There is one very critical service the Federal Government does and does well. Its the National Weather Service known as NWS
24/7 - 365 They maintain VHF Radio Transmitters which signal and turn on Emergency Weather Radios
Across the country.
These Radios are vital to warn of impending Severe Weather Conditions such as Tornadoes and Severe Thunder Storms etc.
The Pittsburgh Pa and surrounding County's and parts of WV and Ohio
Went out of service on April 12, 2022 due to Verizon discontinuing private in band phone lines service
742 NOUS41 KPBZ 121923 PNSPBZ OHZ041-PAZ013-014-020>023-029-031-073>076-WVZ001>004-130730- PUBLIC INFORMATION STATEMENT NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE PITTSBURGH PA 323 PM EDT TUE APR 12 2022 ...PITTSBURGH NWR TRANSMITTER... AUDIO FROM THE NOAA WEATHER RADIO STATION KIH35 BROADCASTING FROM PITTSBURGH ON 162.550 MHZ REMAINS IN A DEGRADED STATE UNTIL PHONE CIRCUITS AND AUDIO EQUIPMENT CAN BE UPGRADED. TEMPORARY FULL OFF THE AIR TIME IS EXPECTED IN THE NEAR FUTURE AS THIS EQUIPMENT IS UPGRADED. ESTIMATED TIME FOR COMPLETION IS UNKNOWN. SURROUNDING NOAA WEATHER RADIO SITES THAT COVER THE AFFECTED REGION INCLUDE: BRIDGEPORT, OH WWF35 - 162.525 MHZ MORGANTOWN, OH KWN35 - 162.475 MHZ JOHNSTOWN, PA WXM33 - 162.400 MHZ PARKER, PA WWG53 - 162.425 MHZ REYNOLDSVILLE, PA KZZ42 - 162.500 MHZ YOUNGSTOWN, OH WWG56 - 162.500 MHZ ADDITIONAL INFORMATION CAN BE FOUND AT WWW.WEATHER.GOV/PBZ/RADIO. LISTENERS ARE ALSO ENCOURAGED TO MAKE SURE WIRELESS EMERGENCY ALERTS (WEA) ARE ENABLED ON CELLULAR DEVICES. $$
.This is a very bad situation for those who depend on these radios in homes and businesses
Like mine who may not have a TV or Radio on or have poor or no Cellular Service .
All Too often Verizon , AT&T and T Mobile fail to send out the messages . The radio 100% of the time works
and now that Analog TV 1 and 2 radio bands no longer work on multi band radios it also cuts out many rural people who need this service.and depend on weather radios.
where they use to at least be able to listen to TV newscasts when they could not get video.
This is also causing Issues for Radio and TV stations who monitor the Weather Radio Alerts to trip their EAS alert monitors so messages get delivered.
KDKA 1020 AM which is the main re-transmission point for NWS in Pittsburgh to all other stations never got notified to problem and only after contacting NWS was able to establish a IP link using the EMnet system Pa set up but not all stations have EMnet due to the expense.
So they are at mercy of signal not getting to them at all because many rural stations have a hard time getting KDKA s signal.
This also means the Homeland Security National Emergency Signal will not get out .
The entire emergency alerting chain is down and damaged.
There will be no national Test this year either . There where so many stations last year who never got the national emergency message across the country it was considered a failure.
Please get hold of your elected federal officials and congressman and let them know we need funding to
get and properly maintain these signals .
As far as when Pittsburgh will have a signal back up is unknown I have contacted various State County Emergency Management Agency's to try and put pressure on PEMA to put pressure on FEMA to get this
situation to be remedied ASAP
as we are at the start of Severe thunderstorms and Tornadoes. Season.
UPDATE
The servive is back online
Thankyou to Pa. State Senator Jay Costa
PAB
and PEMA
The service was restored June 10th
