On January 6, 2010, the state of Alaska used its state relay system to initiate a test of the Emergency Alert System using an EAS code never before tested on a wide-scale basis – a legitimate EAN, or emergency action notification.  An EAN event would typically be authorized by the president and initiated by FEMA, and is the only event which substantially differs in use from other EAS event codes.  The EAN message propagates throughout the entire nation and its territories via the PEP (primary entry point) stations.  Each state would receive the EAN and propagate the message through their respective state warning systems.

This live EAN test was initiated primarily due to the confusion resulting from an IEMA test, which accidentally activated the EAS system in Illinois in 2007.  Data retrieved from this accidental activation shows  that the EAN activation, reserved for a nationwide alert, did not occur as expected by EAS engineers.  Some EAS encoder/decoders took their respective television stations off the air, while other encoder/decoders simply logged the event and did not respond to, or forward the EAN.  After much debate, FEMA decided to initiate a real-time live test of the system.  Alaska was chosen for the test because of its remote location and its proven ability to initiate legitimate and test-scenario Amber alerts and tsunami warnings.

The EAN test was initated at approximately 10:00 AM on January 6th, and lasted approximately 3 minutes and 20 seconds.  The duration of the message was deliberately designed to be longer than a standard EAS message because the length of an EAN is unlimited.  Therefore, the audio from an EAN is patched directly to the output of the EAS decoder and it plays live for the entire message duration.  Using forensic tracking methods, FEMA noted several incidents of EAS encoder/decoder misfires.  Some encoder/decoders attempted to replay the first two minutes of recorded audio to systems which had initially ignored the EAN because the EAS header message was improperly formatted, or was not formatted as expected.

A substantial amount of information was retrieved regarding the strengths and weaknesses of the national alerting system.  As a result of the Alaska EAN test, the FCC initiated a Second Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on January 12, 2010.  This SFNPR is primarily derived from the Alaskan EAN test, and focuses on methodology necessary to improve the EAS system.