Skyview, the distribution service used by CBS Radio News, ABC Radio News, and others, failed yesterday as radio station affiliates found silence when their automation systems had expected network news insertions. Skyview posted the following announcement to stations receiving their streams through XDS receivers:
Skyview Networks experienced unauthorized access to its IT environment, resulting in interrupted technical services. Immediately upon learning of the incident, Skyview activated its comprehensive incident response plan. We have initiated advanced monitoring and threat detection across our systems and data. We have also engaged third-party forensic experts to help us contain and investigate the incident. These efforts are fully underway.
IMPORTANT:
During this undetermined period of time, it is advised NOT to reboot your XDS receiver.
Please reach out to affiliaterelations@skyviewsat.com if you have any questions.
San Diego and Imperial Counties can hand broadcast engineers some challenges with respect to receiving the Emergency Alert System (EAS) LP1 and LP2 stations, both AMs. If you are relaying the signals of KOGO 600 and KLSD 1360 from an AM transmitter site, you must have good filtering and shielding from your own transmitter signal, and be able to receive the signal at night. And if you’re in El Centro, how do you even receive a Primary Entry Point (PEP) signal required for national tests?
Richard Rudman, California State Emergency Coordination Committee Vice-Chair, has some viable suggestions for receiving PEPs:
Monitor your usual LP-1, like KOGO, which depends on receiving a PEP signal
Monitor the NPR network via satellite
Monitor an NPR affiliate like KPBS San Diego or KQVO Calexico
Monitor SiriusXM’s “barker” channel.
The latter option is worth explaining. You can use any SiriusXM receiver and as long as you hear audio, you’re good. The barker channel is the free channel used as a reception confidence signal and for promoting their subscription options. In the event of a national emergency or test, they interrupt that, or any, active channel you are listening to with any national EAS message.
The FCC announced in mid-December that February 28 is the new deadline for submitting a Form One in the EAS Test Reporting System (ETRS) in anticipation of a National EAS Test, which, as of this writing, does not have a test date established.
While there was no national test in 2022, if your station was operating before last year, you likely have an account set up on the ETRS. The FCC said it would open the site for Form One filings on January 3, 2023.
SBE Chapter 36 will end 2022 with a holiday luncheon and good cheer. Join us Wednesday, December 14 at 12 noon at Del’s Hideout, 5351 Adobe Falls Road, San Diego, near Waring Road off I-8 in Mission Valley. Bring a guest. No host, no presentation. We look forward to seeing you there.
In case you hadn’t noticed, our website and email server were down for the past two weeks. When you stop paying the bill for domain registry, the registry keeper can redirect to a “shaming page,” wherein that agency declares the website registry expired and is awaiting payment to renew the registration or offer it for sale.
However, that redirect page declared that the registry had “expired on 11/11/2024,” two years into the future.
Many thanks to “Lucy,” the overseas support agent for Network Solutions, who, after 45 minutes wasted with online support chat and several other phone agents, finally understood the issue and initiated the fix.
Dave Biondi of Texan.net and Broadcast.net originally offered websites to all SBE chapters in 1997 and we took him up on it. He upgraded us to SBE36.ORG the next year and has maintained the registry as part of a wholesale group ever since. He continues to ignore our offers to pay. Some people.
