The LPFM that I have been helping out has a Trilithic Easycast EAS unit. Trilithic says that this is an "end of life" item... even though it is less than 5 years old. Their solution to the TLS 1.2 change is to buy a new unit for more than $2K... which is more than is present in the stations coffers.Now, an effort to maintain compliance with commonly accepted security standards, FEMA is also taking the next step of removing support for older methods by requiring the use of an updated TLS 1.2 protocol to access FEMA’s IPAWS server, said Sage Alerting Systems and the Society of Broadcast Engineers.
This is purely a software issue.... my browser got an upgrade to support the new security protocol which downloaded and installed in less than 2 minutes. I don't believe there is any excuse for this position on the part of Trilithic except to gouge the customer. Software should be updateable. BTW, this is the SECOND time Trilithic has done this to the station... that's why they have the Easycast unit they have now. (Rant off.)
So... any recommendations for a new unit other than Trilithic? Sage has been talked about here and they seem able to deal with software updates without replacing all the hardware. Any thoughts pro or con? Any other recommendations? Price is important; so is support and the availability of software upgrades.
Thanks,
