Emergency Alert System testing on radio stations

I don't understand what needs to be tested. All you do is hit play on a recording???

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Emergency Alert System testing on radio stations

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Completely useless in today's world. We all have phones that can alert us every time a mouse farts in the kitchen at home.

Does the annoying sound at the beginning serve some sort of technical purpose or is it just to get your attention? I may google this

edit, Interesting: LINK

Actual activations originated with a primary station, which would transmit the About this sound Attention Signal (help·info). The Attention Signal most commonly associated with the system was a combination of the sine waves of 853 and 960 Hz?—?suited to attention due to its unpleasantness. Decoders at relay stations would sound an alarm, alerting station personnel to the incoming message. Then, each relay station would broadcast the alert tone and rebroadcast the emergency message from the primary station. The Attention Signal was developed in the mid-1960s.

A nationwide activation of the EBS was called an Emergency Action Notification (EAN), and was the only activation that stations were not allowed to ignore; the Federal Communications Commission made local civil emergencies and weather advisories optional (except for stations that agreed to be the "primary" source of such messages).

To activate the EAN protocol, the Associated Press and United Press International wire services would notify stations with a special message. It began with a full line of X's, and a bell inside the Teletype machine would sound ten times. To avoid abuse and mistakes, the message included a confirmation password which changed daily. Stations that subscribed to one of the wire services were not required to activate the EBS if the activation message did not have proper confirmation

That's for the older one, this is the newer one: LINK

Messages in the EAS are composed of four parts: a digitally encoded SAME header, an attention signal, an audio announcement, and a digitally encoded end-of-message marker.

The About this sound SAME header (help·info) is the most critical part of the EAS design. It contains information about who originated the alert (the President, state or local authorities, the National Weather Service (NOAA/NWS), or the broadcaster), a short, general description of the event (tornado, flood, severe thunderstorm), the areas affected (up to 32 counties or states), the expected duration of the event (in minutes), the date and time it was issued (in UTC), and an identification of the originating station (see SAME for a complete breakdown of the header).

Alert signal

NOAA Weather Radio has an alert tone that can be made specific for a single county or parish. However with iPhones, and smart phones, I foresee the use for NOAA Weather radios becoming extinct in about 15-20 years.

I miss the good ol' days of the EBS.

You can search for "EBS False Alarms" on YouTube to hear some EBS broadcasts that were initially believed to be the real thing. It's very interesting. The one from 1971 is the most well-known I believe.