FEMA has announced the date for the 2023 NPT, now known as the “Nationwide Test of the Emergency Alert System.”

The date chosen is October 4th at 11:20 PM Pacific Time, with a backup date of October 11.

The plan is to test EAS and WEA systems. The FormTwo will be granted an extra day, requiring it to be filed by October 5th.  Form Three will be due no later than November 20th. If you have any changes in station ownership or contacts since earlier this year, you should update your Form One, too, before September 15th. You can access the forms on the ETRS page. 

More information is on the FEMA and the FCC sites. 

The proposed merger between TEGNA and Standard General has collapsed, according to a statement from TEGNA. The merger would have seen Standard General acquire TEGNA for $5.4 billion, including the company’s San Diego-based television station, KFMB TV.

The collapse of the merger comes after the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) raised concerns about the deal and called for a hearing on the matter. The delay caused the deal to pass a finance deadline.  The FCC said that the merger would have given Standard General too much control over local news and could have led to higher prices for cable and satellite TV subscribers.

DASDEC and One-Net Users Must Update Certificate Before Aug. 21 to Maintain Proper Operation

LYNDONVILLE, N.Y. — July 20, 2021 — Digital Alert Systems, the global leader in emergency communications solutions for video services providers, today announced the availability of an important update of Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) digital certificates used to authenticate messaging from the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS).

The company has released updated IPAWS Certificate Authority (CA) credentials for the DASDECTM and One-NetTM series of Emergency Alert System/Common Alerting Protocol (EAS/CAP) encoder/decoders to replace a certificate in the current certification chain that will expire on Aug. 21. All U.S. DASDEC and One-Net users are advised to replace the soon-to-expire certificate to ensure the required message authentication continues to operate properly. Digital Alert Systems reminds all EAS participants the FCC requires them to “configure their systems to reject all CAP-formatted EAS messages that include an invalid digital signature.”

“With just a few weeks to go, we urge DASDEC and One-Net customers to update their certificate files before Aug. 21 to prevent any disruptions,” said Adam Jones, senior sales engineer for Digital Alert Systems. “While this seems like an annual occurrence, our customers will be pleased to know this new certificate is good until April of 2024!”

Digital certificates, called CAs, are used by FEMA to create a chain of trust between an EAS device and the IPAWS servers. The DASDEC and One-Net EAS/CAP devices use these special digital certificates to validate the authenticity of IPAWS-sourced CAP alerts. These certificates are designed to expire on a specific date and time, requiring the issuing authority to publish new certificates as replacements.

All DASDEC and One-Net customers using the IPAWS system must have the latest certificates in place so only messages authenticated through IPAWS are processed. IPAWS users who do not update their equipment before Aug. 21 could see this error message: “Event Log: Digital Signature

VERIFICATION ERROR: Signer UNTRUSTED! Check for correct CAP decoder CA file.” Alternatively, the device might simply ignore valid IPAWS alerts.

The new field service bulletin and CA file are now available from the Digital Alert Systems website at www.digitalalertsystems.com/DAS_pages/resources_fsb.html. DASDEC and One-Net customers should go to the website, download the field service bulletin for instructions, and link to the new CA file.

Further information about Digital Alert Systems and its products is available at www.digitalalertsystems.com.