Emergency Alert System Fans

[JFKdestroyer]

While a group of autists fight over how "scary" a three second logo animation is, there is another group of autists who are madly in love with something that can be legitimately scary to some adults.

For those who are unaware, the Emergency Alert System is the USA's rather antiquated national warning system, essentially a relay of radio stations that are monitored by other radio and TV stations to distribute emergency information to citizens. While this isn't very scary at all, each message is preluded and concluded with a series of long, ear piercing electronic tones and beeps, the primary purpose of which are to communicate with the EAS receivers at other stations.

Most people find this annoying.

While the EAS is unloved by many for those times it's interrupted your favorite TV show or movie and loathed by broadcast engineers for being an extremely vulnerable system that could be abused easily, the system does find love from an surprising number of exceptional individuals.

Armed with enough Weather Alert radios to make a Doomsday Prepper raise an eyebrow and a camera, fans like BlackBird7790 and SPCcranford1056 create some of YouTube's most polarizing content: video of their weather radios sounding an alert. How do they know these things are going to go off? I have no idea, but I imagine it involves a lot of sitting around during a storm and wasted memory card space.

But real alerts aren't quite enough for them. Users like TheEASExperience specialize in making fake alerts for wild scenarios just for fun. A nuclear attack on New Years Eve? A Levee breach? Just some of the hilarious scenarios created by these masters in their craft.

It is probably worth noting that I have seen a lot of crossover between the EAS fans and the "Elevator Enthusiasts". If they haven't been highlighted yet, that's definitely worth a thread.

So there you have it. One of the finalists in the Worlds Strangest Fandom Contest.

 

[Colress]

i always freeze up when i hear EAS tones. i always have. that said, how the hell does it have fana?

 

[Frank Rizzo]

i always freeze up when i hear EAS tones. i always have. that said, how the hell does it have fana?

There's a fandom dedicated to FBI Warning screens...

My thought process has always been this: If it exists, there's at least *one* person out there who's most likely a fan of it...

 

[Rick Springfield]

There's a fandom dedicated to FBI Warning screens...

My thought process has always been this: If it exists, there's at least *one* person out there who's most likely a fan of it...

There is also a fandom dedicated to videos of toilets flushing. People go around looking for rare toilets and film them flushing. You see YouTube comments like "Oh, that's a 1964 American Standard Crapmaster 5000 in Pepto Bismol Pink, those are so hard to find!" Just like the toilets were classic cars or Swiss watches or something. I've considered making a thread here about it, not sure if interesting enough.

 

[Frank Rizzo]

There is also a fandom dedicated to videos of toilets flushing. People go around looking for rare toilets and film them flushing. You see YouTube comments like "Oh, that's a 1964 American Standard Crapmaster 5000 in Pepto Bismol Pink, those are so hard to find!" Just like the toilets were classic cars or Swiss watches or something. I've considered making a thread here about it, not sure if interesting enough.

I wonder, do they chimp out when they hear the old wive's tale about toilets in Australia flushing the opposite way?

 

[Francis E. Dec Esc.]

Can we make this into a generic weird autistic obsession thread? Here's an autist with a street lamp fetish, and his DeviantArt page. Not surprisingly, he's a furfag who loves CaseyDecker.

 

[Ravenor]

I must admit to having a bit of a interest in this but only because of the Civil defence films and various times I have seen it on Film / TV, and the UK hasn't got a regular test of it's emergency system (in the UK the BBC would take over all radio an tv broadcasts) so it's interesting to see stuff from other country's that isn't commonly sceen by non residents.

Oh and here is what would preceded any broadcast in the UK the infamous test card:

It would be displayed for about 5 seconds with a loud test sound followed by the announcement on a loop from what I can understand of the procedure.

 

[Dilbertmann]

I must admit to having a bit of a interest in this but only because of the Civil defence films and various times I have seen it on Film / TV, and the UK hasn't got a regular test of it's emergency system (in the UK the BBC would take over all radio an tv broadcasts) so it's interesting to see stuff from other country's that isn't commonly sceen by non residents.

Oh and here is what would preceded any broadcast in the UK the infamous test card:

It would be displayed for about 5 seconds with a loud test sound followed by the announcement on a loop from what I can understand of the procedure.

Is that test card supposed to be nonsensical? Because it's a amusing way to begin a emergency for a nuclear holocaust.

 

[Ravenor]

Is that test card supposed to be nonsensical? Because it's a amusing way to begin a emergency for a nuclear holocaust.

It's old, it was originally broadcast to aid you tuning in your TV correctly.
Until about 10 years ago the BBC used to have a dead spot around 2am - 4am where there was nothing on and they broadcast it every night for a few hours. But before that until the early 70's the BBC had dead spots during the day and it was broadcast then too. I suppose the thinking is the BBC before saying "Grab all the tinned food you can and find your nearest coal mine" they want to make sure your getting the signal saying your about to be blasted into your own shadow / molested by tenticals of extra dimensional abominations, etc.
But we are British so we don't evolve established protocol ever.

 

[Dr. Meme]

i always freeze up when i hear EAS tones. i always have. that said, how the hell does it have fana?

To be fair, you're part of a fandom of making fun of autistic people

Just saying

 

[Colress]

To be fair, you're part of a fandom of making fun of autistic people

Just saying

what fandom? these forums?

though i am aware that the EAS tone was chosen because it is genuinely annoying to people and the guv'meynt wants 'em to hear it.

 

[Boundman]

I can understand being a fan of things like this. It's interesting to see what people create when their boss goes "Okay, your job is to create what the entire country might hear in the case of a nuclear attack." and the idea that governments have to think and plan these things.

That being said, stuff like this has an inordinate way of attracting spergs who make wikis for it and then say "DON'T TALK ABOUT THIS ONE BECAUSE A LOT OF US ARE SCARED OF IT.".

 

[Lefty's Revenge]

Can we make this into a generic weird autistic obsession thread? Here's an autist with a street lamp fetish, and his DeviantArt page. Not surprisingly, he's a furfag who loves CaseyDecker.

I also vote for this. You're not gonna get much mileage out of discussing just people who obsess over the EAS.

To be fair, you're part of a fandom of making fun of autistic people

Just saying

Ehh. We were a fandom of making fun of autistic people on the internet who react in funny ways.

A fandom of making fun of stupid/mentally challenged individuals anywhere would include damn near the entire human race.

 

[The Damned Thing]

Growing up with the internet, I thought i had it all figured out. Until i joined this very forum. Turns out, reality is waaaay more crazier than i had expected.

 

[cans.wav]

I'm gonna be honest. I like the EAS (This is because I'm going to college to be a Meteorologist) It has helped save countless lives and while it is pretty fucking annoying when your watching TV, I can see why people like it (I do own a couple Weather Radio's, there for school/work)

Also for the way people get the stuff so they when their radio's/TV are gonna go off (I know about this from college) their is a free tool online that tell's you anything the National Weather Service issues ever about 30 seconds before TV/Radio Stations/Weather Radios/Your Cell Phone pick it up.

 

[Overcast]

There is also a fandom dedicated to videos of toilets flushing. People go around looking for rare toilets and film them flushing. You see YouTube comments like "Oh, that's a 1964 American Standard Crapmaster 5000 in Pepto Bismol Pink, those are so hard to find!" Just like the toilets were classic cars or Swiss watches or something. I've considered making a thread here about it, not sure if interesting enough.

As strange as that sounds I can't help but think that something positive could come out of these kinds of obsessions. Like, perhaps some of these people would be inspired to build toilets for a living or something along those lines.

That's the optimist in me talking though.

 

[ChuckSlaughter]

I work with streaming video and have gone on the internet and fount test media that I like alot. Lena, the indian head, colored bars, old black and white cartoons.

I als do phones as a hobby and like to use weird telephone notices as the first prompt.. some of them are cool "The number you have called is unreachable due to military activity."

 

[XYZpdq]

I like interesting EAS intros and outros. Especially the old Civil Defense ones when they would have catchy jingles to explain LOL~ THIS ISN'T! THE EEEEND OF THE WORRRRLD! ON KAAAY~ EKS WHY ZEE!

 

[Colress]

i can understand why they're in place. and the history of the EAS is really interesting. tbh i want to find more early EBS slides, because i'm pretty sure there used to be a bunch more around.

 

[Count groudon]

I always hated these when I was a kid. Id just be sitting there watching cartoons and suddenly this loud violent electronic screech would play, which always managed to make me nearly fall off whatever I was sitting on. and to make matters worse, it was always followed by this creepy ass, barely audible voice talking over radio static saying that a severe storm or a flood watch was in effect for our area.

To be honest I dont really find these guy or the old logo library guy to be lolcows. I mean sure they might be pretty spergy but for the most part they seem like a nice group of guys who just happen to have an interest in the history of a certain thing.