USA Communications Vulnerable

Note: In this first part, we discuss the evolution of the Emergency Broadcast System.

SHORT HISTORY:
During the Russian nuclear scare of the 1950s, school students were instructed and trained to duck under their desks when a siren alert was issued. Soviet bombers were turboprop powered and not much faster than those of WWII. Two-story, wooden observation “towers” were placed around the country, manned 24/7 by adult volunteers and students. In fact, my high school had one next to the school bus driveway. Telephones were used to contact “Civil Defense.” Some commercial and government buildings had nuclear‘fallout shelters’ in the basements where water and food were stored along with Geiger Counters, nuclear-rated face masks, canvas cots, and fallout coats. Some homeowners even built underground shelters in their back yards.

Around 1953, Civil Defense came up with the Conelrad (Control of Electromagnetic Radiation) system. The concept was for most of the radio and TV stations to go off-air to deny the Russians “radio homing beacons” for increasing their bombing accuracy. A few AM stations would change frequency to one of two select frequencies, which were controlled by Civil Defense. Vulnerable telephone connections, which were unsecured, carried the info from Washington, DC to the chosen AM stations. The government switched the stations off and on in a pseudo random pattern so the Russian bombers would have to switch back and forth, trying to get a bearing to their target. The US government assisted the chosen Civil Defense stations with money to purchase diesel generators to power the transmitters (including a small on-site studio with records, and scripts), along with a nuclear fallout shelter with cots, food, water and cooking facilities. The public could purchase radios with triangular markings on the tuning dial marking 640 KHz and 1240 KHz, the only two AM radio frequencies expected to be available during emergencies.

In 1963 with the advent of jet-powered intercontinental bombers, the Conelrad system was no longer an effective deterrent. The replacement system was called the Emergency Broadcast System (EBS), which used a satellite to get info to a lead FM station and its backup. The alert came into the master FM and backup stations, which local TV and all other radio stations were required to monitor for the EBS message. In a real emergency, the TV and radio stations would interrupt programming to broadcast the EBS message, beginning with the annoying raspy beeps, followed by a tone, and then the message, resulting in rebroadcasting on all radio and TV stations.

In 1987, the EBS system was expanded and called the Emergency Alert System (EAS). This expansion included cable TV, the internet, NOAA weather radio, and some cell phones and relies on satellite and internet delivery. TV stations have video and audio signals. Radio stations and NOAA have audio only. Cell phones have text, but no video nor audio.

In today’s world, internet and most telephone signals are carried over a glass fiber optic network, which requires bi-directional optical repeaters every 35 miles or so to boost the signal power, using lasers to send the digital signals from Point A to Point B to Point C, etc. At Point B, Repeater B is fed by the incoming signal from Point A, which is then detected, amplified, and drives Laser 1 to send the amplified digital signals to Point C.

VULNERABLE CHOKE POINTS
Loss of power could easily break the chain of FM stations carrying the Emergency Alert System. Widespread power loss can keep FM radio stations off-the-air unless the stations have their own stand-by power generator. The internet is vulnerable to power failures with no backup in most places, especially rural areas. Satellites can be destroyed by high power lasers, by orbiting satellite killers, and orbiting nuclear devices. Many cell sites use microwave radios to transport data streams from site to site, which add to AC power requirements. Many fibre optic cables are buried and therefore vulnerable to trenching or digging, or tree roots damaging them when an associated tree topples over. Earthquakes can sever optical cables. A growing threat is an enemy’s electro magnetic pulse that would wreak havoc in every facet of our modern life.

In Part 2, we wlll explore a way to counter these looming dangers.