We've brought you this PopCorn Alert to remind you that your movie goes better with a EXTRA LARGE PopCorn! Just freedom of speech. Get over it.

two simultaneous tones of 853Hz and 960Hz

So, two slightly detuned tones are illegal tones.

Please tell the musicians to prevent hitting the wrong synthesizer keys! They are on the hook for about $150000 per second. Unless... the rich musicians may want to do the Right Thing TM and write a complete song with these two notes. Like watching paint dry. That must be an instant hit! Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock, tick tock...

That's right, that combination of those two tones are illegal to [re]broadcast.

As it should be.

Brits wouldn't understand the importance. When we hear the tone we STOP what we're doing to listen to the alert, pretty much 'period'. They use EAS to broadcast a variety of major alerts from dangerous flash flood warnings, to tornado alerts, to (of course, and thankfully never used in my lifetime) Presidential alerts of national importance. And your attention is instantly drawn to the announcement thanks to the tone.

The tone is SERIOUS stuff. So much so that we have (I don't know if Brits do) the alert system embedded into our cell phones to carry the alerts to a personal level, including "Amber alert" - the notification of a child abduction and an all-points-bulletin to keep a lookout for the suspect (that information is communicated in the alert).

I have to admit, I turned off the Amber Alert phone notification the third or fourth time it woke me up in the middle of the night. That probably makes me a bad person, but there you have it.

Oh, you and me both. Being woken twice in succession at ~2AM in Northern Oregon for an Amber Alert about a missing child in southern California did not put me in a good mood.

OTOH, you've just given me an idea.

The EAS tone would make the most annoying ring-tone ever .

Oh, I did the same after it jarred me awake a few times at 3 I'm-dead-let-me-sleep o'clock!!

Grrrrr :p

So I'm with you on that one.

I turned the Amber Alert notifications off as in almost all cases they are child custody disputes. At least in California. I honestly cannot remember the last time an Amber Alert was for a genuine stranger abduction. 10 years ago? More? Which should be their only purpose. Stranger kidnappings. But for child custody dispute, not interested. And in those cases the local media will pick it up soon enough.

I would argue your emphasis in the sentence is in the wrong place.

"That's right, that combination of those two tones are illegal to [re]broadcast ."

The creation of the tones, use of the tones, listening to the tones is not illegal but it is illegal to broadcast the tones in public.

Against all rhetoric the smooth brains that hear from Joe Rogan, Musk or who ever is empty media head of the year, speech in the US isn't absolute. It was more restrictive in the past in-fact, and more free now.

But waiting to hear about the Fox News byline stating that 'Biden's FCC is out of control and a tool for the nanny state'.

Yes, in addition, all the air raid towers in my neighborhood are tested at noon, every first Wednesday of each month.

"Ear-splitting" is not an exaggeration, so I've learned to avoid my local park during those times.

Even though annoying, alert systems still make sense, especially for those of us who live in the "tornado alley".

“ Yes, in addition, all the air raid towers in my neighborhood are tested at noon, every first Wednesday of each month.”

So what would happen if there was an actual air raid at noon on the first Wednesday of the month?

That's right, that combination of those two tones are illegal to [re]broadcast.

As it should be.

Brits wouldn't understand the importance. When we hear the tone we STOP what we're doing to listen to the alert, pretty much 'period'. They use EAS to broadcast a variety of major alerts from dangerous flash flood warnings, to tornado alerts, to (of course, and thankfully never used in my lifetime) Presidential alerts of national importance. And your attention is instantly drawn to the announcement thanks to the tone.

The tone is SERIOUS stuff. So much so that we have (I don't know if Brits do) the alert system embedded into our cell phones to carry the alerts to a personal level, including "Amber alert" - the notification of a child abduction and an all-points-bulletin to keep a lookout for the suspect (that information is communicated in the alert).

Yes, it’s not a welcome sound to hear at any point as it’s serious news. I’ve sat through two of them in recent times and they both indicated that a particularly nasty storm was on the way. The first one was for a Hurricane.

We do have the emergency alert system embedded in our phones. It has never been used yet. Our severe weather is generally not so bad that it needs that sort of immediate attention. The last major Tsunami was about 300 years ago, the last major earthquake was about a similar length of time ago, and the last volcano about 350 million years ago.

"So, two slightly detuned tones are illegal tones."

Two solid tones, yes. And they're not slightly off musical scales; they're quite well off them. If you're using the typical 440 Hz = A4 scale, then 853 is between G#5 (830.61) and A5 (880), and 960 Hz is between A#5 (932.33) and B5 (987.77). Those are some big frequency differences. Your synthesizer needs to be weirdly calibrated to hit both those frequencies, and even if it was, you'd also need to be using a musical system not based on the typical 12-note scale because the two frequencies aren't an exact number of semitones apart.

That's not the main point, though. If someone accidentally played these two frequencies on an instrument during a song (which would be a rather discordant song), it wouldn't set off the warning. Only sine tones played simultaneously would do that, and that's using the emergency tone as a sample in your music. If you plan to do that, you're fine to perform live or sell copies, but it would be illegal to play that music on a broadcast medium.

you're fine to perform live or sell copies, but it would be illegal to play that music on a broadcast medium.

"We don't like their sound, guitar groups are on the way out...

...and for some reason none of the radio stations will play their records."

A musician would know:

- Small numbers of sine waves sound awful. They need distortion, modulation, and chords.

- Modulating a tone adds harmonics. Any musical modifications will alter the balance of harmonics so it deviates from the alert.

- 853 and 960 Hz were chosen to create irritating non-musical harmonics.

It's not going to happen by accident.

Decided to find out what kind of TV producer would be so stupid as to OK using the EBS/EAS tone for an on air promo. Looks like someone called Stephanie Medina. And looking at her resume she strikes me as exactly the sort of LA TV "talent" who would do something that stupid. KTLA and Comedy Central etc. Not sure which is worse. Probably KTLA.

If she was the one who OK'ed the promo she should be fired. This is pure criminal stupidity. What she did is the exact equivalent of shouting Fire in a Movie theater. I knew there was a reason why I hated all "talent" in the Biz in LA. The "trades" tend to be OK.

For background the EBS/EAS tone is one that is familiar to everyone in California. It is used for all serious emergencies. Like tsunami alerts, toxic cloud spills / fires, evacuation warnings during floods and wildfires etc. Not for earthquakes, too slow. Thats what the MyShake app is for. Also used for volcano and tornado alerts in other states. The Four Minute Warning (actually more like 25 plus Min Warning in the US) is its least used feature. But the system is tested on a regular basis.

There are videos on youtube that will give you an idea of what one part of the system sounds like. In cities like San Francisco. The siren and the outdoor loudspeakers of the Outdoor Warning System. They are very very loud. Tested every Tuesday at noon. Except during upgrades. As traditional (and more dependable) than the fog horns. Probably the scariest sound one can hear is the sirens spooling up and it not being noon at Tuesday. So far, always precautionary. But someday on the radio when the tone comes on an the voice does not say - "This is a Test. This is only a test...".

Hope never to hear that in my lifetime.

Not for earthquakes, too slow. Thats what the MyShake app is for

The "Quake" name already being taken, alas.

But honestly "MyShake" sounds more like an online ordering phone app for ShakeShack or In-N-Out Burger!

ShakeAlert is the system but MyShake is the "official" app. I thought it was a very good name because for the target audience the first association would not be an ice-cream beverage. Although now that you mentioned In-N-Out...

Its actually a very good app. Simple and well thought out. One feature I'd love is if it used the tones and chimes used by the Japanese Earthquake Alert system. They are both kinda Japanese 'cute'zy" but with a very menacing undertone. I remember watching the live Japaneses TV coverage in 2011 after the Tohoko earthquake when the aftershocks triggered the warning system and it would cut in on the live TV feed. Even after many large aftershocks every new earthquake warning still made you hold your breath. So full marks to whoever chose those Japanese warning chimes. They still scare the crap out of me. Which is as it should be.

I wonder how difficult it would be to tie in the warning app with the almost live preliminary data from the USGS in Berkeley. Usually within 30 sec after last S wave decay the USGS has epicenter, depths and approx magnitude. The where and the how deep is the important one. Foreshock prediction is weak with strike / slip but with thrust faults the prediction can be moderate to strong. The only problem is that most of the local thrust faults quakes seem to be on "previous unknown faults". But I have to say both the Berkeley Hills series over the last decade plus the recent quakes near the Garlock and Santa Monica faults did get my attention. As the Channel Island fault sequence is way over due for a few mid size pops. Around the same mag as the 1925 earthquake which did so much urban renewal in Santa Barbara.

Around the same mag as the 1925 earthquake which did so much urban renewal in Santa Barbara.

LOL at your turn of phrase there!

Although it does remind me of the exchange in the book Wyrd Sisters :

'Exactly how,' she said, eventually, 'does one go about knocking over the houses of people one does not like?'

'Urban clearance,' said the Fool.

'I was thinking of burning them down.'

'Hygienic urban clearance,' the Fool added promptly.

'And sowing the ground with salt.'

'I suspect that is hygienic urban clearance and a programme of environmental improvements. It might be a good idea to plant a few trees as well.'

There was a bit of a local joke in that turn of phrase.

Santa Barbara like most cities had a City Beautiful Movement organization the early 1900's. We have one of the most beautiful natural settings in the world, they said. We have perfect climate, they said. We have a long Spanish and Californios history. Basically the oldest real town in the state. But downtown looks like every other cow town in the Central Valley. If looks like Freso, goddamit. Lets build a beautiful Spanish Revival city that compliments its setting.

But the downtown property owners and businesses said, but thats going to cost us a lot of money. Not interested. So they kept buying their prefab wooden building sections from San Francisco. And putting up buildings that made it look like Fresno.

Then on June 29, 1925 Mother Nature solved the biggest problem for the Architectural Committee. By knocking down most of downtown. At the next committee meeting three weeks later it was basically, well the first item on our agenda has been dealt with. Now on to item two. Rebuilding. So everything was rebuilt in Spanish Revival style and the result was something that was as pleasing on the eye as the fantastic natural backdrop. The mountains and the ocean.

Now the driving force behind all this was a force of nature named Pearl Chase. A local legend and local hero. Given her ability to stop the unstoppable, i.e CalTrans, etc, it was said only half-jokingly that she used her influence to arrange the earthquake. Which removed all opposition to a Spanish Revival style city at a stoke.

Its that kind of place. A bit like Big Sur. Only tentatively connected to the real world of the here and now.

Yeah, your heart skips a beat until you hear "This is a test"; you almost find yourself holding your breath in hopes that those words will be heard.

It is not just about desensitizing listeners. The EBS two-tone will 'capture' other broadcasters so they too send EBS tones.

"...nearby radio and TV broadcasters, ...legally required..to pick up and start delivering the message ...as soon as received."

Maybe the 'wurdlwirdleuurdllee gooshhhgooshe' tone after that confirms the level and area of the alert, but even tickling the system could be very expensive.

Especially if partial-alerts lead the station staff to unplug the EBS monitor just as the bombers arrive...

(finally a proper use for the icon)

Seriously, the scale of these fines need to be set high enough to show up in the annual report, at least.

Yawn... Since when this this place become so Americana

(Just teasing)