At 2:20PM ET the government has scheduled a test of the National Alert system.
Random information scattered about the net. Some sane sounding, some less so.
NPR Link: What to know about the national emergency test on Oct. 4 : NPR
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Thanks for the information @mwgardiner. Found this Federal Communications Commission (FCC) page with good background and answers to several questions –
Just got our new Samsung A54 5G phones set up today. Good time to see how they work with the WEA system. Let the test begin!
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After the inept administration here in Florida woke us all up at 4am or so earlier this year, I turned all of the alerts off.
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was if my phone is on airplane mode?
Hi @Clem – According to the WEA Test FAQs–
In order to receive the test message:
"Your device must not be on "airplane mode.
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This is probably going to be a Presidential alert. Making it possible to turn those off is illegal.
So will the “WEA Police” come knock on my door if I turn the phone off too 
It was a good test for the phone software. Our Samsung phones let us acknowledge and kill the alert. The Orbic flip phone we use for our home phone failed miserably. The acknowledgement did not work so the only way to stop the infernal racket was to turn the phone off and on again.
Agreed. We have several Samsung’s and a couple of Moto’s. The Moto’s also allowed us to acknowledge and kill the alerts.
Wish I had planned ahead. USA Today article said “If your cellphone was set to Wi-Fi or airplane mode, it wouldn’t have received the alert because the message relies on the cellular broadcast system.” Would like to have placed one of the phones in Airplane Mode with just WiFi on to verify this (just curious). I’m sure that is correct.
The last time system had a Nation-wide test was 2018 (I think) so maybe next time 
Our phones on T-Mobile’s network, with no cell coverage at home but connected to Wi-Fi, did not get the alert. That’s probably similar to the test you wanted to try
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