Why This Sound is Illegal to Play
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- čas přidán 10. 06. 2024
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"Conspiring to kill the president is a job best left to the government."
fair enough, still hillarious
The current Resident, notice I didn't say President is probably already gone. I heard its Jim Carrey in a mask.
@@brianroberts5740 No, it’s a Kardashian duh
The same gov't that shot Kennedy?
@Brian Roberts Yes, the current US president is a Canadian actor. You have discovered our carefully laid plan to finally take control of the US, as is our god-given right.
You guys are hilarious!
Haven't even watched it yet, but I know I'm getting my weekly dose of stock footage
🤣🤣
Amen to that!
Great comment btw!!!
Only thing that is always in stock.
Hahaha
I had to testify to an FCC investigator in college when I messed up an EAS test. I was trying to play the whole this is only a test message but the only thing that got broadcast was the attention signals. No context. Fortunately, I and the station got away with a slap on the wrist.
That's good that you only got a slap on the wrist. It's better to learn and do better, since your intention wasn't malicious.
How did they know who did it? It is still impossible today for the FCC or anyone for that matter to track radio signals. It is simply impossible, that's why I can be an illegal HAM radio operator and as long as I don't give away my location the FCC can't do anything. Also you cannot be arrrested for refusing to pay fines, the SCOTUS ruled unanimoustly on that about 10 years ago. I don't know when you were in college but as of now you cannot go to jail for refusing to pay any fine.
@@kylemichaels3373 I was the only person in the station, and this was well beyond 10 years ago.
@@kylemichaels3373they can definitely track you down, pretty easily. You just aren’t a big enough annoyance for them to do so. You’d be more likely to be turned in by the other HAM nerds
@@kylemichaels3373 Being an illegal ham operator isn't high on the government list of prosecution, unless you use your knowledge to cause damage to infrastructure, or harm people, which I refuse to reveal how.
As for not paying a fine to the FCC, it isn't the FCC fines that carry weight, it is the court fines that carry penalties for failure to pay.
But thinking the FCC can't track down a radio signal if they put their mind to it, think again, depending on the problem, they can give a person a call the same day they find the signal, as I had that happen one night when I was transmitting...
I used to work at a tv news station where one of the reporters put the tone in one of his packages on a tornado that hit in our coverage area. It was like a full-blown scandal. After it happened every single employee at the station had to send a written acknowledgement to the station vice president that we knew to never play the tones, and there signs posted in the newsroom about never playing it, and like once a month we got an email about "remember to NEVER to do this". Pretty wild stuff, honestly shocked the reporter didn't get fired.
If his employer had never told him, they'd not have good reason, but he probably should've known that. His schools fault too
Packages?
Yeah, more info about packages please
News packaging in journalism describes a news report for television that includes a narrative with video, the reporter on camera, and other people involved on camera (e.g., witnesses, experts, victims). News packaging describes longer stories that include a number of perspectives and people.
Part of the reason it's illegal to play that tone is because it can trigger other stations that are listening to start broadcasting the EAS signal too, causing a chain reaction.
let me guess - he left that part out
Plus it's really really unpleasant to the human ear. I've just heard it and my ears are still like, "Dude, wtf?! Don't ever do that again!"
@purple X don't click his link, it's a spam message advertising some religious cult.
This is only true with TV and radio. All other streaming services like youtube are safe.
@@donkmeister lmao the link has some muslim religous stuff not a "cult"
It’s perfectly legal to play on CZcams. There’s an entire community of people who make fake EAS scenarios like nuclear war with valid tones. The only rule is that you need to put a disclaimer to not play any tones over the radio or TV. Playing them would activate other real stations and could cause mass panic.
Sweet baby jesus 5.8k
Yep. It's only illegal to _broadcast._
and they're amazing
You can broad cast it digitally, that's why it is on CZcams
was just bout to comment this, because i like listening to those fake EAS scenarios. there was a few good scenarios thats been made in the last 4 years. one is named "EF6" and there is a few on harvesters youtube channel that are pretty good as well.
i think half as interesting should've clarified that you can play them on youtube, just gotta have a disclaimer up.
also stations usually don't listen to youtube videos, since they are not going over the air in terms of signals, but instead going though a smartphone or pc via internet data.
just what i was gonna say
Ahh, the sounds of my youth. I remember the speech quite well:
"This is a test of the Emergency Broadcast System. Stations in your area, in cooperation with the FCC and other authorities, have developed this system to keep you informed in the event of an emergency. If this had been an actual emergency, the attention signal you just heard would have been followed by news or other information. This concludes this test of the Emergency Broadcast System."
Youth? Hell, I heard that last month and am about to hear it again tomorrow. (1st Wednesday of the month, tornado siren/warnings testing time... wooohoo) Benefit of living in Tornado Alley.
I haven't heard that message in years. Probably because I no longer use a TV.
I do have the crap scared out of me every Wednesday when the tornado siren goes off though. Then I feel like an idiot when I remember it's just Wednesday.
Occasionally my phone likes to scare me too because I have the amber alert type warning set to sound.
I kept wondering “but what does the attention signal sound like”
Ah, April. It sounds like April
I still hear it on the regular radio while I'm at work. They still test the system. As long as they don't start sending it to our phones in a test!
I like how you mentioned desensitization to the alert, which is actually very serious, especially if you watch EAS scenario videos all the time.
I am one of those. Idk what it is, but the tones give me the good chills down my spine. I have only ever heard them irl ONCE because I never really watched much TV and my area only gets storms bad enough to trigger it very rarely. In fact, my favorite video on this site is "Don't look up EAS scenario LOCAL58". Try watching that sucker in VR in Bigscreen Fullscreen in a quiet room and you'll go insane.
I thought this being so illegal was absurd until the Geico ad scenario was brought up. Lots of radio ads are disguised as breaking news or weather reports, so they would 100% do this if they could.
Car dealerships seem to be the worst about it. I would have qualified that with "in my area," but even when I travel well outside my area, it still happens.
Guess the used car salesman stereotype is true.
Yeah, I wish sirens would be illegal in ads...I *hate* that.
Most “news” is just ads disguised as news called native ads.
Think of all the times a commercial either starts with or features the chirping buzz of an alarm clock - even at 4 in the afternoon.
Don't forget all those mass-mailings disguised as bills, because they absolutely are hoping people will be tricked into just straight-up sending them money for nothing.
Oh, THAT sound. If you live anywhere that frequently frequently has (or had) tornados then you'll recognize that eerie sound. I find the sound more unpleasant from the associated memories than I do the actual tones. It's pretty easy to search "attention sound EAS sample" and find it.
Right! I know this sound all too well. There was a tornado just 5 minutes away from me a couple hours ago.
@@a-r glad you’re still here even though I don’t know you. I live in Kansas. Tornado seasons approaching.
Ughhh that sound terrified me as a child. I still get a shiver down my spine hearing it
I was a bit surprised that some people hadn't heard it. Comes on at least a couple times a year where I'm from, sometimes way more.
We hear that sound a few times a year, living in tornado country. It's scary when you're working or watching TV, and that comes up. Makes me jump.
The SAME Header sound may be the most terrifying sound ever. I remember waking up to it when my mom was driving us through Dayton OH where there was a tornado warning a few years back. I know it’s important to make sure people are alerted, but that sound is a great way to get people to panic.
well it is information so it's not like they made it sound like that intentionally
When he made that nuke tsunami joke a producer at SyFy was like “write that down, write that down!”
Sharknado ???: sharknado meets nuknami!
The EAS tone when it’s tested on TV is always jolting and a little unnerving
@purple X nobody cares
It reminds me of the one Vsauce video where he showed what one of the emergency alerts would be if America was getting nuked
Good, then it's working as intended.
Have a nice day and I hope we don't hear the EAS tone any time soon.
Wait till you listen to the Canadian one shits spooky
it’s weird that i kinda like the sound isn’t it
like if i hear it while i’m watching tv it’s unnerving, but if i just listen to it im like “sick dual-tone”
A note:
The SAME header is actually more illegal than the attention signal. The attention signal is just a tone; still protected on air. The SAME header, however, if played over the air, can activate the Emergency Alert System, and that's what makes it illegal. It's only illegal if you cause damage with it.
The SAME tones are the entire alert, minus any human understandable content (voice, etc). They contain the type of alert, areas involved, and the duration of the alert. They're broadcast three times and the receiving equipment must be able to decode two of them in order to count it as a reception. That way an AM station transmitting the tones during a thunder storm can have one mangled by the electrical impulse of a lightning blast, but two make it by.
It's a horribly flawed system that works, as shown by the multiple nation wide tests over the past few years.
Yep, and he totally could have played it in this video.
Is this possibly what happened in Hawaii with the missle threat alert, a while back?
good so im not dead right?
There have been cases where the EAS header was played on the air and activated the EAS at other TV and radio stations. The stations that played it were heavily fined. You would think it would be encrypted and only trigger the EAS if it was received within a certain time frame.
its actually the SAME HEADER that’s illegal to play on live air. Not the attention signal. The SAME header contains important information and can trigger EAS equipment if the station that broadcasted that header was specifically being monitored by that said EAS equipment.
Here's what Sam didn't mention:
A. Correction to 4:00 - these two tones are played for television broadcasts. Radio broadcasts over NOAA NWS weather radio frequencies use a 1050hz activation tone. Also, it's called an activation tone because it activates consumer and federal recievers. The activation tone plays for 10 seconds on NOAA weather radio frequencies.
2. SAME is an acronym for Specific Area Message Encoding. Generally each county is given a SAME code. (I'll speak on NOAA Weather Radio terms because that's easier to understand.) When the Weather Forecast Office issues a product - warning, watch, advisory, forecast, discussion, etc. - the message is broadcast over the internet with SAME codes. These codes line up with the areas that the product covers. When a product requires EAS activation, the NOAA Weather Radio transmitters look for the SAME codes. If their broadcast region includes the counties with those SAME codes, it interrupts the broadcast to play the emergency message. Other U.S. government agencies can issue EAS products to specific areas and even the whole country, which would mean ALL the SAME codes included on a messsge.
III. How does an EAS activation actually work? Consumer weather radios listen for both the leading tones and activation tone (as well as ending tones) before EAS activation status begins. BOTH ARE IMPORTANT! While they do grab human attention, the activation tone is mainly for the computer in a reciever to confirm it is recieving an EAS product and take appropriate action: sound a siren, broadcast on another frequency, or activate an alarm if it's a consumer radio. The leading tones are indended to distinguish an EAS broadcast from a superfluous activation tone, since other radio channels might broadcast these tones and may accidentally bleed into the NOAA frequencies. I have heard EAS broadcasts where the leading tones were not played (back when the new Paul voice was introduced to NWS radio) but only during bands of thunderstorms when multiple EAS activations were issued in a short time frame. Sometimes the computer doesn't seem to get it all right!
One note. Under CONELRAD the radio stations didn't actually switch frequency. The antennas and transmitters are tuned to a specific frequency, and can't easily change that. What did happen was that everything but the 1240 and 640 stations would go dark. The 640 and 1240 stations would alternate in a sort of chain, only staying live for a few minutes at a time. The idea was to keep enemy missiles or bombers from being able to use these stations as fixed navigation aids. Early AM radios actually have little civil defense triangles at 640 and 1240 to make it easy for users to switch back and forth as the stations switched on and off.
I worked at a 1240 "relay key" station in the 70's before EAS took over. At that time, EBS had replaced CONELRAD. We had a red phone with no dial mechanism, and a red folder in the DJ booth. Occasionally the red phone would ring, and we'd answer. The person on the other end would give us a code (just like you see in the movies) and we'd open the appropriate envelope and read a code back to him. Once authenticated, we'd run an Emergency Broadcast System (EBS) test, which was basically playing those tones for 10 long seconds, followed by the standard script, then back to programming.
There were actually two different scripts. One was for the 640 and 1240 stations, and said, (quoted as close as I can from memory) "If this had been an actual emergency, this station would carry instructions and information on what you should do". For non-CONELRAD stations, the script instead said, "if this had been an actual emergency, you would have been instructed where to tune for further instructions.
Fun fact, the folder also included a sealed envelope with very specific instructions to never open that except as instructed during a national emergency. That envelope contained instructions on what to tell people and what to do, and even had helpful advice on how to permanently disable the station in the event that it was about to fall into enemy control. (yeah, we read one)
The way the new EAS works is basically a cascade system. in Atlanta WSB radio and TV is the primary station. So they get the message to send an alert. They activate the EAS system. Other stations are actually monitoring WSB's radio frequency. The two sounds at the start (we call them duck farts) are the Specific Message Area Encoder" information that tells the receivers what areas are included. If your station is included, the EAS system will open the audio and either play the WSB signal for the DJ, or if your station is automated, take over the signal and rebroadcast the WSB audio. And so on down the line.
Thanks for sharing, very interesting
I occasionally read through the Wikipedia page on EAS and the SAME tech. The whole thing is simultaneously fascinating and scary. It’s interesting (and probably a good thing) that the EAS has never really had to be used for a worst-case scenario-especially since word travels so fast on social media. The Hawaii false alarm incident shows how powerful that system is.
Thanks for the in-depth explanation. Definitely helps me to better understand how they work.
@@antiseth3964 the S.A.M.E. Wikipedia page is pretty interesting. Fun fact: there’s also a section for when it has been used incorrectly, as this video talks about. The FCC will *really* not play around, for good reason.
Interesting note related to your comment on being provided instructions on how to permanently disable the broadcasting station: the US armed forces provided instructions for how to permanently disable the Hammond organs used for religious services should the bases or camps using them need to be abandoned.
The term you’re looking for is called “alarm fatigue”. They don’t want people to get used to the tones because alarm fatigue is a very real thing.
The other term you’re looking for to describe how bad it sounds is “discordant”. Two tones producing a harsh sound due to lack of harmony.
This concept also applies to icons/symbols used to convey health hazards and potential death such as biohazards and radiation. They’re going to have to be updated eventually. Also they’ll need to be updated more “frequently” than sounds I assume since images are more accessible and seen more often than these sounds can be accessed and heard
Yep! As a kid, if I woke up to our smoke alarm going off, I'd just think "oh, dad's burned the toast again", and go back to sleep!
@@welshgit My dorm was notorious for waking us up for drills and accidental alarms. People would burn popcorn constantly or fail at covering their vape or shower steam from the alarms. It took one month for us to nearly not get up and be in trouble for not showing up in the lot outside. It also took the entirety of the dorm to file out of the building like 10 minutes more than I'd imagine would be ideal for a damn FIRE. Guys started sleeping through it.
@@0Rookie0 Oh geeeze. I can imagine. When I was a student, the dorms had a basic fire alarm with activation buttons - no smoke alarms in the kitchens or bedrooms. If there had been, they'd have been going off all the time too!
It is called ....''Dissonant Tones''..........................
Yeah I remember that tone from periodic EBS test messages broadcast by radio stations way back when. I also remember the weekly air raid siren tests, every Tuesday at noon, that’s how many of us used to set our clocks. In San Francisco grade schools we would have periodic combined earthquake/ air raid drills, where we had to get away from windows and dive under desks.
😸🤠😂! Ah yes. Those fond memories of hiding under our desks looking at each other saying "This isnt going to do _ANYTHING_ to save us from nuclear radiation. They must _REALLY_ think were dumb!"
US Duck & Cover Drills
1955-1980
It's not just "unpleasant to the human ear" to get your attention. It's also because that makes it much much less likely to be a sound which would ever happen to occur in any other contexts (music, etc), which could cause false-alarms, etc.
If you're playing that sound, it's pretty much guaranteed it's only because you intended it to be (or at least sound like) an EAS broadcast.
Even more so with mobile phones as it is almost impossible under normal circumstances for several devices to go off at the same time with that sound
I used to think we lived in the worst timeline until you mentioned the theoretical Geico car insurance emergency commercial.
Because corporations _absolutely_ would do that.
Will* Give them time to changes the laws again.
Ah yes, capitalism at it’s finest
I thought this law was absurd until he pointed that out - I hear quite a few ads on the radio disguised as breaking news or weather reports, so there's no doubt they would do this if they could.
Yeah, I think the government made the right call on that one.
Under the Australian Commercial Radio and TV codes of practice, "Advertisements broadcast by a licensee must:
(a) not be presented as news programs or other programs;"
I couldn't tell you how often an advertiser (or a station advertising salesman) has asked me to "use a news theme to get attention".
I took great delight in pulling out the codes of practice and telling them to sod off!
Fun fact: Local broadcasting stations are required to perform routine (weekly and monthly) tests of this system. The header used during tests specifically encodes that it is just a test, and any accompanying audio message similarly identifies that it is a test.
It's also used as basically *the* AMBER Alert sound today!
>. The header used during tests specifically encodes that it is just a test, and any accompanying audio message similarly identifies that it is a test.
* makes an EAS alert using valid test tones, but the TTS portion describes nuclear war from the DPRK
this comment is purely fictional
i remember that header!..they don't use it here anymore, just the tones...it was slowly downgraded from **incredibly Loud irritating beeping sound** THIS is just a test of the national emergency broadcast system. if it were an actual emergency you would be directed to your local emergency location. This is just a test....to that Blasting beep then : This is Just a test of the national broadcasting system....then to just: This is just a test.**BEEEpEEEEpEEPPP**...& recently...no words..just that infernal beeping.
"I broke 8 of the US' weirdest laws" doesn't sound like something you'd wanna say on a public video website
I used two tone generators in two tabs in my browser to play the two tones simultaneously and they sound exactly like Apple's NL-Alert tone. In The Netherlands, we have a system called - you guessed it - NL-Alert that the government can use to alert citizens in certain areas for upcoming extreme weather, power outages, large fires with toxic smoke, a murderer on the loose, etc. They test this twice a year and all phones receiving this alert go on high volume and you can hear this sound all over the city since all 'connected' devices play this sound as loud as they can. This sound is unmistakably weird, penetrating and loud, even if you play it at a low volume.
By the way: my sound processor (Stereo Tool) goes berserk after having played this sound for more than ten seconds. It jumps up and down and starts sounding like some kind of digital jumping. After a while, it doesn't sound like the original sound at all anymore. I've played around with other frequencies and I've not found a combination that does this. Weird but intersting!
"Young Sheldon" is on CBS.
A radio station in Las Vegas played the SAME Tones 3 seperate times, within the span of a day, for a bit on a talk show in 2021 and got fined $20,000. The talk show host that knowingly aired the clip that contained the tones (after being told by a board op that it was illegal to do so) was also fined $20,000.
Nice
it depends where you are.
@hainesnoids In the US, that sound is regulated by the FCC. No station can air it outside of Emergency Alert System broadcasts and broadcasts from state Emergency Services (ie: Amber alerts, Senior/Silver alerts, etc.).
The SAME header contains information that other stations are listening to, so if you broadcast valid same headers it can start a chain reaction of literally every TV show and radio station and even mobile device in possibly the entire world to activate EAS. The attention tone, however just gets your attention and won’t trigger anything.
"Back when everyone was concerned that Russia was gonna start a war for no reason."
Wow, so glad we're no longer afraid of that 😐
...yeaaaahhhhhhh
So uh... About that.
There's always reasons, how about you spend an hour to learn about them.
Well, we can't be concerned about to start a war, if the war already started!
@@steve1978ger wooosh.
Since I get a few of those sounds by them conducting a "test" of the system every week, my immediate response is to change the channel.
It sounds like that one case from Ace Attorney Chronicles where Ryuunosuke Naruhodo needs to play a music box with encoded government information to the jury for the acquittal of his client.
i see you too have the power to find insanely weird ways to relate things to ace attorney
Are emergency siren noises allowed? I swear I've heard them in both ads and songs on the radio. Seems those should be protected as well.
i think sirens are fair game because if you were hearing them in real life around you locally you’d be well aware of it. part of the EAS noises contain data i believe, and even the dual-tone can potentially trigger other radio stations playing it.
Any business that has the gall to use police sirens in their radio ads automatically gets boycotted by me.
@@SatoshiAR agree on that one. i was more thinking air raid sirens. if i heard one at radio volume, i would just assume it was part of an ad or something
Yeah pretty annoying to hear them in songs
@@ExperimentIV I've heard the air raid siren so many times that my reaction would just be to think it is noon. It wouldn't cause me to think about seeking shelter or anything it was designed to do.
After being terrorized in a car by a tornado as a kid that EAS tone on the TV would send me into hysterics. Sounds definitely connect to memories .
What's with the 15 star (?) flag at 1:05 ? Random movie footage with cars but from before 1818?
If you want to hear the attention signal its basically the noise your phone makes when you get a weather warning notification. Just checked on wiki and my hair stood up. That is a horrible sound to hear for reasons 🤣
It is, indeed, that sound. Though both took it from the Emergency Broadcast System, which the EAS replaced in 1997.
It's meant that way. FEMA specifically chose it to be the most annoying tone they could come up with, because, well, it's supposed to get your attention.
Is it like the amber alert sounds? (i always shit my pants listeninsg to it)
@@edwardclark6731 That's the tone
Being from the midwest, that is the last sound I want to hear coming out of my weather radio in the middle of the night.
When I saw "why this sound is illegal to play" as the title, I knew it was going to be about the EAS
This is really funny. Thanks for incorporating humor for those of us who don't laugh as often as we should.
So it’s that lovely sound that woke me up at 4:30 in the morning from my phone going off at full volume because they needed to test it
Fun fact: your smartphone can play this sound as well, scared the shit out of me several times last year when my area had an unusually high number of AMBER alerts
@qwqqewwqeqweqew I only get the non custodial parent alarm at like 3am. Well seeing as how I *was* sleeping, no Karen I haven't seen your ex's car and I ain't going looking and by the morning I'll have forgotten all about it. And what makes me mad is the report is from like 5 pm but they didn't run it until the middle of the night
Not only the tone, but it seems to blare at max loudness as well regardless of your current phone setting. Three times I've been in grocery stores when this alert system went off. Scariest seconds of my life as EVERY phone goes off at once. Hundreds of them all across the store suddenly activating in unison make it seem like the world is ending, good lord!
Went off at 4 once it can also force it to vibrate (probably the system handling like a phone call) possibly explaining why modern phones may still have fm chips
I don't live in the US, but the first time I heard the sound was while playing CoD MW2 that has one of the missions play that sound. Fast foward a few years and I was with my family on Florida on vacation and immediately recognized the sound on the radio, I told everyone to listlen, it turned out to be a severe weather alert.
For once CoD of duty did something good for being edgy
That portion of the alert tone that you did play is something I will always despise, because it is used for weather alerts. My stepfather had a weather alert radio setup in our home growing up, and I always hated when it came on during the night to inform us of weather that was "near" us but wasn't actually near us. To double dip in my hatred of it, we have one of those radios as well at the hospital I work at, and on nights when it goes off, it goes off a lot, and we can't silence it until the human message comes across that tells us what counties the alert is actually for to know whether we have to call out a weather warning to the hospital on the whole, so we have to sit through the whole thing quite a lot.
Let's not forget that Siren Head (a creepy-pasta horror) plays the EAS alert tones while stalking prey or wandering, though I don't recommend entering that rabbit hole unless you're ready for some spooky nightmares.
Learn something new everyday. I just took a look at the instructions for an old Motorola radio I've got and sure enough it describes the CONELRAD civil defense markings on the dial. Haven't heard the two-tone attention signal in so long, I'd forgotten what it sounded like - the sound of my youth. I can't quite recall the sirens on the firestation I assumed were also part of the emergency alert system.
Are you serious? I hear it multiple times/year where I live.
Not to mention that channels do the tests ALLLLLL the time.
"...a silly antiquated age when everyone was worried that Russia was just gonna start a war out of nowhere for no reason..."
yup, that's it
Every war has a reason. Not a justifiable one, but a reason nonetheless
There's a reason, it's just a really bad one.
@@ileutur6863 The night Putin went crazy... Way down in the workshop he got tired of making noise.... Something must have snapped in his brain!!!... He thought he was getting a raw deal... The nigh he went nuts.... The night Putin went crazy... Something must have snapped in his brain.😦😲😵😵💫
@@MidoriOfTheShuinsen But USSR didn't want war same as US?
@@aluminium5738 ...I was talking about current events, but to clarify, yes and no.
The tone is 100% legal to play on youtube, its only illegal to broadcast on am/fm radio or tv
1:24 Caligon is, in fact, a real state, and I've been lied to by and by about it. Thanks, Half as Interesting!
When I went on Wikipedia to look up the sound, it only took me half a second before I realized I've heard this sound many times before. I had only ever heard it when I had gotten Amber Alerts on my phone, which surprisingly happens around where I live more than one would expect. I hadn't heard it used for any other kind of alert though, but I can see why that particular tone was chosen. No matter how many times I've heard it, it's still completely jarring and grabs my attention right away. It's a totally unpleasant sound, and I'd say it's nearly impossible to ignore.
Yep.
Same. Used for typhoon alerts in our area
That's actually a side effect of being easy to isolate for electronics and unlikely to occur incidentally. A very useful side effect, admittedly.
@@sarafinasummers7863 Yup. It's the exact same one used on all Android and Google phones as well. It's good that they use a universal tone to grab people's attention, rather than a different tone for each type of alert.
Can you send the Wikipedia page?
As a meteorology student and avid storm chaser that sound is amazing to hear. It means I did something right and I'm in the right spot to see storms. It probably doesn't have the "bite" it's supposed to for me though. I'm definitely not as sensitive to it anymore
In the midwest you don't even have to be a storm chaser to be desensitized. Lol. I'm a storm chaser, but my mom isn't and is still very desensitized to these tones and outdoor warning sirens.
0:55
this aged so poorly that the reason it aged poorly happened before the video came out
#doyouknowwhatsarcasamis
Correction: 5:19 Young Sheldon is on CBS, not NBC.
I absolutely hate this emergency sound, it gives me goosebumps immediately
I don't like the attention signal, but I think the SAME-encoding sound is much worse.
I cringe with I hear the SAME-encoded sound, where I simply shout "Who's kid got abducted" when I hear the attention tones (I hear those attention tones on my cell phone when an Amber alert is active...shame it never warns me of any impending severe weather).
That's what it's designed to do, get our attention and tell us all hell is about to break loose.
2:33 I love how the people just start celebrating once all of the screens change to the EAS logo
You don't have to break the sound barrier to make a sonic boom.
Yes you do
@@COSMIC_SECRET so the whip breaks the sound barrier?
1:33 absolute f for my boy Oregon who just got annexed by california
"When everyone was worried that Russia was just gonna start a war out of nowhere for no reason"
That sounds familiar
Yeah, never gonna happen ... Oops !
Yeah. It only took the dissolution of the Soviet Union and 30 more years for the unlikely to become a reality.
democrats have brought back
the 1912 plague
the 1920s recession
the cold war
all at once!
That's the joke.png
@@sarafinasummers7863 yes
My phone has played this sound you won’t play before, back when BT was messing up some emergency broadcast tests. And I’m in the UK.
And how do you know it’s the same sound
@@raikou25 It's an international standard sound. Not illegal to play it in the UK though. UK system is purely phone based.
Can confirm, it is the same sound.
@@raikou25 I looked up the sound on other CZcams channels, checking it was the correct combination of pitches mentioned. Not all of CZcams is subject to the same legal restrictions as HAI. And it’s a very… memorable combination of tones. Does exactly the job it’s supposed to. It was extremely alarming even when I hadn’t heard of it.
@@raikou25 the ones on Phones use the sound from the US ones
I got an Amber alert right at 0:37 and thought you illegally played EAS tones 😅😂
*LMFAO-*
Goddamnit now my anxiety is peaking because after the two tones my brain automatically put the final tone in and honestly i get legitimately so paranoid with that alert istg
I didn't go to Wikipedia to hear the sound. I just synthesised it in Audacity instead. After all, you DID give us all the necessary information to do so...
For those who don't wanna read too much: SAME headers are even more of a problem than the attention tone!
*Disclaimer: I am not a licensed radio technician, and this information is only as good as my understanding of the subject. The equipment I mention is part of a hobbyist collection and does not broadcast to a radio station.*
The funny thing is that I own equipment that powers the Emergency Alert System. Granted, the equipment is not compliant with the current FCC guidelines, but it has the same core functionality. It's just as illegal (if not, more illegal) to broadcast SAME headers as it is the attention tone, as those can actually trigger alert equipment depending on how the station has theirs set up, and god forbid if someone transmits the EAN code mentioned in this video, as all of the EAS equipment will retransmit the alert regardless of what time and what location it was encoded for. This is according to the settings on both of my EAS encoder/decoders, though, and may be different for others. I should mention that one of my units does have an indicator for when an attention tone is being received, but it doesn't generate any alerts or log it to my computer. And yes, I'm well aware there are several comments like this already.
i literally prefer this explanation over the entire video itself lmao
Cool.
Also cool you're a protogen, one of the best species.
ok toaster
Not a subscriber, just stumbled across this video. But I am a big fan of Jet Lag. Didn't even realize it was Sam Denby talking until he actually appeared onscreen near the end of the video.
@2:07 that's how I feel every day when I have to deal with idiots that don't know how to use a computer.
“WE PLAYED THIS SOUND AND ALMOST DIED (OMG!) (100% REAL) 🔊☠️❌”
- CZcams creators be like
The interval between those two frequencies is roughly 4.6 cents sharp of an equal-tempered major second.
Weirdly, it's even close to a purely tuned 9:8 major second, i.e. within a single cent. Weirdly, if they had gone with 963 Hz vs. 856 Hz, they would have had an exactly pure major second.
*closer
This is why I both envy and pity those who have perfect pitch.
Desensitisation is the exact reason why most Australians haven't heard the SEWS (EAS for Aussies).
It is heavily regulated, and is only to be played for actual emergencies. It isn't used for amber alerts, minor flooding or a pretty bad thunderstorm 100km away. It's really only used for cyclones and bushfires, because people in the US are already desensitised to the EAS tone.
I'm from Maryland and I love that one of the reccuring stock footages is of Baltimore
0:46 that moment when immediate realization that this vid's about eas
0:23 the CIA approves this message, JFK does not
I used the tone as an alarm clock tone during exam week.
Very effective
For anyone wondering what the two-tone sound is, it's right here
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Emergency_Alert_System_Attention_Signal_20s.ogg
Found my new alarm clock noise.
@@PsRohrbaugh Probably a bad idea. If you are woken by an actual alert, it is possible to disregard it and end up getting tornadoed on or whatever.
Personally, I just use a recording of an early 90s alarm clock.
They use that sound here in the Netherlands on mobile phones for emergencies however it's not a continues version but a always in bursts of about 2 seconds then 1 second noting and back to 2 seconds and continuing for a wile.
@@user2C47 Man, my leather jacket is from the early '90s (got it second hand three years ago from a coworker for $30). ツ
I know what the early '90s alarm clocks are also, those brown rectangles found in cheap hotels with red digital numbers that have a loud grating beeping noise.
@@user2C47 Most people disregard tornado sirens and tornado warnings anyway. Correction, most people would grab their cameras or sit on their porches to watch for the tornados.
Both the SAME header and the second sound come over my weather radio whenever there is a severe storm warning.
As a severe weather "enthusiast" and certified storm spotter down here in Dixie Alley, I hear these EAS tones a lot in the Spring and even in the Fall and Winter. I have the sounds downloaded to my phone and use them as alert tones for some of the weather apps I use because of how unmistakable and obnoxious they are.
Now this is stuck in my head:
"This is a test of the Emergency Broadcast System. The broadcasters in your area, in cooperation with the FCC and other authorities, have developed this system in the event of an emergency. If this had been an actual emergency ... you'd already be screwed. But again, this is only a test."
Yup, that was my childhood. I don't know why Sam said that system didn't work - the tests worked fine all the time! 🤣
Yeah, and I swear it seems like someone is running a "weekly test" almost every day!
Actual "test" results.
My father, who has good hearing, frequently falls asleep to these sounds.
Easiest way to wake him,
is to turn off the tones.
Bruh I was reading the comments, and i realized: "I probably shouldn't be reading this comment section at 10:30 pm
It is illegal and punishable to say these phrases together in this order... *proceeds to recite phrase verbatim... ...Waits quietly still for knock at door... ... did you guys hear that?... Shhh... i think there's something out there... I'm gonna go check, *sneakily Crosses floor... 💥BLASTS SHIN ON SMALL TABLE... PROCEEDS YELLING & SWEARING AT THE TOP OF HIS LUNGS...
0:53 That aged well :D
Interestingly, on smartphones today you will get that tone with an emergency alert notification. You don't get the "fax machine noise", but just the disharmonous sine waves that are for getting your attention. There's no point in playing the fax noises on a smart phone (as far as I know).
@AccessMemory That's because you *HAVE*. Mine does. Exact Implementation depends on several factors. Including Manufacturer, Hardware and especially Software+Version; just to name a few.
As far as I can recall, I'd always get the "fax machine noises" on my phone...It's been a while since I've heard an alert though, since I've turned off AMBER alerts and we don't get severe weather.
I’ll bet every American heard the sound in their head before you had to describe it… it’s in our DNA 😂
hear it at least multiple times a week. just waiting for a real MAJOR EMERGENCY and almost everyone to ignore it because of the excessive frequency of tests
At first, when he mentioned the Cold War, I thought it was the tone to activate sleeper agents...
@@OnyxEclypse It probably is.
I commented what it was talking about before the part where he mentioned it
This sound is actually not illegal to be on CZcams contrary to many people here saying. It is illegal on radio and TV since if broadcasted, the other stations will also pick it up, triggering a mass panic situation. But very interesting information, Thank you.
huh, the encoded header does a much better job of grabbing my attention and carrying the ascribed meaning of "emergency alert" than the attention signal does for me
You forgot to mention yelling, Fire!, in a crowded theater, bar, club etc. You can be charged with homicide in some states if someone gets crushed in the rush for the exits.
Google: Italian Hall disaster
On Christmas Eve 1913 someone yelled "Fire" during a party for miner's families; 73 men, women, and children were crushed to death. The miners were on strike at the time and had been for 5 months. There is reason to think that a man who was part of a group created by the mine owners to oppose the strike raised the cry. There was no fire.
So, this is not a theoretical situation.
Oh, and the SCOTUS ruling only says "theatre", not a crowded theatre.
I grew up to this sound actually. I lived in MS so every spring and fall (tornado season), my PBS kids would be disrupted by the EAS tone
The tv ones are the worst
The crack of a whip comes from the tip breaking the speed of sound
This was far more facinating of a subject than i thought it was going to be
I am old enough to associate "that sound" with the possibility of nuclear war. In school, we had nuclear bomb drills where we would huddle under our desks to protect us from the exploding window glass, because that would actually work.
A few years later, the same drill was instead taught as "tornado preparedness" and people were distracted by lining up for gasoline according to the last number on their license plate (one day odd, the next day even, I forget what it meant is you had no numbers on your plate - odd or even?).
Living near Arkansas/Oklahoma state line, I hear this test sound quite often... the only time it really bothered me was in April 1996, after the tornado had passed over 10 minutes earlier.
They were a little slow calling that one!
Back in the days of CONELRAD or early EBS with a 1 kHz +/- 50 Hz tone (playable from cart on tape), or late EBS or early EAS with 853.0 and 960.0 Hz equal amplitude tones and +/- 0.5 Hz tolerances, 47 CFR 73 tech standards defined requirements for tones and for detectors (wider frequency tolerance), but they never defined exactly how different a signal would need to be to sound the same to humans, but not be that alert tone as defined in FCC regulations with legally restricted use.
National security? The number of actual alerts to bend over and watch for your town to vaporize in the combined histories of all 3 sets of acronyms, precisely zero. Predator politicians need their illusions of security theater, a disgusting absurdity.
My understanding of this is that this interval is called a just second. It’s slightly different to playing 2 white keys on the piano that are next to each other. Since we are all so used to equal temperament (how pianos are tuned) it makes the alert tone sound weird.
it is easily one of my least favorite sounds of all time. it genuinely brings up childhood trauma of extreme storms in my hometown. makes my spine shiver
I heard it all the time for severe thunderstorms on TV or radio. "Eeeeehhh! Eeeeehhh!" and then "BOOOOOOP!" I wonder if THAT is the illegal to use tone he's talking about. "The National Weather Service has issued a severe thunderstorm warning..."
Found this interesting as a commerical played this recently and I was amazed it was legal. They probably got a bit screwed for it.
And it's the same tone cellular providers use for wireless emergency alerting. Having a room full of phones go off with that tone is downright terrifying.
well generating tones just a few cycles off and mixing them would be legal. and would serve a similar general idea of the sound. the proof it is different is that the recording could be fed to a spectral analyzer and it will display the two center frequences, which would be slightly different.
As someone that works at a terrestrial television broadcaster, I know these sounds, and the rules behind them, very well
When you've heard it enough to already know exactly what it sounds like
Nice profile picture
@@ionic7777 i might be mistaken, but pretty sure it's Nolegs, from Epic Battle Fantasy
hear it no less than once a week. getting old... wonder how many people will ignore a real broadcast when the time comes...
The rule is for RF broadcasting, so you would be fine playing it here *in context* and prefaced/followed by explanation that it’s a demonstration
Watching this before a eas alarm test
That sound is also used in the Netherlands for the NL Alert system. I uses cell towers to send a sort of SMS message to all phones connected to that tower, to warn people for problems/troubles/emergancies. The phones will play that exact sound when they receive a message. They test the system twice a year on the first monday of a month at noon. And if you are in range of multiple towers, you get the message and the sound multiple times!
Hear that initial burst once a week when they do the scheduled test for the EAS because there is a nuke power station a few miles away. Always makes the heart skip a beat until they say it is a test.
I seem to notice the noise the most when the weather is bad and assume they are about to say things will get worse.
Every station nationwide performs weekly tests.
@@williamfeely6264 EAS is activated for many weather warnings, for example tornado warnings, and some flash flood and severe thunderstorm warnings (but only if impacts are expected to be "considerable" or "catastrophic"). So kinda, yeah, they do say things will get worse or are getting worse.
As an Australian Radio Announcer (Community Broadcaster) I have been one who has had to play the 'Standard Emergency Warning Signal (SEWS)' to air during a cyclone event, we are taught to read the alert text from start to finish with no emphasis on any part at all and no commentary. That way no matter which radio station the listener is tuned to, the alert has exactly the same information in it.
That sound freaks me out even though ive never heard it for my area it just gets me on edge
"This sound is illegal to play"
Every analog horror channel:
"I'm gonna pretend I didn't see that"
Local58
Its only the second part where it goes slightly longer
I love how he mixes interesting stories with some really funny humor.
The only time it would ever cause a problem is if you happened to cause a mass panic because people think a fake announcement is real-OR you happen to work for the station in your area that all other stations are monitoring. I used to work in college radio and the EAS thing was locked onto one channel, and the only dial we were permitted to touch was the volume, because the thing had a little speaker in it if you wanted to hear that station. It was in our on-air studio, so that was always kept inaudible unless someone was getting the tour.
I don’t know why they haven’t switched to some sort of networked solution with this old tech on backup, but we have phones that do this shit now, so it’s much less essential because almost nobody listens to radio anymore.
As someone who lives in Tornado Alley (Midwest USA) I know exactly what two tone sound he is talking about, I can play it from memory. In 2012 a local town from me was completely leveled due to a tornado and to say the least my these sounds get my heart rate going...