Audible Emergency alerts? & Disaster RSS

[sam_uk]

With the coming increase in bandwith and the new audio speaker it seems like it might be good to localise content to some extent, particularly with regard to emergency warnings.

Probably the most obvious way is to Grab the RSS from GDACS

Then have a user switch in the interface to ‘sound audible alerts for my country’
Where ‘my country string’ matches the ‘affected country’ string an alarm goes off.

It would be fairly rudimentary and you’d get alerted to stuff in other parts of the country, but would be a useful first iteration .

It would be good to script grabbing pages and resources from GDACS too

To take an example This is the page for Tembin

In addition Relief web provide another resource. It might be good to script grabbing their inforgraphics etc.

@Abhishek @Syed Are you interested in this?

[Konrad_Roeder]

@sam_uk
To sound an audible alert for every emergency warning in the US might get to be too much. The state I live in, Washington, is about the size of West Germany. Some alerts for other parts of Washington would not necessarily require a huge alarm.

I wonder if there’s a way to filter these alerts based on maidenhead grid. Maybe there’s a way to select a bunch of neighboring grid squares. I will look into it tonight.

–Konrad, WA4OSH

[sam_uk]

Yes it’s an interesting idea, however the alerts typically don’t come with a maidenhead reference.

[sam_uk]

Although actually This source

Does include a Lat/ Long so it should be trivial to translate that.

However the lat/long is not included in their RSS feed, so you’d need to apply a bit of logic to that.

Maybe Wget the links in the RSS and grep them?

Then apply a bit of logic -
Only alert on level 3 alerts or higher (maybe user can choose?)
If it affects ‘County’ alert that Grid square.
If it alerts ‘country’ alert

The user could then set their Maidenhead location using a local version of this map?

[KR1ZAN]

After using the Dreamcatcher, and I’m especially interested in APRS, I would suggest an app or feature in some future OS rev to include a “string” monitor for the various feeds, which if detected would set an alarm, either a light (LED) or sound or contact closure. This would let the user monitor for their call sign in APRS, specific words in news, names, etc.

This way the user doesn’t have to look through all the received files to see if messages or news items apply. This could potentially satisfy the interest for “audible emergency alerts” by monitoring for a specific “strings”. It would also be handy if the “string” allowed for BOOLEAN combinations (i.e., “warning” OR “alarm” OR “emergency” OR (“outnet” AND “kr1zan”)).

Conceivably, the monitoring function might allow for “strings” to invoke specific 'alarms" (i.e., light, sound, switch, etc.).

73, Frank KR1ZAN

[Konrad_Roeder]

Maidenhead grid and grid squares are derived from lat-lon. They’re an easy way to box-in an area of interest.

Location names of countries, states, counties or even addresses can be converted to lat-lon and in turn to maidenhead coordinates.

Address to lat-lon

Works world-wide

The beauty of the maidenhead system is that the more of the string is known, the smaller of a point is described.

This is CN87VL

This is CN87

Alert set for CN87
Alert happens in Renton, WA → CN87VL

CN87VL is inside CN87 → filter triggers audible alert

–Konrad, WA4OSH

[Konrad_Roeder]

Alert just happened for an earthquake in Washington
http://hisz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/database/index.php?pageid=event_summary&edis_id=EQ-20180104-61253-USA

Is it in my grid square?
Lat-lon → Maidenhead grid
46.28, -121.85 → CN96

Where is the earth quake?

Is this in a Grid-square that I’m interested in? sure → alert

–Konrad, WA4OSH

[sam_uk]

[quote="KR1ZAN, post:5, topic:4458"]I would suggest an app or feature in some future OS rev to include a "string" monitor for the various feeds, which if detected would set an alarm, either a light (LED) or sound or contact closure.[/quote]

Yes, this seems like a good idea, would extend the functionality in a number of ways.

[sam_uk]

@Konrad_Roeder

Alert set for CN87
Alert happens in Renton, WA –> CN87VL

Sounds good. Do you know of a reliable API that provides this Location> Gridsquare lookup service? Or are there self-host options that Outernet could install on their own infrastructure?

[Konrad_Roeder]

I just had an idea and was going through a proof of concept. The next obvious step would be to find APIs and/or existing libraries of known functions that can do this. Or, alternatively, pick on the idea, find its flaws and improve on it.

–Konrad, WA4OSH