As the video begins you see the top of hour ID from Alaska One, then the scheduled switch at 10:00 to KTVA where they are in a furniture commercial. A few seconds later the test begins. The header tone audio is muted for this recording. You can see the ARCS crawl, then the KTVA test slide, then the ARCS slide for the duration. Inside the crawl, you can see the time is off by one hour due to an error in the GMT offset inside the ARCS ENDEC. This did not affect any downstream system; it only affected the time displayed in the ARCS crawl. Audio from the test message begins 50 seconds later, it is clear and easy to understand. At the end of the test the EOM is heard and the system returns to normal programming.
Here is an image of the tape printed by the Sage ENDEC at the APBI offices. This represents how any decoder listening to ARCS would have performed. You can see from the time on the tape that this unit was not affected by the ARCS ENDEC offset error mentioned above.
ARCS plays a central role in the State of Alaska Emergency Relay Network as a conduit to commercial and noncommercial radio and television broadcasters. As provided for in the State’s Emergency Alert System Plan the ARCS satellite signal is a designated monitoring choice and is available to all Alaska broadcasters for their use in EAS participation.
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