[arm-allstar] Weather alert ideas/concepts to pass along

[Doug Crompton]

This comes up from time to time on this list and we go over the same things
each time. AutoSky was not designed to give complete warnings nor be relied
on entirely. Its purpose is to warn that you should seek other means to
know the complete story like your phone, a NOAA radio, local radio/TV etc.
While broadcasting direct NOAA voice over amateur radio is questionably
legal you could do it legally with TTS BUT you would need to use a TTS that
probably had a cost if you want any kind of quality. This is certainly
possible. Personally I don't have the time or desire to script something
like that. I feel the AutoSky system is adequate.

I just read a post-mortem of the recent Nashville area disaster and the
final thought was that EVERYONE in an area prone to severe weather should
have a NOAA radio. They are not very expensive and like a smoke or CO2
detector there should be one in every home. Spending the time to add output
to a repeater system so a few, and I emphasize a few, hams can get the
warnings in entirety vs. a curt warning is probably not worth the time and
effort.

Also in the Nashville disaster the weather service really screwed up giving
warnings AFTER the fact for many areas or just a minute before for others.
Rather than erring on the side of caution they waited too long to give the
warnings. Some had seconds to seek shelter.

As far as multiple repeater systems getting the AutoSky alerts, assuming
each one has Hamvoip then AutoSky would be setup and running at each site
with the location of that site for the warnings. There is no practical way
to broadcast the warnings globally. The code either plays it locally or to
EVERYONE connected. This could be people outside of the warning area as it
would include anyone connected. There is no mechanism to send telemetry to
specific sites.


*73 Doug*

*WA3DSP*

*http://www.crompton.com/hamradio <http://www.crompton.com/hamradio>*




On Sun, Mar 8, 2020 at 9:29 AM "Mike Sullivan via ARM-allstar" <
arm-allstar at hamvoip.org> wrote:

> Had a wild idea in my insomnia-filled thoughts tonight.. while I am aware
> of Autosky, and I am also aware of the argument of the legalities of
> rebroadcasting NOAA Weather Radio over the air, we have a weather radio set
> up on our repeater to alert on Severe Thunderstorm and Tornado
> watches/warnings only. I'd rather have it and not need it, than for someone
> to need it and it not be there.. if that makes sense.
>
> That being said, I'm curious of the possibilities of using Allstar to be
> able to send out weather alerts to one, or multiple repeaters.
>
> Here's the situation: You have one or more repeaters covering a specific
> area/county on Allstar. You also have a NOAA Weather Radio or similar
> device constantly monitoring as a separate node on your Pi. NOAA sends out
> an alert, the software decodes the SAME transmission and matches the code
> to the county (or counties) and repeaters covered by that county. In doing
> so, it automatically connects to the repeater, keys up, and begins passing
> the traffic from the weather radio. Once finished, it will unkey and
> disconnect from that repeater.
>
> I know, that sounds like a far fetched idea. Most operators already have
> another means of notification from the NWS (weather radio etc) you may
> never know. I'm sure someone would be up to the challenge.
>
> On another, but related subject, we quit using Autosky because of the very
> limited scope of information that is passed along. Yes, it lets you know
> there is a watch/warning/etc but does not give any specifics (timeframe,
> area the alert is for, etc). It would be nice to have an Autosky 2.0 which
> reads the alert from the NWS and announces it over the repeater the same as
> the weather radio does.
>
> I'm mainly posting this to generate discussion on the idea. I'm not saying
> it's a must-have for me, but both ideas would be nice to have.
>
> Mike
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