This was sent out from our friends at the Alabama Broadcasters Association late Thursday (10/8):

After the issue Wednesday (10/7) surrounding an NPT issued for Alaska and a planned similar NPT to be issued October 15 for Puerto Rico, we have the following information from Harold Price, president of Sage Alerting Systems:

"The Sage Endec does not need a user-supplied filter for NPT."

We have had an internal filter since the 89-30 release in 2016. Here is the full documentation for that feature.

How the “auto filter” feature works:

First, the feature affects only incoming alerts (from EAS or CAP) that have the EAN or NPT event codes. As of July 30, 2016, the FCC now requires that an NPT be relayed immediately, just as with the EAN.

To avoid the necessity of going through your filters and adding the all US code, and adding your local codes, we have added a feature that will automatically keep you in compliance with the new rules. The same new feature also works with the EAN code.

The short version is that, if none of your existing filters match an EAN or NPT with an action of Automatic Relay, then the ENDEC will compare the alert to two internal filters, one for NPT and one for EAN. Both filters require Primary Entry Point as the originator, and will use the 000000 code for national alerts and Local Area for regional alerts.

To give you confirmation that your ENDEC and its filter set (including the automatic filters) will relay the national EAN and NPT alerts, we’ve added a verify button on the tools page. Click it and the ENDEC will run an EAN and NPT with the PEP originator and 000000 location code through the filters. It will show the filter names that will match, and an indication that your settings are, or are not, compliant. This simulated alert is not logged or aired.”

If your station received and relayed the NPT from Alaska Wednesday, Price offered this advice:

“Note that your existing EAN filter probably has either no location listed, or has “all locations”; both forms will match any incoming location in the alert for EAN codes.

This was the original workaround for the lack of an all of US location code.

Now that there is such a code, “all locations” is no longer desired.

Therefore, when trying to match a filter against an EAN, the ENDEC will ignore the “all locations” or empty location setting and substitute 000000 and local area. This will make sure you don’t carry a regional EAN that is not in your local area”.

If you need additional help contact Sage support: support@sagealertingsystems.com