Radio and Notifications

As people argue over the best means for receiving notifications, radio is picking up a head of steam in a number of formats. We're not talking about radio formats in the sense of Country, Pop, News/Talk, or Acid Rock/Gospel. We're talking about different means of using radio signals for issuing alerts.

Broadcast radio, the kind with the cool different formats, will soon undergo a change in the emergency notifications field when the Emergency Alert System (EAS) is modernized. Radio stations will install new digital receivers that are compliant with the Common Alerting Protocol (CAP). This should make broadcast radio more interactive with other types of notification modes.

Meantime, there's weather radio - devices that broadcast weather info from the National Weather Service. Weather radio got a nice plug recently in an article in the Cincinnati Enquirer newspaper. Local emergency management director Bill Turner of Campbell County was quoted as saying, "A tone-alert weather radio is one of the fastest and reliable means of obtaining weather information." He was responding to a bit of a controversy in the area about use of sirens - some people complaining they can't hear them when they're in their homes. Turner says sirens are intended to alert people who are outside; the fact that sometimes people in their homes can hear them is a bonus.

There's a third type of radio picking up speed. These are systems that use radio frequencies to delivery emergency notifications to special receivers. As of July 4th, residents within the Montecito Fire District in Santa Barbara County (CA) can purchase $90 radio devices to receive a variety of types of emergency notifications, mostly fires. The District is reacting to the Montecito Tea Fire wildfires which destroyed 210 homes in 2008. The District looked at several means of notifications like sirens and telephone, and decided the special radio receivers were the best way to go.

All the best,


Rick