Definitely need a Frasier Crane-esque character in a mainline Fallout game, now that I think about it. After all, the comedy that would ensue from Raiders “calling in” to his radio program (literally screaming through a megaphone) and him responding would be hilarious, to say the least.
If one was anywhere a target that sure is right. The rest of us would die from radiation poisoning or starving to death. Albert Einstein said the 4th world war would be fought with sticks and stones.
Conelrad was intended to avoid allowing enemy aircraft to "home" on broadcast stations. Accordingly, they all turned on at the same time, and deactivated at the same time. Otherwise, they remained silent. This was one of the lessons learned from the Pearl Harbor attack.
That’s one reason why all OTA radio stations are trying to stream their signals. That way only the local people can actually get access to the broadcast. Back in WWII the Japanese Air Force rode the local MW station right back into Hawaii. Of course we had no way of knowing at the time that they were doing that.
@@RJDA.DakotaFM stations can’t go more than about 60 miles. AM stations can go much further, but only at night. Most reduce power at sunset, so they don’t go far.
@@5roundsrapid263 not necessarily true. I once traveled between St. Louis Missouri and Reelfoot Lake In Tennessee. On a good afternoon, I could hear the 550 kHz signal from then KSD very well and stable. A higher frequency on 1500 probably would not have made it that far. Regionalizing these stations might be a good idea.
As a young student in the '60s, I did the "duck and cover" drills. As a missile combat crewman in 1980, I was 90 seconds away from The End when ordered to return to normal alert. The world can end in any, particular, 20-minute period.
Home room, in 1983, following the shooting down of Korean Air flight 007. Our teacher warned us of increased hostility between us and the USSR, and informed us of how to do those drills.
I was in school 23 miles from an Air Force base during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. For several days we had daily air raid drills; we would huddle under our tiny plastic desks. I later found I was not the only one who wondered, "maybe the bombs aren't as powerful as we have been told." As an adult I realized the purpose was to slightly reduce injuries from falling ceiling tiles, but more importantly to prevent running around in panic, and to simplify identification of remains.
As a kid growing up in the UK in the '80s we were given a tour of the local fire station where they had a nondescript, grey Handel receiver sitting on a desk, beeping quietly to itself. I remember at the time it gave me chills when the guy giving the tour explained its function. That was a fascinating, informative and slightly scary video, thanks!
i remember see and hearing one in the 1980's at my local police station.... i knew what it was by then as i been to several CND meeting with a friend.... crazy to think that now days we only have a simple text message service left.
Same. Milton Keynes. RAF Upper Heyford was nearby and we were in its flight path. US F-111 tactical nuclear bombers were based there. Noisy buggers. At school we knew it was a prime target and would be nuked immediately if the war kicked off. We argued about what yield nuke would put us in the blast radius, etc. One night when I was 13 or so I heard what seemed like dozens of those bombers taking off screaming into the night sounding far more urgent than usual. I thought the war had started and lay there waiting for the flash. Not how kids need to grow up. We should have been busy fighting over football etc. Not wondering if we would be BBQ'd. In the late 1980s we moved to NZ. No US bases and a nuclear free country. It felt a million times safer not being a target. Nobody was going to waste precious nukes on millions of sheep, or hobbits etc.
I went to a SubBrit meeting many years ago where a chap gave a blow by blow account of the process for communication before, during and after a nuclear strike on the UK. This included recordings of what would have been heard in police stations, ROC bunkers and command centres. The lady with a plummy voice reading out "Toxin bang" left the whole lecture theatre in silence. A great talk!
I’ve seen Threads and it is truly grim and nightmare inducing. I saw The Day After as a 14 year old when it first aired and while it was disturbing at the time it doesn’t hold a candle Threads. I think everyone should see Threads. It would give more people an appreciation to just how devastating a nuclear would be even though a real nuclear war would likely be far worse.
Threads is a limited attack. People survived. in the event of an all out exchange no one is going to survive. Least not for very long. Some might linger for a little while before the radiation gets them. We don't have the tech to make bunkers work either. Not for as long as they'd need to.
It would be far worse. That was a watered-down, suitable-for-TV version. They would not have been allowed to broadcast what the true horror would actually be like. One thing that I found interesting was that the generation who grew up after the bomb couldn't speak fluently, I think this was to show the effect of an utter lack of education on the following generations. I doubt that we'd have so many survivors, especially in the cities, and I also doubt that they'd share the limited food supplies as was shown with them handing out the grain. A friend of mine has a place in Wales that's off-grid and almost self-sufficient, you'd think he'd make out OK, right? But you think about it - any survivors are going to be absolutely brutal and he'd have to constantly fight off anyone who wanted his cosy set-up for themselves.
@@zappababe8577 In a full exchange there would be no survivors. There would be no life on the surface of this planet at all. There is some life that lives deep underground that might live? But it's really nothing you've ever seen or heard about. This planet from our perspective would be completely dead. In wargames there's never a limited exchange either. It always goes until the last missile flies. We're just spiteful like that. Ionizing radiation is really poisonous too. As it is from testing we've contaminated the entire planet. That's why we had to stop. Although towards the end we were even nuking that underground life I mentioned.
@@zappababe8577 Yeah, people will either turn into surprisingly social beeings, in hopes of increasing chances within a group, or looking what people act like most times these days, unbelivably egoistic and literally stop at nothing to get whatever they think might be advantageous to themselves.
Oh, boy I'm old enough to remember the grief of the "carrier drop" signaling system. A lot of older transmitters did not like having the carrier turned off and on that quickly and the station would be off the air until repairs could be made as described in this video. Oh the exact phrase during the false EBS alarm was "hateful hateful"
My grandpa's pickup truck had an AM radio with the CONELRAD markings on it. I think it had the CD logos. Civil Defense was a great program that never should have ended. In some areas it morphed in to ESDA but funding was cut dramatically. Great content. Liked and subbed. Threads makes "The Day After" look like an episode of Friends.
@@jaminova_1969 When You really think about THE DAY AFTER, the movie seems to focus on AMERICA. Was this supposed to turn us into people shouting NO MORE NUKES while the Soviet Union and Communist China were building WMD's like crazy?
That's exactly here I remembered the symbols from my grandpa's 50-something Ford pickup truck. As a kid I would push the big clunky memory buttons and watch it move the dial. So the whole look of the thing is in my memory, even though the truck has been gone for 30 years.
As a kid(born in 1956) every Am radio had the Conelrad markings. I can remember being able to peer into a window of our local HS and see all the barrels and packages with the CD markings on them. Being that i lived in Chicago,it was pretty much a exercise in futility but it is a childhood memory. We definitely were a target and would be vaporized.
I was also born in 1956. I remember those radios and it was labeled that way in car radios also. And I also understood the futility of “duck and cover”. “Fallout Shelters were everywhere. As if we were really going to survive.
They took us down to the basement of our elementary school and I wish I had know what to look for. This would have been around 1996 so I’m not sure if there would have been anything left but the school still had a fallout shelter sign.
Atomic warfare potentially the same cannot be said for the hydrogen, neutron, and thermonuclear weapons. Everything that came after the a bombs were higher yields and far more radioactive.
"Threads" is horrific (and I mean this as a compliment!) The Brits KNOW how to do TV! This would have been a theatrical movie in the US. Our counterpart, "The Day After" was a good movie, particularly for a TV movie, But "Threads" was on another level. (I do recommend BOTH though_).
I was gonna mention Threads, but you took my words. It's done with such raw realism, something the British are very good at. I remember seeing it as a teenager and I still think about it today. It will leave you thinking and wondering long after you've watched it.
If anyone is interested in other nuclear war films, have a look for The War Game from the BBC in the 1960s (it's in b&w) - it was banned from transmission by the government of the day. (Macmillan administration iirc). There's also War Book - about 8 civil servants war gaming their response in the event of India/Pakistan tensions escalate into worldwide nuclear war - no action as such, it's 8 people arguing in one room, but it's interesting to see how governments plan for these possibilities and turn everything (including infrastructure destruction and civilian casualties) into a numbers game.
@@abigaillilac1370 My American dad showed me The Day After around the age of 8 and I had nightmares for months straight. Didn't help that they still tested the air raid sirens in my area (this was in the mid 90s) and one night they came on accidentally! I slept in my parents bed that night I am sure haha. I saw threads at 11 or 12 on my own volition and I can distinctly remember that feeling of depression I had for a week after even to this day. Weirdly, those movies put me on a path to work in related industries to strategic defense and nuclear war and I have to say I am thankful I did see them at that age because it truly made me learn to stop worrying and love the bomb, hahaha.
First off I have always heard it pronounced KON EL RAD. I also used to transmit the EBS Off-On-Off at the transmitter. Later I was responsibile for the EAS at my station. I never opened a red envelope whether it was current or not. We received those every month. I think in the beginning with IKE, it was a good thing. Later on I am not sure that the POTUS knew it was available. At WLS we toured the transmitter as part of the Society of Broadcast Engineers. At the first PEP station in the USA, there were 5 methods of delivery of the message to their transmitter. They had enough diesel for the generator to keep it running for 30 days continuously. They had to install a system that would keep the Diesel fuel usuable for the 30 days. The transmitter building was altered so that a blast from any dirction would not have line of sight to the emergency equipment. All of the Electronics were 'hardened' to be able to stand an EMP event. Very interesting stuff.
Eisenhower was an excellent POTUS for that time in our nation's history. Eisenhower was very untrusting of most people, and assumed the worst of most people. He wasn't perfect, but he helped get the USA and our allies through very turbulent times. Sadly, most of the POTUS's following General Eisenhower fell far short of the mark
I recently had the pleasure of meeting Gilles at a local fair. He is delightfully friendly and super knowledgeable! Im super glad to have been directed to his channel. This is all right up my alley! (And for Gilles, I was the incredulous ginger who laughed at the first self propelled rocket!)
I was a kid in the 50s and 60s and I remember the Conelrad and Civil Defense shelters stocked with cots, supplies, and rations. We knew where to go in case the missiles were inbound. If the President announced that missiles were inbound right now, where’s the Civil Defense shelter? What would you do? What would you do? Thanks Government!
@@Graygeezer Me? I'd probably become a crispy critter for living too close to a warhead storage site. There's a certain fatalism to it. More generally, one of the things that shook out of the study of game theory (a field which the Cold War basically created in order to systematically examine incentives) is that fallout shelters and such weaken the deterrence effect of mutually assured destruction. It's one of the rare occasions where vulnerability actually increases safety-so long as the vulnerability is mutual. (This is also why the development of anti-ICBM capabilities risks kicking off a new nuclear and counter-nuclear arms race.)
Living by the US border, it is routine to hear the EBS / EAS testing on FM and AM radio stations of all formats, even music stations. I was surprised to hear the EAS for the first time on XM satellite last week. Must admit the EAS header tones make me jump off the seat when they come on suddenly without warning.
The EAS headers are so much more attention catching than what the DTMF attention tone is from how shrill and dial-uppy they sound. I own an EAS ENDEC device so here's a fun fact, the longer the SAME header is, the more areas are being addressed, so while a normal header for one location tends to be short, when more counties here in the states are being broadcasted to, the longer the header will be, and annoying to listen to... along with all the printing... all that damned printing... Yes, they have old school printers on them like the printing calculators, and the noise that comes from that is just as annoying, if not more, than the actual headers. Makes for a "fun" Wednesday noon "alarm clock" while I'm dead ass asleep...
@@-pyrosef- TFT Inc EAS 911, good luck on getting one though, they are far and few between and if you do see one, be prepared to spend a good deal on it. I paid about 450 USD for mine on eBay in working condition. And, yes, it still prints modern day alerts because the headers have never changed. I've yet to fully test all the headers with software, but the important ones are all there. Sage is another good brand but, again, worth a pretty penny and usually very hard to get a hold of, just... with way less buttons than a TFT EAS 911. Plenty of vids on here to show what it does.
@@abysspegasusgaming I'm old enough to remember getting one of the first Sage ENDEC units in the state and the ancient, very simple EBS box it replaced. I'm kind of kicking myself for not swiping the old EBS box, as ours allowed us to initiate and receive EBS alerts. Our Sage had the built-in-printer and I believe it also had some sort of wired remote control keypad.
Some years back I become a radio collector and one time in eBay I spotted the very first radio owned when I was 10 and it has the CONELRAD markings. It was made in Hong Kong in 1964 and still has the markings.
I'm so glad I found your channel. Absolutely fascinating. As a child of the Cold War Era,I found this particularly interesting. We practiced "Duck and Cover" many times in my classroom.
I love learning about stuff like this. Understanding how a problem is solved, failed, redesigned, become semi-successful, become criticized, and ultimately succeeding in its mission. It just shows how we must never give up.
Love this kind of videos! The Dutch nationwide alarm system "NL Alert" which activates all smartphones in a certain area (it can be used locally) also seems to use the 853+960Hz tone (automatically on the maximum volume that the device is capable of). It is tested twice a year (which is announced many times before the actual test) and it is quite unsettling to hear that tone if you know it is not a test. Last time (i.e. that I received) was july 5th 2023 when a hurricane force storm came onto land. Funny thing (or actually not so funny) is that it was a proper alert, the storm did a LOT of damage, but it became clear that the operators were not very prepared for a situation like this because the governmental websites that should provide more information about the alert either became overloaded or didn't provide any information at all.
The first family car I remember was a 1960 Ford Galaxy. It had an AM radio with the two Civil Defense trials on the dial screen. My father was a Civil engineer whose PhD thesis was thesis was on "foundations of underground structures", better known as fallout shelters. I asked him what the little triangles meant. He explained pretty graphically about an atomic attack and this was how the government would tell people what to do. My 6 year old brain had to ask what we could do if an atom bomb was dropped on us. My father said, "Not much.
Excellent video. I’m old enough to remember after the CONELRAD, having been born in ‘61. I read articles on how CONELRAD was supposed to work - pretty ingenious, even if flawed. I also collect vintage radios, so I have quite a few with the markings on them. 📻🙂
This was fascinating - thank you for putting it all together. I worked as a radio disk jockey part time in the early 1990s when EBS was still a thing. I ran a few EBS tests - by "ran," I mean played the EBS-test tape cartridge. That's all it was. Memories grow dim after 30 years, but I believe the station I worked for was a primary, and other stations listened for us to broadcast the tone. Something like that. Training was scant and I feel sure that if an actual alert happened while I was in the broadcast booth, I would have been about as effective as Moe, Larry, or Curly.
I once had an old radio with the CONELRAD markings, and I let it go in a garage sale. Something I now regret doing. I also miss the old Emergency Broadcast System tone. It was so much better than the Emergency Alert System tone. EAS sounds sickly and asthmatic, but EBS sounded apocalyptic, like it should.
Thank you very much for doing a deep dive into the civil defense alert systems over the course of the last seven decades. I’m a licensed Amateur Radio operator. Radios, especially short, wave back in the late 50s early 60s I purchased an army surplus shortwave receiver and listened to radio Cuba and radio Moscow and the BBC . I was very aware of the specific civil defense markings on the dials of the older radios. However, I did not know all the history that you provided of how the system evolves overtime to where it is today. So I just want to thank you for doing a great job!
Re-watched Twilight Zone S3E3 "The Shelter" last night, which uses the scenario of an impending nuclear attack to explore how "civilized" humans react when they think the world is about to end. It's one of TZ's best episodes - go check it out if you've never seen it. During the episode, they illustrated the ConelRad alert system in action and called it by name. I was wondering what "ConelRad" was and then today stumbled across this video!
The twilight zone was wrong though. In times of extreme emergencies people ban together and help each other. (see 9/11 and many other examples) Most people are like this. I guess the snakes among us just slither away.
Also another legacy of CONELRAD: Portable highway information beacons used in many states to transmit construction, tourism or congestion information routinely have signs telling you to tune to 640 or 1240 most commonly.
I recently discovered your channel and have been really enjoying your content very much! 👍😁👍 Your style reminds me almost of a blend of Alec from Technology Connections and Lance from The History Guy. Keep up the terrific work and I look forward to seeing more. Cheers!
I had two early 60s Ford Falcons whe n I was a teen in the 70s. The cars AM radio had those 2 triangles and it took me awhile to figure out what they were. I can tell I am old because I remember the alert tests being done on the TV and I also remembere that Partridge Family song. lol Great work Our Own Devices! I know others say it all the time, but how you dont have 100k+ subs is beyond me. Keep the up the fantastic work!
In Michigan we still have EAS tests at least (IIRC) twice a week for broadcast television (there is a cut-in for cable television as well but it is not reliable) and occasional tests are done on the cellular network as well. Just yesterday the local civil defense agency (we still have those in Michigan as well) did a test to cell phones and broadcast television stations saying that it was a test then going into stating that the local dam being breached and to GTFO of town. 135 people called the Sheriff's Department asking WTF was going on.
In the late 1950's, when I was a kid of about 6 or 7, I had a small transistor radio similar in size to the one shown here on the far left. I would strap it to my bicycle and listen to the radio as I rode around.
Very interesting! As a baby boomer, I remember seeing the CD logo on some radios but by the mid 60s they disappeared. Now I have to find one for my mid century collection.
As a kid of 60s and 70s we created numerous parodies of EBS announcements and closing messages "If this had been an actual announcement of a Nuclear War , the announcer would be next instructing you on the best way to Kiss your A$$ Goodbye ...." 🤣🤣. As 8 to 10 year old children we were creating gallows humor to deal with ultimate Nuclear horror facing mankind during the Cold War 😉.
Wonderful video, learned much....but at around the 12 min (12:07) mark, a very familiar voice from my growing up was heard....Bob Sievers from WOWO...grew up listening to the morning show with Jay Gould..( and real music! ) they'd get us up and off to school...and Dad off to work. Thank you!
Your video has brought back many memories of that era. I remember as a kindergartener in the mid to late 50's hiding under my desk, not understanding why. Thank you for the 'flash' back. :)
Thoroughly enjoyed this. Brought back a lot of memories. Subscribed, bell rang, liked, upvoted, shared and commented (obviously) ... may the algorithm gods smile favorably upon your channel.
We beat the odds. Everything that can happen eventually will though. Someday some nutter is going to push the button. It is inevitable. Once you cross the Rubicon there's no going back. The die is cast.
Indeed. What is so utterly horrifying about the scenario it depicts is not the immediate effects of nuclear war, but the fact that once modern society falls apart, there is NO going back. We are effectively stuck in the Middle Ages indefinitely.
@@CanadianMacGyver That's the difference between it and The Day After. You may think "this is sad, many people are going to die, but we'll move on, and in 10 years we'll be largely back to normal like Germany after WW2." Threads destroys that notion. It never gets better and actually gets significantly worse.
I hate to say it but nuclear war is inevitable, and unfortunately if things keep going like they're going we may get to live "Fallout" games in real life.
@@user-lp3cf5yn5b I hate to say it but unlimited nuclear war is not survivable at all. while stockpiles have significantly reduced over peak numbers there's still far too many nuclear weapons in the world today. In tests the limited scenario never plays out either. In the end everyone launches everything they can. Just how it goes.
Thanks, I've not come across this before - fascinating and terrifying at the same time. Would be really interested for any programmes on civil defence broadcasts in other European countries. Thanks again, Owen
Great video, great to see you mention our UK system as well and "Threads" .... I also liked Mike Myers "The Day After Tomorrow" which basically took the idea of Threads to America ... another worthwhile watch if you're interested in this kind of thing
One of my earliest memories was hearing the sudden sonic booms of nuclear armed B-58 bombers flying over our home in far upstate New York. At the time, of course, I had no idea what that was all about.
As a kid I was given a transistor radio (similar to the one on the left in the video), that had the civil defense markings on the AM scale. This would been in the early 1970’s. I don’t know what year the radio was manufactured. It’s possible some offshore brands still had the Conelrad symbols on the dial well after 1963 if nobody told them to change the markings
I was working on-the-air in Washington DC on the day in 1971 when the false EBS alert was sent over our UPI teletype machine. It was a Saturday morning and I was a young DJ at WDON radio. When the alert came over the teletype, I checked the lead station's audio for the market (WRC) and they were running normal programming, so I made the decision to ignore the alert. Only one station in DC actually signed-off on that day.
My dad actually had one of those NEAR devices plugged in at the house I grew up in for most of my childhood xD. It was a gift from my brother who was in the Navy, and found it in a box of old stuff. It still lit up and hummed.
There is one major drawback of a radio / TV based warning system, though: You won't hear the warning message if your device is switched off. This is also the disadvantage of cell broadcast common in many E.U. countries. So you'll still need an always-on device like a siren or a radio-controlled clock to wake you up in case of an emergency.
Thanks for this post mr. Gilles, when i was very young,i remember an air warning horn being sounded assumably for maintenance, and I remember seeing some around that were relics never used anymore, but i grew up with the squelch tone that always seemed like more of a continuity test for that tone then anything that was meant for comminication - but I enjoyed it because it took me back to a much simpler better time in this country - thank you for that, I really enjoyed learning about what it all meant
In parts of the U.S. prone to tornadoes, they still test the old warning sirens once a week. You could set a watch by it. If you hear 'em any other time, you dash for the nearest basement-or at least, windowless concrete room-because a different kind of disaster is imminent.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, WOWO (Fort Wayne Indiana) used to cover much of the eastern US at night. It might still, but I haven't listened to AM radio in decades. Blast from the past.
Back during the Miamisburg Ohio Rail Disaster the local Civil Defense director wanted to activate the EBS. There was a press conference so he asked the media right on the spot that he wanted to activate it and they jumped right to it.
Many, today, think that warnings over their cell phones are something new, but those of us that grew up during the Cold War remember the Civil Defense warnings well, as well as the EBS on TV.
“Had this been an actual alert, you would have been instructed to tune to either 640 or 1240 kilocycles for further information. This was ONLY a test.”
I remember seeing the bomb shelter placards in various buildings around town. Our school held emergency drills which they always called tornado drills, in reality it was practice for a nuclear attack but they didn't want the young kids knowing and thinking about that stuff.
There was a monster Conelrad Station dismantled near where I live, a few years ago. One thing that turned up, was a surveyer's map of the site. A large rectangular farm field had been used to build on, and that field had a cadastral number, just like others in the area. But this thing had a second oval shape field drawn inside it, with its own cadastral number. Have never seen anything surveyed like that here. Was there some legal reason for this?
At 64, I remember asking about the funny symbol on various radio dials as a kid... and we still have at least one old AM transistor radio with the "CD" triangle on the tuning dial. Every one of the emergency tones you played sounded -- perhaps unfortunately -- all too familiar. I'm wondering what the next generation will recognize as the "duck and cover" signal...
I remember the civil defense air raid siren tests that happened towards the end of every month, at 10AM, during the 1970s. Now, I get a local emergency alert thru my cell phone, starting with those annoying tones, then vocally describing the emergency. Lately, weather alerts, though a month ago the alert was for a wimpy earthquake, a couple of minutes after I felt it.
Hey kids! When you hear the signal, sing this happy little song!! "There was a turtle by the name of Bert And Bert the Turtle was very alert When danger threatened him he never got hurt He knew just what to do He'd duck and cover, duck and cover He'd hide his head and tail and four little feet He'd duck and cover! He hid beneath his little shell until the coast was clear Then one by one his head and tail and legs would reappear By acting calm and cool he proved he was a hero, too For finding safety is the bravest wisest thing to do And now his little friends are just like Bert And every turtle is very alert When danger threatens them they never get hurt They know just what to do They duck and cover, duck and cover They hide their heads and tails and four little feet They duck and cover! He hid beneath his little shell until the coast was clear Then one by one his head and tail and legs would reappear By acting calm and cool he proved he was a hero, too For finding safety is the bravest wisest thing to do!"
@@charlestaylor253 They taught us the Duck & Cover song in grade school as we hid under our desks. Lol, how come they didn't teach me this verse? Love it!
One minor nit. In those days the Conelrad stations were marked at 640 and 1240 kiloCYCLES. They didn't generally use Hertz to designate frequencies until the 70's. Great video.
as soon as you said they have a code hat relies on them NOT matching up words, i knew it was going to be a problem. Thats like having a lock that works with any key, except the one that matches it.
I restore radios from 1920 to 1965 as a hobby. I have several cool looking plastic radios from that era, but none have the civil defense feature. I'll keep an eye open for one. Thanks for your presentation..
Amazing work, my compliments! FWIW - we slept through the 1969 alert in Cleveland, OH. I don't think any of the stations there ever actually broadcast the alert. I was on duty with a B-52 unit for the 1979 alert, and we never did get sirens as there was some question in the command post as to whether or not it was real.
I knew someone who worked at Cheyenne Mountain when they received a "false alert." The New Guy panicked a bit, asking, "What do we do?" The Old Hand said, "Well, I think I'll get another cup of coffee." Because if it was real, you'd never know what hit you anyway.
Thanks for the information. It is considered possible for Earthquake Early Warning messages to be received by the selected area within 3 seconds of the detection of a P-wave. This is one of many improvements to be developed and tested.
This way there were TWO places, and only two to get information, 640 and 1240. Participating stations would take turns on those frequencies, to keep enemy aircraft from honing in on one particular signal
I always wondered why the emergency radio noise changed from one annoying tone to another, more annoying screech. I never even noticed it changed names.
I own an EAS system (TFT Inc EAS 911) from '96 so I believe that the transition from EBS to EAS was drawn out sometime between the late 80's and early 90's. The system isn't without its own flaws either but the newer systems are a bit more bulletproof than CONELRAD, EBS and older EAS devices like the one I own. The real main concern with EAS is that a person with a malicious intent with a ham radio or another open-frequency transmitting radio that can transmit on any channel, even NOAA, can use the device and send out real headers (CDW, TOR, etc.), use TTS software for false announcements, and close it up with the ending header while any radio station in range would be actively receiving the alert at the same time and relaying it to the masses. Unfortunately this could be just a simple one shot and done situation, making it difficult for law enforcement to track down the individual(s) responsible for the false and highly illegal EAS transmission. I don't know how many threads I've seen of people asking if they could use this device over ham, GMRS, and open-band frequencies to relay alerts to their groups or w/e the case may be, they don't realize that using an EAS ENDEC is illegal and has MANY legal hurdles to get over to even be allowed to utilize the audio output section of the unit. Hooking a scanner/weather radio/AM-FM radio up to the audio inputs is absolutely fine for monitoring the airwaves for any potential alert, but transmitting? That's a very big no-no. The last I knew, development for a second version of EAS was underway with this kind of security in mind to prevent unauthorized transmissions and verification from the originator to the stations receiver/transmitter.
This has actually been done; an unknown person sent a message warning of zombies, which was dutifully relayed automatically by the system and multiple stations. Then as an additional insult, the next day a news program decided to report on the incident and in the process they rebroadcast the tones and headers, causing the false alert to relay to other stations again. There's footage of it on TH-cam.
I worked at some broadcast radio stations in the '80's and I would look at the EBS envelope which had the test phrases for each month on the front. I also think quarterly we did a statewide test where we had to relay the remote state feeder station when triggered. Seems like it was always during my shift. I was around at a TV station in the 90's when EAS came into being and we had to install a small device that was a receiver and would print the SAME message on a small paper roll like used in a calculator. Same idea that we had a booklet with codes.
I was an Engineer in an FM Radio station in the 1980's. I clearly remember the monitoring unit built into the rack system that would sound a horn when an EAS message was incoming and then recording it automatically for rebroadcast. We also had the two part identifier cards in a lock box attached to the wall next to it. I kept some of the expired cards for years but somewhere along the line lost them. The only issue I saw with the EBS system relying on radio stations is that most small market radio stations were unmanned or off the air overnight and none (including ours) had any power backup systems in the event of service interruption. ie: earthquake, tornado or floods. Not a bad system but not perfect by any means. But surely better than nothing.
That's interesting. I've never been to a transmitter site that didn't have a backup generator. In fact, they had generator testing requirements. Did that requirement come later, or perhaps it was only for larger metropolitan areas?
It was nice to see a clip of the NFB short "Radar Station" at 4:13. It was filmed at RCAF station Lac St. Denis where my old man was stationed as a radar tech on the Pinetree Line.
Excellent video. Very interesting. I'm in the UK, and was going to mention that in Threads. That amateur radio cut out device was a great idea, and Near seemed rather clever too.
Just an aside here that you might find interesting- A phonograph collector once showed me a 1929 Brunswick Pantatrope Radiola console. It was a floor model phonograph- AM radio combination, and the family that purchased it on the cusp of the Great Depression kept it until 1960, when they up-graded to television-radio-record player cabinet combo from Sears. The Pantatrop’s tuning was controlled by a knob slide instead of a dial. On the glass plate over the horizontal radio station index were two little triangular paper stickers that showed where the CONELRAD frequencies were located. As it turned turned out, a lot of old pre-1950 radios were upgraded to civil defense standards with those stickers.
Great job. Lot's of good info for people like myself who study the subject of alerts and warnings. One possible correction... I always pronounced the moniker CON-EL-RAD not CONE-L-RAD. I grew up in the Northeast so the difference might be due to regional dialect.
Back in the 70's I was working at a car dealership in Princeton. We're guessing the DJ on the college Station needed a bathroom break and put a Conaldrad tape in, it was the wrong one ;( We all looked at one another as it announced to seek cover, there wasn't any. He was soon back on the air and out of breath probably from running down the hall while pulling up his pants
"Had this been an actual emergency; your radio would be melting in your hand". - Frasier Crane
Definitely need a Frasier Crane-esque character in a mainline Fallout game, now that I think about it. After all, the comedy that would ensue from Raiders “calling in” to his radio program (literally screaming through a megaphone) and him responding would be hilarious, to say the least.
If one was anywhere a target that sure is right. The rest of us would die from radiation poisoning or starving to death. Albert Einstein said the 4th world war would be fought with sticks and stones.
*stumbles on rake.*
Hhhhhhh.
@@IsiahTomasTHWACK!!
_eughhagbllgb…._
@@Jolis_Parsecconsidering Fraser first started out in a bar in Boston before getting his own spinoff, their definitely needs to be a Fallout mod.
Conelrad was intended to avoid allowing enemy aircraft to "home" on broadcast stations. Accordingly, they all turned on at the same time, and deactivated at the same time. Otherwise, they remained silent. This was one of the lessons learned from the Pearl Harbor attack.
That’s one reason why all OTA radio stations are trying to stream their signals. That way only the local people can actually get access to the broadcast. Back in WWII the Japanese Air Force rode the local MW station right back into Hawaii. Of course we had no way of knowing at the time that they were doing that.
@@RJDA.Dakota Huh? If a station is streamed, anyone with internet access can listen.
@@jeffjohnsisland5551 but you can’t home in on it as an OTA signal to vector in on. You have to have an IPA code instead.
@@RJDA.DakotaFM stations can’t go more than about 60 miles. AM stations can go much further, but only at night. Most reduce power at sunset, so they don’t go far.
@@5roundsrapid263 not necessarily true. I once traveled between St. Louis Missouri and Reelfoot Lake In Tennessee. On a good afternoon, I could hear the 550 kHz signal from then KSD very well and stable. A higher frequency on 1500 probably would not have made it that far. Regionalizing these stations might be a good idea.
As a young student in the '60s, I did the "duck and cover" drills. As a missile combat crewman in 1980, I was 90 seconds away from The End when ordered to return to normal alert. The world can end in any, particular, 20-minute period.
I remember doing the duck and cover in the 1960s during school
Home room, in 1983, following the shooting down of Korean Air flight 007. Our teacher warned us of increased hostility between us and the USSR, and informed us of how to do those drills.
I was MCCC at Ellsworth. Nothing like the Warble tone to get your blood going.
I did my time at Minot, '80 to '83. I became a psych casualty. Something to do with Posture 8.@@sgriffith2353
I was in school 23 miles from an Air Force base during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. For several days we had daily air raid drills; we would huddle under our tiny plastic desks. I later found I was not the only one who wondered, "maybe the bombs aren't as powerful as we have been told." As an adult I realized the purpose was to slightly reduce injuries from falling ceiling tiles, but more importantly to prevent running around in panic, and to simplify identification of remains.
As a kid growing up in the UK in the '80s we were given a tour of the local fire station where they had a nondescript, grey Handel receiver sitting on a desk, beeping quietly to itself. I remember at the time it gave me chills when the guy giving the tour explained its function. That was a fascinating, informative and slightly scary video, thanks!
i remember see and hearing one in the 1980's at my local police station.... i knew what it was by then as i been to several CND meeting with a friend.... crazy to think that now days we only have a simple text message service left.
The Carrier Receiver. Bip, Bip, Bip.
Same. Milton Keynes. RAF Upper Heyford was nearby and we were in its flight path. US F-111 tactical nuclear bombers were based there. Noisy buggers. At school we knew it was a prime target and would be nuked immediately if the war kicked off. We argued about what yield nuke would put us in the blast radius, etc.
One night when I was 13 or so I heard what seemed like dozens of those bombers taking off screaming into the night sounding far more urgent than usual. I thought the war had started and lay there waiting for the flash. Not how kids need to grow up. We should have been busy fighting over football etc. Not wondering if we would be BBQ'd. In the late 1980s we moved to NZ. No US bases and a nuclear free country. It felt a million times safer not being a target. Nobody was going to waste precious nukes on millions of sheep, or hobbits etc.
I went to a SubBrit meeting many years ago where a chap gave a blow by blow account of the process for communication before, during and after a nuclear strike on the UK. This included recordings of what would have been heard in police stations, ROC bunkers and command centres. The lady with a plummy voice reading out "Toxin bang" left the whole lecture theatre in silence. A great talk!
Attack warning red, attack warning red@@Daniel-S1
I’ve seen Threads and it is truly grim and nightmare inducing. I saw The Day After as a 14 year old when it first aired and while it was disturbing at the time it doesn’t hold a candle Threads. I think everyone should see Threads. It would give more people an appreciation to just how devastating a nuclear would be even though a real nuclear war would likely be far worse.
Threads is a limited attack. People survived. in the event of an all out exchange no one is going to survive. Least not for very long. Some might linger for a little while before the radiation gets them. We don't have the tech to make bunkers work either. Not for as long as they'd need to.
We were made to watch threads at school I as about 13 at the time. Give me bad dreams for weeks
It would be far worse. That was a watered-down, suitable-for-TV version. They would not have been allowed to broadcast what the true horror would actually be like. One thing that I found interesting was that the generation who grew up after the bomb couldn't speak fluently, I think this was to show the effect of an utter lack of education on the following generations. I doubt that we'd have so many survivors, especially in the cities, and I also doubt that they'd share the limited food supplies as was shown with them handing out the grain. A friend of mine has a place in Wales that's off-grid and almost self-sufficient, you'd think he'd make out OK, right? But you think about it - any survivors are going to be absolutely brutal and he'd have to constantly fight off anyone who wanted his cosy set-up for themselves.
@@zappababe8577 In a full exchange there would be no survivors. There would be no life on the surface of this planet at all. There is some life that lives deep underground that might live? But it's really nothing you've ever seen or heard about. This planet from our perspective would be completely dead. In wargames there's never a limited exchange either. It always goes until the last missile flies. We're just spiteful like that. Ionizing radiation is really poisonous too. As it is from testing we've contaminated the entire planet. That's why we had to stop. Although towards the end we were even nuking that underground life I mentioned.
@@zappababe8577 Yeah, people will either turn into surprisingly social beeings, in hopes of increasing chances within a group, or looking what people act like most times these days, unbelivably egoistic and literally stop at nothing to get whatever they think might be advantageous to themselves.
Oh, boy I'm old enough to remember the grief of the "carrier drop" signaling system. A lot of older transmitters did not like having the carrier turned off and on that quickly and the station would be off the air until repairs could be made as described in this video. Oh the exact phrase during the false EBS alarm was "hateful hateful"
I can't imagine cycling a tube-based transmitter like this. I'd even be hesitant with some of the larger solid-state transmitters for that matter.
I don’t ever power on /off /on my tube based Fender guitar amps let alone a broadcast xmtr.
Decision made by some committee of bureaucrats in Washington who never worked in broadcasting or radio. Some things never change.
@@RainbowManification If you think it's bad in broadcasting, you should see it in action in aviation.
My grandpa's pickup truck had an AM radio with the CONELRAD markings on it.
I think it had the CD logos.
Civil Defense was a great program that never should have ended.
In some areas it morphed in to ESDA but funding was cut dramatically.
Great content.
Liked and subbed.
Threads makes "The Day After" look like an episode of Friends.
"The Day After" was really scary at the time! Alot of people watched it and I remember talking about it at school .I was in Jr High, I think.
I’m intrigued about Threads but equally scared to watch it.
@@gretchenalleman506 You should be scared to watch Threads. It's a disturbing movie.
@@jaminova_1969 When You really think about THE DAY AFTER, the movie seems to focus on AMERICA. Was this supposed to turn us into people shouting NO MORE NUKES while the Soviet Union and Communist China were building WMD's like crazy?
That's exactly here I remembered the symbols from my grandpa's 50-something Ford pickup truck. As a kid I would push the big clunky memory buttons and watch it move the dial. So the whole look of the thing is in my memory, even though the truck has been gone for 30 years.
As a kid(born in 1956) every Am radio had the Conelrad markings. I can remember being able to peer into a window of our local HS and see all the barrels and packages with the CD markings on them. Being that i lived in Chicago,it was pretty much a exercise in futility but it is a childhood memory. We definitely were a target and would be vaporized.
I was also born in 1956. I remember those radios and it was labeled that way in car radios also. And I also understood the futility of “duck and cover”. “Fallout Shelters were everywhere. As if we were really going to survive.
@@RJDA.Dakota You are absolutely right-forgot about those markings on the car radios.Had to ask Dad what they meant as a young kid.
They took us down to the basement of our elementary school and I wish I had know what to look for. This would have been around 1996 so I’m not sure if there would have been anything left but the school still had a fallout shelter sign.
@@RJDA.DakotaI remember the 90’s doing duck and cover in the halls for severe weather. I would have been under 10 and I still knew it was useless.
Atomic warfare potentially the same cannot be said for the hydrogen, neutron, and thermonuclear weapons. Everything that came after the a bombs were higher yields and far more radioactive.
"Threads" is horrific (and I mean this as a compliment!) The Brits KNOW how to do TV! This would have been a theatrical movie in the US. Our counterpart, "The Day After" was a good movie, particularly for a TV movie, But "Threads" was on another level. (I do recommend BOTH though_).
I was gonna mention Threads, but you took my words. It's done with such raw realism, something the British are very good at. I remember seeing it as a teenager and I still think about it today. It will leave you thinking and wondering long after you've watched it.
@@jasontempest4233 I was in my 20s, and it still gives me chills.👍👍
If anyone is interested in other nuclear war films, have a look for The War Game from the BBC in the 1960s (it's in b&w) - it was banned from transmission by the government of the day. (Macmillan administration iirc). There's also War Book - about 8 civil servants war gaming their response in the event of India/Pakistan tensions escalate into worldwide nuclear war - no action as such, it's 8 people arguing in one room, but it's interesting to see how governments plan for these possibilities and turn everything (including infrastructure destruction and civilian casualties) into a numbers game.
My British dad showed me Threads when I was 12 and I had nightmares about nuclear war for years after. 😅
@@abigaillilac1370 My American dad showed me The Day After around the age of 8 and I had nightmares for months straight. Didn't help that they still tested the air raid sirens in my area (this was in the mid 90s) and one night they came on accidentally! I slept in my parents bed that night I am sure haha. I saw threads at 11 or 12 on my own volition and I can distinctly remember that feeling of depression I had for a week after even to this day.
Weirdly, those movies put me on a path to work in related industries to strategic defense and nuclear war and I have to say I am thankful I did see them at that age because it truly made me learn to stop worrying and love the bomb, hahaha.
First off I have always heard it pronounced KON EL RAD. I also used to transmit the EBS Off-On-Off at the transmitter. Later I was responsibile for the EAS at my station. I never opened a red envelope whether it was current or not. We received those every month. I think in the beginning with IKE, it was a good thing. Later on I am not sure that the POTUS knew it was available. At WLS we toured the transmitter as part of the Society of Broadcast Engineers. At the first PEP station in the USA, there were 5 methods of delivery of the message to their transmitter. They had enough diesel for the generator to keep it running for 30 days continuously. They had to install a system that would keep the Diesel fuel usuable for the 30 days. The transmitter building was altered so that a blast from any dirction would not have line of sight to the emergency equipment. All of the Electronics were 'hardened' to be able to stand an EMP event. Very interesting stuff.
Yes, I never heard of CONE EL RAD either.. He must be too young to know better.. lol
Maybe he's speaking in Canadian and you're listening in American. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Eisenhower was an excellent POTUS for that time in our nation's history. Eisenhower was very untrusting of most people, and assumed the worst of most people. He wasn't perfect, but he helped get the USA and our allies through very turbulent times. Sadly, most of the POTUS's following General Eisenhower fell far short of the mark
For "Coneheads"? @@gearhead1234
How did they harden against EMP? Faraday cages? And you weren't working at WCCO, were you?
I recently had the pleasure of meeting Gilles at a local fair. He is delightfully friendly and super knowledgeable! Im super glad to have been directed to his channel. This is all right up my alley!
(And for Gilles, I was the incredulous ginger who laughed at the first self propelled rocket!)
I'm glad you like it! It was a pleasure meeting you too! As you have my email now, please do keep in touch :)
I was a kid in the 50s and 60s and I remember the Conelrad and Civil Defense shelters stocked with cots, supplies, and rations. We knew where to go in case the missiles were inbound.
If the President announced that missiles were inbound right now, where’s the Civil Defense shelter? What would you do? What would you do? Thanks Government!
@@Graygeezer Me? I'd probably become a crispy critter for living too close to a warhead storage site. There's a certain fatalism to it.
More generally, one of the things that shook out of the study of game theory (a field which the Cold War basically created in order to systematically examine incentives) is that fallout shelters and such weaken the deterrence effect of mutually assured destruction. It's one of the rare occasions where vulnerability actually increases safety-so long as the vulnerability is mutual. (This is also why the development of anti-ICBM capabilities risks kicking off a new nuclear and counter-nuclear arms race.)
Living by the US border, it is routine to hear the EBS / EAS testing on FM and AM radio stations of all formats, even music stations.
I was surprised to hear the EAS for the first time on XM satellite last week.
Must admit the EAS header tones make me jump off the seat when they come on suddenly without warning.
The EAS headers are so much more attention catching than what the DTMF attention tone is from how shrill and dial-uppy they sound. I own an EAS ENDEC device so here's a fun fact, the longer the SAME header is, the more areas are being addressed, so while a normal header for one location tends to be short, when more counties here in the states are being broadcasted to, the longer the header will be, and annoying to listen to... along with all the printing... all that damned printing... Yes, they have old school printers on them like the printing calculators, and the noise that comes from that is just as annoying, if not more, than the actual headers. Makes for a "fun" Wednesday noon "alarm clock" while I'm dead ass asleep...
@@abysspegasusgaming it still prints modern-day alerts? What's the device? I'd love to buy one
@@-pyrosef- TFT Inc EAS 911, good luck on getting one though, they are far and few between and if you do see one, be prepared to spend a good deal on it. I paid about 450 USD for mine on eBay in working condition. And, yes, it still prints modern day alerts because the headers have never changed. I've yet to fully test all the headers with software, but the important ones are all there. Sage is another good brand but, again, worth a pretty penny and usually very hard to get a hold of, just... with way less buttons than a TFT EAS 911. Plenty of vids on here to show what it does.
@@abysspegasusgaming I'm old enough to remember getting one of the first Sage ENDEC units in the state and the ancient, very simple EBS box it replaced. I'm kind of kicking myself for not swiping the old EBS box, as ours allowed us to initiate and receive EBS alerts. Our Sage had the built-in-printer and I believe it also had some sort of wired remote control keypad.
You might want to look at doing a home-brew RTL-SDR system. Those can read and decipher NOAA and EAS alerts and the cost is much more reasonable.
Some years back I become a radio collector and one time in eBay I spotted the very first radio owned when I was 10 and it has the CONELRAD markings. It was made in Hong Kong in 1964 and still has the markings.
Coolest channel ever, criminally under viewed
The algorithm doesn't always value quality, unfortunately
Subscribed
It is not legal to transmit the tones other that by the EBS. 10:49
@@oldmech619that's only for broadcast television
@@oldmech619huh?
I'm so glad I found your channel. Absolutely fascinating. As a child of the Cold War Era,I found this particularly interesting. We practiced "Duck and Cover" many times in my classroom.
I love learning about stuff like this. Understanding how a problem is solved, failed, redesigned, become semi-successful, become criticized, and ultimately succeeding in its mission. It just shows how we must never give up.
Love this kind of videos! The Dutch nationwide alarm system "NL Alert" which activates all smartphones in a certain area (it can be used locally) also seems to use the 853+960Hz tone (automatically on the maximum volume that the device is capable of).
It is tested twice a year (which is announced many times before the actual test) and it is quite unsettling to hear that tone if you know it is not a test. Last time (i.e. that I received) was july 5th 2023 when a hurricane force storm came onto land. Funny thing (or actually not so funny) is that it was a proper alert, the storm did a LOT of damage, but it became clear that the operators were not very prepared for a situation like this because the governmental websites that should provide more information about the alert either became overloaded or didn't provide any information at all.
The first family car I remember was a 1960 Ford Galaxy. It had an AM radio with the two Civil Defense trials on the dial screen. My father was a Civil engineer whose PhD thesis was thesis was on "foundations of underground structures", better known as fallout shelters. I asked him what the little triangles meant. He explained pretty graphically about an atomic attack and this was how the government would tell people what to do. My 6 year old brain had to ask what we could do if an atom bomb was dropped on us. My father said, "Not much.
Excellent video.
I’m old enough to remember after the CONELRAD, having been born in ‘61.
I read articles on how CONELRAD was supposed to work - pretty ingenious, even if flawed.
I also collect vintage radios, so I have quite a few with the markings on them.
📻🙂
Yes. I have many vintage radios as well. The majority of the first transistor portable radios have the CD markings on the dial.
who cares
This was fascinating - thank you for putting it all together.
I worked as a radio disk jockey part time in the early 1990s when EBS was still a thing. I ran a few EBS tests - by "ran," I mean played the EBS-test tape cartridge. That's all it was. Memories grow dim after 30 years, but I believe the station I worked for was a primary, and other stations listened for us to broadcast the tone. Something like that. Training was scant and I feel sure that if an actual alert happened while I was in the broadcast booth, I would have been about as effective as Moe, Larry, or Curly.
I once had an old radio with the CONELRAD markings, and I let it go in a garage sale. Something I now regret doing. I also miss the old Emergency Broadcast System tone. It was so much better than the Emergency Alert System tone. EAS sounds sickly and asthmatic, but EBS sounded apocalyptic, like it should.
I remember those triangular markings. There were two on the dial as I recall. You have me looking around for them now.
Those EAS tones perform a greater function, as they contain modulation which activates automatic on- or off functions for various services.
The EAS attention tone is the same as was used with the EBS, except maybe less distorted. The other tones are just data.
They're the same tone...
Fascinating.I grew up in the 60's and remember the EBS.
Great video; I tracked down and watched Threads straight after, it's on internet archive if anyone is curious.
Interrupting The Partridge Family for an EBS test. Couldn't have been better timing.
There is a song from that era called "Fallout Shelter" by Peter Scott Peters and mentions to "Dial 6-4-0, 12-4-0, CONELRAD."
Thank you very much for doing a deep dive into the civil defense alert systems over the course of the last seven decades. I’m a licensed Amateur Radio operator.
Radios, especially short, wave back in the late 50s early 60s I purchased an army surplus shortwave receiver and listened to radio Cuba and radio Moscow and the BBC .
I was very aware of the specific civil defense markings on the dials of the older radios. However, I did not know all the history that you provided of how the system evolves overtime to where it is today. So I just want to thank you for doing a great job!
Re-watched Twilight Zone S3E3 "The Shelter" last night, which uses the scenario of an impending nuclear attack to explore how "civilized" humans react when they think the world is about to end. It's one of TZ's best episodes - go check it out if you've never seen it. During the episode, they illustrated the ConelRad alert system in action and called it by name. I was wondering what "ConelRad" was and then today stumbled across this video!
That right there is a perfect example of the Matrix Reality Simulation in Action. Thoughts become things!!
TV adaptation of a science fiction short story.
@@williamrodriguezmswlcsw8119………..what?
The twilight zone was wrong though. In times of extreme emergencies people ban together and help each other. (see 9/11 and many other examples) Most people are like this. I guess the snakes among us just slither away.
Also another legacy of CONELRAD: Portable highway information beacons used in many states to transmit construction, tourism or congestion information routinely have signs telling you to tune to 640 or 1240 most commonly.
Really! I grew up in the "Conelrad" era, and I never made the connection.
Oh yeah. The NJ turnpike uses those for traffic information or in a weather event.
@@teresahegerich8835 Caltrans, WSDOT and the Oregon DOT as well
I recently discovered your channel and have been really enjoying your content very much! 👍😁👍
Your style reminds me almost of a blend of Alec from Technology Connections and Lance from The History Guy. Keep up the terrific work and I look forward to seeing more. Cheers!
I had two early 60s Ford Falcons whe n I was a teen in the 70s. The cars AM radio had those 2 triangles and it took me awhile to figure out what they were. I can tell I am old because I remember the alert tests being done on the TV and I also remembere that Partridge Family song. lol Great work Our Own Devices! I know others say it all the time, but how you dont have 100k+ subs is beyond me. Keep the up the fantastic work!
I had a '57 Ford Thunderbird and the original Town & Country Signal Seek radio also had the circled triangles on the faceplate.
In Michigan we still have EAS tests at least (IIRC) twice a week for broadcast television (there is a cut-in for cable television as well but it is not reliable) and occasional tests are done on the cellular network as well. Just yesterday the local civil defense agency (we still have those in Michigan as well) did a test to cell phones and broadcast television stations saying that it was a test then going into stating that the local dam being breached and to GTFO of town. 135 people called the Sheriff's Department asking WTF was going on.
Thanks for the reminder. I just joined the club.
I don't really remember the triangles on home radios, but I do remember them on the AM dial on early 60's cars. My Mom also had a 1962 Falcon.
Your work is consistently superb!
As someone with interests in cold war history, radio technology, and emergency management, this was a very fascinating topic for sure
In the late 1950's, when I was a kid of about 6 or 7, I had a small transistor radio similar in size to the one shown here on the far left. I would strap it to my bicycle and listen to the radio as I rode around.
Very interesting! As a baby boomer, I remember seeing the CD logo on some radios but by the mid 60s they disappeared. Now I have to find one for my mid century collection.
Can’t understand why I’ve only just found found this channel, it’s brilliant! Must be the algorithm. I share it with lots of people.
As a kid of 60s and 70s we created numerous parodies of EBS announcements and closing messages "If this had been an actual announcement of a Nuclear War , the announcer would be next instructing you on the best way to Kiss your A$$ Goodbye ...." 🤣🤣. As 8 to 10 year old children we were creating gallows humor to deal with ultimate Nuclear horror facing mankind during the Cold War 😉.
LOL and this was in... the USA, right? Or a Western ally? Heheh
Wonderful video, learned much....but at around the 12 min (12:07) mark, a very familiar voice from my growing up was heard....Bob Sievers from WOWO...grew up listening to the morning show with Jay Gould..( and real music! ) they'd get us up and off to school...and Dad off to work. Thank you!
Your video has brought back many memories of that era. I remember as a kindergartener in the mid to late 50's hiding under my desk, not understanding why. Thank you for the 'flash' back. :)
Thoroughly enjoyed this. Brought back a lot of memories. Subscribed, bell rang, liked, upvoted, shared and commented (obviously) ... may the algorithm gods smile favorably upon your channel.
Neat, just went to look at the few transistor radios in my collection and indeed my philco T-4 does have the two triangles.
Just checked and my Ford falcon has them as well. Interesting to see they included them in cars
Thank you for this look back. This trip back means a lot to us old timers.
We beat the odds. Everything that can happen eventually will though. Someday some nutter is going to push the button. It is inevitable. Once you cross the Rubicon there's no going back. The die is cast.
KEEP POSTING COOL VIDEOS LIKE THIS!!!!! Love from Maryland!
Super interesting history that would otherwise be lost to time. Thank you for the great video!!
My '63 Faclon had the CONELRAD stations marked on its factory AM radio.
I have an old Motorola Conelrad monitor and I've always been interested in learning just how the system worked. Thanks for a very informative video!
Threads really is a must watch for anyone interested in the Cold War gone hot genre.
Indeed. What is so utterly horrifying about the scenario it depicts is not the immediate effects of nuclear war, but the fact that once modern society falls apart, there is NO going back. We are effectively stuck in the Middle Ages indefinitely.
@@CanadianMacGyver That's the difference between it and The Day After. You may think "this is sad, many people are going to die, but we'll move on, and in 10 years we'll be largely back to normal like Germany after WW2." Threads destroys that notion. It never gets better and actually gets significantly worse.
I hate to say it but nuclear war is inevitable, and unfortunately if things keep going like they're going we may get to live "Fallout" games in real life.
@@memesthatmakeyouwannadie3133but both are fiction, and there's no way to know for sure what the aftermath would be until it actually happens
@@user-lp3cf5yn5b I hate to say it but unlimited nuclear war is not survivable at all. while stockpiles have significantly reduced over peak numbers there's still far too many nuclear weapons in the world today. In tests the limited scenario never plays out either. In the end everyone launches everything they can. Just how it goes.
Thanks, I've not come across this before - fascinating and terrifying at the same time. Would be really interested for any programmes on civil defence broadcasts in other European countries. Thanks again, Owen
Great video, great to see you mention our UK system as well and "Threads" .... I also liked Mike Myers "The Day After Tomorrow" which basically took the idea of Threads to America ... another worthwhile watch if you're interested in this kind of thing
Amazing video! Glad you covered all the different systems we've had.
One of my earliest memories was hearing the sudden sonic booms of nuclear armed B-58 bombers flying over our home in far upstate New York. At the time, of course, I had no idea what that was all about.
Plattsburgh or Griffiss?
@@RandomNonsense1985 Plattsburgh!
As a kid I was given a transistor radio (similar to the one on the left in the video), that had the civil defense markings on the AM scale. This would been in the early 1970’s. I don’t know what year the radio was manufactured. It’s possible some offshore brands still had the Conelrad symbols on the dial well after 1963 if nobody told them to change the markings
I was working on-the-air in Washington DC on the day in 1971 when the false EBS alert was sent over our UPI teletype machine. It was a Saturday morning and I was a young DJ at WDON radio. When the alert came over the teletype, I checked the lead station's audio for the market (WRC) and they were running normal programming, so I made the decision to ignore the alert. Only one station in DC actually signed-off on that day.
TH-cam served me the CONELRAD video: fascinating. Thanks for the history. I subscribed.
My dad actually had one of those NEAR devices plugged in at the house I grew up in for most of my childhood xD. It was a gift from my brother who was in the Navy, and found it in a box of old stuff. It still lit up and hummed.
There is one major drawback of a radio / TV based warning system, though: You won't hear the warning message if your device is switched off. This is also the disadvantage of cell broadcast common in many E.U. countries. So you'll still need an always-on device like a siren or a radio-controlled clock to wake you up in case of an emergency.
Yes, Threads was disturbing a.f. I saw it in early 1985, when WTBS was making a point of showing it. Worse than The Day After.
Thanks for this post mr. Gilles, when i was very young,i remember an air warning horn being sounded assumably for maintenance, and I remember seeing some around that were relics never used anymore, but i grew up with the squelch tone that always seemed like more of a continuity test for that tone then anything that was meant for comminication - but I enjoyed it because it took me back to a much simpler better time in this country - thank you for that, I really enjoyed learning about what it all meant
In parts of the U.S. prone to tornadoes, they still test the old warning sirens once a week. You could set a watch by it. If you hear 'em any other time, you dash for the nearest basement-or at least, windowless concrete room-because a different kind of disaster is imminent.
Found your channel trought this video, and i can say it's super interesting.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, WOWO (Fort Wayne Indiana) used to cover much of the eastern US at night.
It might still, but I haven't listened to AM radio in decades.
Blast from the past.
Back during the Miamisburg Ohio Rail Disaster the local Civil Defense director wanted to activate the EBS. There was a press conference so he asked the media right on the spot that he wanted to activate it and they jumped right to it.
Many, today, think that warnings over their cell phones are something new, but those of us that grew up during the Cold War remember the Civil Defense warnings well, as well as the EBS on TV.
“Had this been an actual alert, you would have been instructed to tune to either 640 or 1240 kilocycles for further information. This was ONLY a test.”
I remember seeing the bomb shelter placards in various buildings around town. Our school held emergency drills which they always called tornado drills, in reality it was practice for a nuclear attack but they didn't want the young kids knowing and thinking about that stuff.
There was a monster Conelrad Station dismantled near where I live, a few years ago. One thing that turned up, was a surveyer's map of the site. A large rectangular farm field had been used to build on, and that field had a cadastral number, just like others in the area. But this thing had a second oval shape field drawn inside it, with its own cadastral number. Have never seen anything surveyed like that here. Was there some legal reason for this?
Radiation level reporting station.
Please explain. @@SoloPilot6
I stumbled across this fellow and I just love 'em! Great content!
At 64, I remember asking about the funny symbol on various radio dials as a kid... and we still have at least one old AM transistor radio with the "CD" triangle on the tuning dial. Every one of the emergency tones you played sounded -- perhaps unfortunately -- all too familiar. I'm wondering what the next generation will recognize as the "duck and cover" signal...
I remember the civil defense air raid siren tests that happened towards the end of every month, at 10AM, during the 1970s.
Now, I get a local emergency alert thru my cell phone, starting with those annoying tones, then vocally describing the emergency. Lately, weather alerts, though a month ago the alert was for a wimpy earthquake, a couple of minutes after I felt it.
I have 2 Crosley radios.....one AM from the 60s and a tube-type AM/SW radio. Both have the 640/1240 CONELRAD markings on the dial.
Hey kids! When you hear the signal, sing this happy little song!!
"There was a turtle by the name of Bert
And Bert the Turtle was very alert
When danger threatened him he never got hurt
He knew just what to do
He'd duck and cover, duck and cover
He'd hide his head and tail and four little feet
He'd duck and cover!
He hid beneath his little shell until the coast was clear
Then one by one his head and tail and legs would reappear
By acting calm and cool he proved he was a hero, too
For finding safety is the bravest wisest thing to do
And now his little friends are just like Bert
And every turtle is very alert
When danger threatens them they never get hurt
They know just what to do
They duck and cover, duck and cover
They hide their heads and tails and four little feet
They duck and cover!
He hid beneath his little shell until the coast was clear
Then one by one his head and tail and legs would reappear
By acting calm and cool he proved he was a hero, too
For finding safety is the bravest wisest thing to do!"
"He hid beneath his little shell knowing he's headed straight to hell"...
@@charlestaylor253 They taught us the Duck & Cover song in grade school as we hid under our desks. Lol, how come they didn't teach me this verse? Love it!
i kinda remember duck and cover but by the time I was in school, the procedure wasn't taught and I never heard about the TURTLE SONG until now.
High quality content! I’m glad that I found your channel!
I have that exact same radio what you put up there in that thumbnail there. Great video! As usual.
One minor nit. In those days the Conelrad stations were marked at 640 and 1240 kiloCYCLES. They didn't generally use Hertz to designate frequencies until the 70's.
Great video.
as soon as you said they have a code hat relies on them NOT matching up words, i knew it was going to be a problem. Thats like having a lock that works with any key, except the one that matches it.
I restore radios from 1920 to 1965 as a hobby. I have several cool looking plastic radios from that era, but none have the civil defense feature. I'll keep an eye open for one. Thanks for your presentation..
Love your channel, thank you!
Wow, thanks for adding the part at the end about the UK system! Very interesting.
Love it! Great voice over
no clue how I stumbled upon this channel but I was mesmerized immediately; very interesting content sir, subbed!
Amazing work, my compliments! FWIW - we slept through the 1969 alert in Cleveland, OH. I don't think any of the stations there ever actually broadcast the alert. I was on duty with a B-52 unit for the 1979 alert, and we never did get sirens as there was some question in the command post as to whether or not it was real.
I knew someone who worked at Cheyenne Mountain when they received a "false alert." The New Guy panicked a bit, asking, "What do we do?" The Old Hand said, "Well, I think I'll get another cup of coffee." Because if it was real, you'd never know what hit you anyway.
Thanks for the information. It is considered possible for Earthquake Early Warning messages to be received by the selected area within 3 seconds of the detection of a P-wave. This is one of many improvements to be developed and tested.
These are so great. I appreciate your knowledge and efforts.
My 1965 Falcon's radio still has the CD marks even though it rolled off the line after the change over.
This is the third mention of an early 1960's Falcon in these comments I've seen so far. My family had a 1962 Falcon. Popular car.
I don't get why they didn't just switch all radio stations to the emergency mode? Instead of having to retune all radios to a specific frequency
This way there were TWO places, and only two to get information, 640 and 1240. Participating stations would take turns on those frequencies, to keep enemy aircraft from honing in on one particular signal
I always wondered why the emergency radio noise changed from one annoying tone to another, more annoying screech. I never even noticed it changed names.
I own an EAS system (TFT Inc EAS 911) from '96 so I believe that the transition from EBS to EAS was drawn out sometime between the late 80's and early 90's. The system isn't without its own flaws either but the newer systems are a bit more bulletproof than CONELRAD, EBS and older EAS devices like the one I own.
The real main concern with EAS is that a person with a malicious intent with a ham radio or another open-frequency transmitting radio that can transmit on any channel, even NOAA, can use the device and send out real headers (CDW, TOR, etc.), use TTS software for false announcements, and close it up with the ending header while any radio station in range would be actively receiving the alert at the same time and relaying it to the masses. Unfortunately this could be just a simple one shot and done situation, making it difficult for law enforcement to track down the individual(s) responsible for the false and highly illegal EAS transmission.
I don't know how many threads I've seen of people asking if they could use this device over ham, GMRS, and open-band frequencies to relay alerts to their groups or w/e the case may be, they don't realize that using an EAS ENDEC is illegal and has MANY legal hurdles to get over to even be allowed to utilize the audio output section of the unit.
Hooking a scanner/weather radio/AM-FM radio up to the audio inputs is absolutely fine for monitoring the airwaves for any potential alert, but transmitting? That's a very big no-no. The last I knew, development for a second version of EAS was underway with this kind of security in mind to prevent unauthorized transmissions and verification from the originator to the stations receiver/transmitter.
This has actually been done; an unknown person sent a message warning of zombies, which was dutifully relayed automatically by the system and multiple stations.
Then as an additional insult, the next day a news program decided to report on the incident and in the process they rebroadcast the tones and headers, causing the false alert to relay to other stations again.
There's footage of it on TH-cam.
I worked at some broadcast radio stations in the '80's and I would look at the EBS envelope which had the test phrases for each month on the front. I also think quarterly we did a statewide test where we had to relay the remote state feeder station when triggered. Seems like it was always during my shift.
I was around at a TV station in the 90's when EAS came into being and we had to install a small device that was a receiver and would print the SAME message on a small paper roll like used in a calculator. Same idea that we had a booklet with codes.
Excellent video!
I was an Engineer in an FM Radio station in the 1980's. I clearly remember the monitoring unit built into the rack system that would sound a horn when an EAS message was incoming and then recording it automatically for rebroadcast. We also had the two part identifier cards in a lock box attached to the wall next to it. I kept some of the expired cards for years but somewhere along the line lost them. The only issue I saw with the EBS system relying on radio stations is that most small market radio stations were unmanned or off the air overnight and none (including ours) had any power backup systems in the event of service interruption. ie: earthquake, tornado or floods. Not a bad system but not perfect by any means. But surely better than nothing.
That's interesting. I've never been to a transmitter site that didn't have a backup generator. In fact, they had generator testing requirements. Did that requirement come later, or perhaps it was only for larger metropolitan areas?
Impressive presentation xxx thanks
It was nice to see a clip of the NFB short "Radar Station" at 4:13. It was filmed at RCAF station Lac St. Denis where my old man was stationed as a radar tech on the Pinetree Line.
I remember seeing those triangles on the radio dial; I had no clue what they were for. Epic fail on getting the word out.
I keep thinking of number stations now. It all sounds so cloak and dagger. Really good video.
Excellent video. Very interesting. I'm in the UK, and was going to mention that in Threads. That amateur radio cut out device was a great idea, and Near seemed rather clever too.
Dude, absolutely fantastic video, so nice to actually learn more about these systems, long time oddity, archive fan.
Just an aside here that you might find interesting- A phonograph collector once showed me a 1929 Brunswick Pantatrope Radiola console. It was a floor model phonograph- AM radio combination, and the family that purchased it on the cusp of the Great Depression kept it until 1960, when they up-graded to television-radio-record player cabinet combo from Sears. The Pantatrop’s tuning was controlled by a knob slide instead of a dial. On the glass plate over the horizontal radio station index were two little triangular paper stickers that showed where the CONELRAD frequencies were located. As it turned turned out, a lot of old pre-1950 radios were upgraded to civil defense standards with those stickers.
I handled those EBS codes for the TV station I worked at, and remembered that code book. We received our messages by TTY.
Great job. Lot's of good info for people like myself who study the subject of alerts and warnings. One possible correction... I always pronounced the moniker CON-EL-RAD not CONE-L-RAD. I grew up in the Northeast so the difference might be due to regional dialect.
Nope. We said it "CON-el-rad" in the Midwest, too.
Back in the 70's I was working at a car dealership in Princeton.
We're guessing the DJ on the college Station needed a bathroom break and put a Conaldrad tape in, it was the wrong one ;(
We all looked at one another as it announced to seek cover, there wasn't any.
He was soon back on the air and out of breath probably from running down the hall while pulling up his pants
Just found your excellent work due to algorithm. Subscribed. Thanks 👍
NASA in Florida used to use 1240 to rebroadcast mission control for satellite launches in the 70's, 80's.
@Our Own Devices, the miners' safety lamp behind you is quite neat!
As a ham radio operator and vintage radio collector, this episode warned my heart. ❤️🤣👍