Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) contractor Jeff Hugabonne circulated a memo Tuesday, February 11, 2025, telling EAS administrators that,

“Effective immediately, FEMA has changed the designated broadcast station assignment for San Diego national level EAS (PEP):
From (old): KOGO (AM) (FCC Facility 51514)
To (new): KHTS (FM) (FCC Facility 20697) and KLSD (AM) (FCC Facility 34452)

“KHTS (FM) and KSLD (AM) broadcast from the same tower site location and airchains are currently configured with a simulcast insertion switcher. This arrangement enables both to simultaneously relay a first-generation copy of a national EAS message.”

What This Means

Local iHeartMedia engineers who program their LP1 and LP2 stations will need to change their EAS receivers to conform to this new Primary Entry Point (PEP) assignment. For example, at the KOGO (AM) site near Santee, which is the EAS Local Primary (LP1) station, EAS gear will need to monitor KHTS 93.3 FM in order to allow FEMA to interrupt the broadcast feed if warranted. For LP2 KLSD (AM) 1360 at the 52nd Street site, they should need only to designate the KOGO reception as LP1 instead of PEP if they do anything at all since the station now has PEP status.

The FEMA designation and physical changes at KLSD and KHTS were part of the project to abandon the KOGO site. The 52nd Street site will have a working FEMA emergency generator and an ENP hardening shelter.

If you operate a radio or TV station and have the capability to tune into the PEP for national emergencies and tests on your EAS device, you now have the option of receiving KHTS (FM) 93.3 MHz for that purpose. Presumably, you’ve been using KLSD as your LP2 station if you can receive it. Other options for PEP reception include NPR’s network terminal, or even SiriusXM channel 1 (no subscription required).

What This Does Not Mean

All other radio and TV stations, and cable and satellite operators need to do nothing right now. This has no direct bearing on LP1 or LP2 assignments. You still need to monitor at least KOGO (AM) for relaying emergency messages as an LP1 station. You should attempt to monitor KLSD (AM) as an LP2 station, though it’s understood that this is challenging in North and East San Diego County.

Note that this is not a new executive order from Washington DC—it’s been in the works for at least a year, we’re told.

EAS administrators are considering changes to the LP1 and LP2 assignments to make it easier for North and East County broadcasters to conform to the Primary Station monitoring assignments, but no changes have been worked out.