Emergency alert to be tested on US cellphones, TV and radio on Wednesday

I figured Los Angeles would be a prime target, but that everything would be OK because it had ALWAYS been OK except for the smog, and most of us have survived that too.

It's fortunate that we have all those unopened boxes of masks we bought a couple of years ago. And the hand sanitizer because the water delivery system(s) will be defunct.

No need to worry, Citizen, we're here to protect you.

I didn't forget -- I was curious. Mine also howled at 11:18 PDT.

I tapped the OK button, and didn't get any more alerts.

Why did you reboot? You may have shot yourself in the foot there. I read that if the alert doesn't reach your phone, the system keeps sending alerts for the full half hour. You kept getting alerts and I didn't, so perhaps the OK is necessary for the system to know that its alert has been received.

"Close enough for government work" is alive and well.

That seems short-sighted. Some of us leave the phone off but keep wifi on. I generally have both off, but I figure I'll know about anything I need to know about.

Good thinking. Hardly ever happens :-(

In my limited understanding, this was a test but it was not a "Test Alert". It fell in the category "National Alerts", and by law a phone cannot offer the option to turn those off.

"State and Local Tests" can be turned off, on my Android 13 Samsung A54, via Settings > Safety and Emergency.

Stan Brown <the_stan snipped-for-privacy@fastmail.fm wrote

Thanks for that information about the OK stopping the alert, where the open question is whether that OK sends information back to the mothership or not.

I suspect just sending the alerts isn't enough of a test, in that they have to gauge, somehow, what percentage of people didn't _receive_ those alerts.

As an example, let's say there is a county in a state where, oh, I don't know, there is terribly spotty signal due to the topography - or whatever.

In that specific area, let's say 1/4 of the residents received the alert. How would they know about the 3/4 of the people who did not get the alert?

They must be doing some kind of feedback loop. But what?

Scott Lurndal snipped-for-privacy@slp53.sl.home> wrote

Drat. I forgot about that. Now I have to dig a tunnel five feet into the hillside and hide there. I think the initial impacts can't go that deep.

They turned FMC (across from the SJC airport) into an office complex, complete with stadium and stores - so I think you're probably right.

Ahh. That makes sense. So they know who got it before they pressed the OK?

I can't imagine it would. What kind of infrastructure would tolerate

No, they don't have to be doing some kind of feedback loop.

The same mechanism used to ensure you see an SMS is used for the alerts.

The SMS successful return ping to the carrier is the feedback loop.

To answer the other question, "The test is conducted over a 30-minute window, although mobile phone owners should only get the message once. If their phones were turned off at

Not everyone did. As alerts went off during the briefing, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said: There you go ... it works, every couple of years, folks."

Scott Lurndal snipped-for-privacy@slp53.sl.home> wrote

What I found out though, was that if you do not hit the OK, you keep getting the alert (at least for the 30 minutes they set it to repeat).

Since the SMS part is already the return signal to the carrier, the OK part must just be the part that tells the local device that you got it.

Otherwise, why bother with the OK button (which clearly does something)?

I don't think MMS works when you're on Wi-Fi. Only SMS. And phone calls. And of course data.

But not MMS data. It's different.

Somehow.

Comes up empty.

This may be better.

It's not an SMS, it's a Cell Broadcast. Operators can presumably know how many phones are attached to their towers but they won't know how many can and do display the warning.

My wife and I got one of these while in a hotel in Italy last month. Two iPhones in a small room - very loud. We thought at first the fire alarms had gone off. I assume the locals had been warned.

We've had these alerts in Canada for a couple years or so.

When they go off it is loud and annoying. We cannot turn them off here.

Almost always an Amber alert for some town 200 km away.

I think I was in your neck of the woods last month. Went to Jamestown, Yorktown Battlefield, and the Norfolk Zoo. Got out before the attack.

I've been to that town. Springfield, I think. It's very dangerous.

The smog would mask the blast and even neutralize the radiation. That's why I always opposed smog reduction efforts.

No, it doesn't.

Just mark internally that you read the message, so it doesn't display again.