Hi Don:

Nice post. It almost seems like you have to be very close to the epicenter to make a detection...thus imposing a huge cost in really covering an area well.

Maybe this is why the USGS guy balked...too much up front cost in wiring the whole place up with sensors and maybe too much "noise" / false alarms.

Do he say if he ever calculated a false alarm rate? It seems like that one sensor from the other day was "false alarming". And he did mention the need to swap out cards for quick repairs...maybe it is a moisture problem. Anyway I can see where one would run into a "cry wolf" problem here....

Anyway, some inkling even if it is a false alarm is arguably still better than no warning at all...though some people muight still prefer the latter set-up anyway (i.e. no false alarms with no warning).

Do you think the USGS position is reflected in the impression that the Parkfield button seems like it is seldon if ever accessible? Just a thought...

mark