BBC National Attack Warning System

after seeing this interesting clip on Mark Thomas' Secret Map of Britain, it got me wondering what would happen if a missile was heading our way.

Secret Map of Britain

in the clip the bloke says the government have invested around £3million into providing the system with transmitter which will withstand the attack - to replace air raid sirens.

does this mean the bbc will take over all the airwaves on UHF FM AM LW plus digital - or will ITV, CH4, CH5 and SKY be doing their own thing? would a static caption appear, or a presenter?

plus canada (alberta) test their emergency warning system regularly - why dont we?

Well if anything did happen, do you think ITV would still show it a few minutes late?

I saw that -- very interesting. But I was thinking, doesn't that all pre-suppose we're watching TV or listening to the radio at the time in order to hear the warning given out? Surely making some big mental noise all across the nation would alert everyone, regardless of what they're doing? A bit fairer. Where would we go?

Anyway we'd better not get attacked in the early evening cos if we are it'll cut into S4C's Welsh language zone and they'll refuse to show it then they'll show it later on in the evening with some live caption in the corner but it'll all be lies cos it happened hours ago and everyone would panic and then we'd all be dead cos no-one told us........

*calms down*

Well, the United States has had an emergency warning system for some time. Originally called the Emergency Broadcast System, it was basically a switch that a city, county, state or the federal government could throw (as a condition of their broadcast licence) and have every transmitter in America broadcasting any alert messages. Of course, this was a reaction to the Cold War fear of nuclear attack. The bragging point of the system was that if the President so ordered, he could be on every television set and radio in the country in 10 minutes. That was a big deal in the '60s.

I grew up with EBS tests. Practically everyone can remember the words "This is a test. This is only a test. Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee ..."

It was replaced in the mid 90s with the Emergency Alert System, which uses a similar kind of "switch", but is digital and offers faster response times.

EBS and EAS were and still are required to be tested at least once a week. (I think.) Usually this happens in the early morning hours, in order to frighten as many children watching cartoons as possible.

I've only seen the EAS used once in a real emergency. There was heavy storms in the area, and apparently there was some flooding in low-lying areas. So, as I was watching some programme, the sound cut out, and the digital EAS cut in with its groany-squeaky bursts. Then a recorded message came on, with Closed Captioning scrolling across the top of the screen mirroring the spoken words. It repeated once, and then went away. The picture from the programme was playing behind the audio the whole time.

mhking will likely have more detailed (and correct, in the unlikely event that I'm wrong) information on EBS and EAS, and will undoubtedly post here soon. Take it away, mhking ...

http://homepage.mac.com/robertpalmer/tvforum/sig.gif

On a slightly related topic, I remember one of the first discussions I ever followed on MHP-chat was about the "programme type" flags in the PDC system. The "emergency" flag is programme type 3F and apparently causes every PDC video recorder to start recording, so that if you happen to be out when the bomb drops, at least when you get home you'll have the video to explain why you're suddenly dead. Either that, or you'll have an episode of "Dossa And Joe".

In a nuclear attack any non-sheilded electronics will be destroyed, hence why the BBc has studios in bunkers and 'protected transmitters'. Presumably these are or include the LW radio 4 transmitters as these cover the whole country with 1 transmitter

So if the bomb drops the only thing broadcasting in that area woul dprobably be the BBC from one of these transmitters. , all local transmitters being destroyed.

This I assume is reason why xubmarine captains are told to listen to radio 4 to check onthe status of the UK when surfacing fom the sea - The LW signal reaches a long long way and the transmitters are protected

There are so many myths about these things. Like stockpiles of steam trains, captains of merchant vessels issued books with information of what to do in the event of an attack on the UK. Many details can be found at the govts. website, or trauling through Hansard. There was talk of using the telephone system to provide civil emegrgency information be it on either a local or national scale.

In the ultimate national emergency and only LW radio being available, then most of us these days wouldn't be able to receive such information. Old govt advice was to keep a small transister radio in a tin box.

Something that I've always wondered is how would we all hear the siren? I thought it was supposed to be like World War Two where it could be heard through the streets but how would this occur nowadays - I don't see any sirens anywhere?

Church bells? They were, historically, used for a summoning or informing.

Portsdown hill at the top of Portsmouth still has the sirens on the Palmerston forts, and they work for a long distance. They had some event a few years ago and I could hear them at the other end of Portsmouth.

Plus there has always been a phone system that continues to operate for hospitals and goverment.

Nearby in our next town we have a VERY LARGE chemical complex, with BP, GE, Shell operating there. They use sirens to alert us to different types of disasters. The majority of them are for the chemical accidents i.e. gas leak so shut your windows, breathe through a wet cloth etc. They also have a few for national problems but the thing is that I live on the other side of a hill so can't hear it but when they test them every few months, if you go to the top of the hill it VERY loud and also if you travel miles away but there is no blockage in the way you can hear it. So if anything every happens I'm dead!

Oh and if that did happen UTV would record it and play it out in some graveyard slot when iit would be too late and everybody in Northern Ireland would be wiped out!