National Emergency Alert System Test Nov. 9

Anybody out there watch TV on Comcast? On DishTV? Or on broadcast? Or, for that matter, listen to the radio? If so, you may be in for some technical interruptions Wednesday.

According to an email message sent to customers by Comcast Customer Service, at 2 p.m. EST (11 a.m. PST) on Wednesday, Nov. 9, FEMA and the FCC will conduct the nation’s first ever Emergency Alert System test. The test is “to assess the readiness and effectiveness of the current system and identify incremental improvements to better serve our communities in the preservation of life and property,” according to the FEMA website.

This is similar to brief, but annoying, Emergency Alert System tests you hear on radio.

But this one is different, because it’s not just radio, but television this time. “All local, cable, and satellite TV stations across the country, as well as radio,” will be involved in the test, which will last “approximately three minutes.”

Which means that for the duration of  a pop song, every household, car and business in America–except for NOAA weather radio—will be pulsing, squawking, hissing and whistling a test message that begins with the ominous phrase, “This is a test.”

It turns out that this national test is necessary becomes several earlier regional tests or actual emergency alerts came up short. On Jan. 6, 2010, a test was broadcast across the state of Alaska which, although successful overall, revealed “several operational and technical issues were identified for mitigation.”

Similarly, on March 23 of this year, a test tsunami warning alert sent throughout the Caribbean “involved challenges with localized signal reception and audio quality of the message.”

Perhaps in anticipation of a less-than-successful test, Comcast sent subscribers a warning, telling users that while they will be returned to their regularly scheduled programs, there may be problems after all.

For one thing, if you’re using your DVR at the time, recordings too will be interrupted by the test, and may fail altogether.

For another, your cable box may need to be reprogrammed, either by tuning the channels up and down, or rebooting the box altogether by unplugging it, waiting 30 seconds and then plugging it in again.

Once you’ve done that, it may take up to 20 minutes to refresh the information in the channel guides and any video on demand services.

The FCC announced Nov. 4 that the duration of the test is being shortened from three minutes to 30 seconds, presumably to reduce public disruption.

But doing so compromises the point of the test, because 30 seconds is apparently not long enough to validate the “national code” that is being tested.

“So, with the test shortened, there's no way to really confirm that the code is working,” observes a blog on the  Emergency Management website.

Ah, well.