Massachusetts Emergency Alert System Test Fail - February 24, 1999
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 Published On Jan 18, 2019

[About a year after I uploaded this, I uploaded the entire broadcast this was a part of, in slightly better quality:    • Success Magazine (w/ EAS test & techn...  ]

Here is another Emergency Alert System test, though considered the earliest capture in my collection as of uploading. This came from a blank VHS tape--acquired from eBay--of the 41st Annual Grammy Awards captured from WBZ-TV in Boston, MA, with the rest of the tape filled with miscellaneous content taped from WABU-TV (later WBPX-TV) in Boston, MA.

About 12 minutes into a paid program for Success Magazine/First Resource/Home Buyers of America, the cable company (presumably MediaOne or AT&T) interrupts with a required test of the Emergency Alert System, as seen here. The formatting of the message seems to imply it originated from a HollyAnne MIPS-921 encoder/decoder unit (with the slide likely being generated by a Cable Envoy CEMS-0500 character generator).

This screen lasts for approximately 6 min. 38 sec. without audio until a technical difficulties slide from the same character generator (I've seen other uploads of technical difficulty segments with a similarly formatted slide, although this one funnily has "occurred" misspelled as "occoured".) takes its place, lasting for 42 minutes (shortened to only a few minutes here) before resuming regular programming.

Timestamps:
0:00 - Portion of paid programming
0:16 - "EAS Transmission" slide
6:56 - "Blackout of video service" slide
8:04 - Transition to regular programming

This was captured from a VHS tape using a Panasonic Omnivision PV-V4000 VCR and OBS Studio.

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