Washington - Jul 12, 2011 - On July 7, the FEMA IPAWS program office held a webinar to outline and discuss EAS best practices that broadcasters and other EAS participants should use to be ready for the first-ever National EAS Test. The national test will occur on Nov. 9, 2011, at 2 p.m. Eastern time. The NAB provided this synopsis in its July 11, 2011, Radio TechCheck.

The participants on the webinar were Manny Centeno, EAS test program manager with the FEMA IPAWS office, Kelly Williams, senior director, engineering and technology policy with NAB's Science and Technology Department and Chris Brandt, a head-end engineer from Alaska. There were more than 400 online attendees.

FEMA will produce a best practices and test procedure document that will be released in late September 2011. The best practices guide will include information and ideas proposed on the IdeaScale website and discussed during the virtual roundtables and EAS Test Update webinars. The dates and topics for the future online events are: