discovered that the message originated from local Clear Channel owned conservative talk radio station KFBK in Sacramento. We gave them a call inquiring about the incident and they admitted to broadcasting the message as a result of a "training snafu".
Let's get some media coverage of this. Here are some media outlets to contact:
Associated Press
Reuters
Agence France Presse
New York Times
Washington Post
Los Angeles Times
USA Today
McClatchy/Knight-Ridder (under "SITE SERVICES")
Christian Science Monitor
