§  11.54   EAS operation during a National Level emergency.

   (a) The EAS Operating Handbook summarizes the procedures to be followed
   upon receipt of a National level EAN or EAT Message.

   (b) Immediately upon receipt of an EAN message, EAS Participants must:

   (1) Monitor the two EAS sources assigned in the State or Local Area
   plan or FCC Mapbook for any further instructions. SDARS licensees and
   DBS providers may choose their two EAS sources, one of which must be a
   PEP station.

   (2) Discontinue normal programming and follow the transmission
   procedures in the appropriate section of the EAS Operating Handbook.
   Announcements may be made in the same language as the primary language
   of the EAS Participant.

   (i) Key EAS sources (National Primary (NP), Local Primary (LP), State
   Primary (SP), State Relay (SR) and Participating National (PN) sources)
   follow the transmission procedures and make the announcements in the
   National Level Instructions of the EAS Operating Handbook.

   (ii) Non-participating National (NN) sources follow the transmission
   procedures and make the sign-off announcement in the EAS Operating
   Handbook's National Level Instructions section for NN sources. After
   the sign-off announcement, NN sources are required to remove their
   carriers or services from the air and monitor for the Emergency Action
   Termination message. NN sources using automatic interrupt under
   § 11.51(m)(1), must transmit the header codes, Attention Signal,
   sign-off announcement and EOM code after receiving the appropriate EAS
   header codes for a national emergency.

   (3) After completing the above transmission procedures, key EAS and
   Participating National sources must transmit a common emergency message
   until receipt of the Emergency Action Termination Message. Message
   priorities are specified in § 11.44. If LP or SR sources of a Local
   Area cannot provide an emergency message feed, any source in the Local
   Area may elect to provide a message feed. This should be done in an
   organized manner as designated in State and Local Area EAS Plans.

   (4) The Standby Script shall be used until emergency messages are
   available. The text of the Standby Script is in the EAS Operating
   Handbook's section for Participating sources.

   (5) Analog and digital TV broadcast stations shall display an
   appropriate EAS slide and then transmit all EAS announcements visually
   and aurally as specified in § § 11.51(a) through (e) and 73.1250(h) of
   this chapter.

   (6) Analog cable systems, digital cable systems, and wireless cable
   systems shall transmit all EAS announcements visually and aurally as
   specified in § 11.51(g) and (h).

   (7) DBS providers shall transmit all EAS announcements visually and
   aurally as specified in § 11.51(j).

   (8) Announcements may be made in the same language as the primary
   language of the EAS participant.

   (9) Analog and digital broadcast stations may transmit their call
   letters and analog cable systems, digital cable systems and wireless
   cable systems may transmit the names of the communities they serve
   during an EAS activation. State and Local Area identifications must be
   given as provided in State and Local Area EAS plans.

   (10) All analog and digital broadcast stations and analog cable
   systems, digital cable systems and wireless cable systems operating and
   identified with a particular EAS Local Area must transmit a common
   national emergency message until receipt of the Emergency Action
   Termination.

   (11) Analog and digital broadcast stations, except those holding an EAS
   Non-participating National Authorization letter, are exempt from
   complying with § § 73.62 and 73.1560 of this chapter (operating power
   maintenance) while operating under this part.

   (12) National Primary (NP) sources must operate under the procedures in
   the National Control Point Procedures.

   (13) The time of receipt of the EAN and Emergency Action Termination
   messages shall be entered by analog and digital broadcast stations in
   their logs (as specified in § § 73.1820 and 73.1840 of this chapter),
   by analog and digital cable systems in their records (as specified in
   § 76.1711 of this chapter), by subject wireless cable systems in their
   records (as specified in § 21.304 of this chapter), and by all other
   EAS Participants in their records as specified in § 11.35(a).

   (c) Upon receipt of an Emergency Action Termination Message, EAS
   Participants must follow the termination procedures in the EAS
   Operating Handbook.

   (d) EAS Participants originating emergency communications under this
   section shall be considered to have conferred rebroadcast authority, as
   required by section 325(a) of the Communications Act of 1934, 47 U.S.C.
   325(a), to other EAS Participants.

   (e) During a national level EAS emergency, EAS Participants may
   transmit in lieu of the EAS audio feed an audio feed of the President's
   voice message from an alternative source, such as a broadcast network
   audio feed.

   [ 59 FR 67092 , Dec. 28, 1994, as amended at  63 FR 29666 , June 1, 1998;
    63 FR 39035 , July 21, 1998;  65 FR 21658 , Apr. 24, 2000;  65 FR 53614 ,
   Sept. 5, 2000;  67 FR 18511 , Apr. 16, 2002;  70 FR 71037 , Nov. 25, 2005]