Specific Area Message Encoding

It is also used to set off receivers in Mexico City and surrounding areas as part of the Mexican Seismic Alert System (SASMEX).

SAME had its beginnings in the early 1980s when NOAA's National Weather Service (NWS) began experimenting with system using analog tones in a dual-tone multi-frequency (DTMF) format to transmit data with radio broadcasts.

[1] In 1985, the NWS forecast offices began experimenting with placing special digital codes at the beginning and end of every message concerning life- or property-threatening weather conditions targeting a specific area.

However, the roll-out moved slowly until 1995, when the U.S. Government provided the budget needed to develop the SAME technology across the entire radio network.

Nationwide implementation occurred in 1997, when the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) adopted the SAME standard as part of its new Emergency Alert System (EAS).

Much like the original EBS dual-tone Attention Signalⓘ, this produces a distinct sound (the SAME headerⓘ) which is easily recognized by most individuals due to its use in weekly and monthly broadcast tests, as well as weather alert messages.

During the said events, viewers and/or listeners will hear these digital codes in the form of buzzes, chirps, and clicking sounds (colloquially known as "duck farts" by broadcast engineers)[5] just before the attention signal is sent out and at the conclusion of the voice message.

A preamble of binary 10101011 (0xAB in hex) repeated sixteen times, used for "receiver calibration" (i.e., clock synchronization), then the letters ZCZC as an attention to the decoder (a message activation method inherited from NAVTEX).

The combined tones date back to 1976[citation needed] when they were made part of the Emergency Broadcast System, the EAS' predecessor.

These codes are defined federally by the FCC for use in the EAS system and publicly by the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) standard[14] for SAME protocol weather radio receiver decoder units.

However, if there is a need to know of severe weather from the west and northwest ahead of time, the user would program additional FIPS codes for Denton and Tarrant Counties.)