[BC] BUSH ORDERS UPDATE OF EMERGENCY ALERT SYSTEM

[Mark Humphrey]

On 6/27/06, Paul Smith W4KNX <paul at amtower.com> wrote:
> Those things were zoned for a reason.  Then what they should do is restrict
> the warning to only the affected zone.

A data protocol similar to amateur radio's APRS would lend itself well
to an updated EAS, allowing location of an hazard to be well-defined
by including:

1) Geographical coordinates of a point, or set of points corresponding
to the corners of a polygon.  (Any device with GPS would then by able
to give the message recipient the relative distance and bearing of the
hazard -- and plot it on a map -- without depending on County or place
descriptions which may be unfamiliar.)

2) A vector representing speed and direction of motion of a tornado,
thunderstorm cell, tsunami, poisonous cloud, or other moving hazard.

3) A timestamp and expiration time (this is already part of the
existing EAS protocol)

4) A line of status text

APRS uses a very efficient technique to transmit this information.
More about it here:

http://www.tapr.org/aprs_working_group.html

Mark
K3XY