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Weatheradio Canada () is a Canadian
weather radio A weather radio is a specialized radio receiver that is designed to receive a public broadcast service, typically from government-owned radio stations, dedicated to broadcasting weather forecasts and reports on a continual basis, with the routine w ...
network owned and operated by
Environment and Climate Change Canada Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC; )Environment and Climate Change Canada is the applied title under the Federal Identity Program; the legal title is Department of the Environment (). is the department of the Government of Canada res ...
's
Meteorological Service of Canada The Meteorological Service of Canada (MSC; ) is a branch of Environment and Climate Change Canada, which primarily provides public meteorological information and weather forecasts and warnings of severe weather and other environmental hazards. ...
division. It is one of the two weather radio systems across North America along with the
NOAA Weather Radio NOAA Weather Radio (NWR), also known as NOAA Weather Radio All Hazards, is an automated 24-hour network of Very high frequency, VHF Frequency modulation, FM weather radio stations in the United States which broadcast weather information direct ...
, and is an official partner of the
National Weather Service The National Weather Service (NWS) is an Government agency, agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government that is tasked with providing weather forecasts, warnings of hazardous weather, and other weathe ...
. Weatheradio Canada is headquartered in
Montreal Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...
,
Quebec Quebec is Canada's List of Canadian provinces and territories by area, largest province by area. Located in Central Canada, the province shares borders with the provinces of Ontario to the west, Newfoundland and Labrador to the northeast, ...
and transmits in both official languages (English and French) from 230 sites across Canada. Weatheradio Canada, as well as Environment Canada's weather telephone service Hello Weather, utilizes
Nuance Communications Nuance Communications, Inc. is an American multinational computer software technology corporation, headquartered in Burlington, Massachusetts, that markets speech recognition and artificial intelligence software. Nuance merged with its comp ...
text to speech voices. Starcaster Text-To-Speech, owned by STR-SpeechTech Ltd, was used from 1994 to 2021.


History

In 1976, Environment Canada's Weatheradio service was launched and expanded to 30 locations in roughly 10 years. In the early-1990s, increased government investment permitted major expansion of the network to the present size of 230 sites. In most locations, the service broadcasts on one of seven specially-allocated VHF radio frequencies, audible only on dedicated "weather band" receivers or any VHF radio capable of receiving 10 kHz
bandwidth Bandwidth commonly refers to: * Bandwidth (signal processing) or ''analog bandwidth'', ''frequency bandwidth'', or ''radio bandwidth'', a measure of the width of a frequency range * Bandwidth (computing), the rate of data transfer, bit rate or thr ...
FM signals centred on these assigned channels, which are located within the larger "public service band". The radio frequencies used by Weatheradio Canada are the same as those used by its American counterpart,
NOAA Weather Radio NOAA Weather Radio (NWR), also known as NOAA Weather Radio All Hazards, is an automated 24-hour network of Very high frequency, VHF Frequency modulation, FM weather radio stations in the United States which broadcast weather information direct ...
(whose parent agency, the U.S. National Weather Service, is also a partner with the Meteorological Service of Canada) and receivers designed for use in one country are compatible for use in the other. Since 2004, the service has used
Specific Area Message Encoding Specific Area Message Encoding (SAME) is a Communications protocol, protocol used for framing and classification of broadcasting Emergency population warning, emergency warning messages. It was developed by the United States National Weather Serv ...
(SAME) alerting technology to disseminate severe weather
bulletin Bulletin or The Bulletin may refer to: Periodicals (newspapers, magazines, journals) * ''Bulletin'' (online newspaper), a Swedish online newspaper * ''The Bulletin'' (Australian periodical), an Australian magazine (1880–2008) ** Bulletin De ...
s. Weatheradio has indicated that, in 2021, it also plans to add other hazard and civil emergency information (such as
natural disaster A natural disaster is the very harmful impact on a society or community brought by natural phenomenon or Hazard#Natural hazard, hazard. Some examples of natural hazards include avalanches, droughts, earthquakes, floods, heat waves, landslides ...
s, technological accidents, AMBER alerts and
terrorist attack Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of violence against non-combatants to achieve political or ideological aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violence during peacetime or in the context of war a ...
s) to its broadcasts. In some locations, primarily
national park A national park is a nature park designated for conservation (ethic), conservation purposes because of unparalleled national natural, historic, or cultural significance. It is an area of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that is protecte ...
s,
provincial park Ischigualasto Provincial Park A provincial park (or territorial park) is a park administered by one of the provinces of a country, as opposed to a national park. They are similar to state parks in other countries. They are typically open to the ...
s and remote communities with little or no local media service, a transmitter operated by the
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (), branded as CBC/Radio-Canada, is the Canadian Public broadcasting, public broadcaster for both radio and television. It is a Crown corporation that serves as the national public broadcaster, with its E ...
carries the service on a standard AM or FM broadcast frequency. As of August 2007, most of these AM and FM transmitters were unlicensed by the
CRTC The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC; ) is a public organization in Canada tasked with the mandate as a regulatory agency tribunal for various electronic communications, covering broadcasting and telecommunic ...
under a special license exemption granted to low-power
non-commercial A non-commercial (also spelled noncommercial) activity is an activity that is not carried out in the interest of Profit (economics), profit. The opposite is Commerce, commercial, something that primarily serves profit interests and is focused on bu ...
broadcasters. In September 2020, Environment and Climate Change Canada began soliciting feedback on possible decommissioning of 48 of its 230 transmitters. ECCC stated that the transmitters were predominantly located in areas of overlapping coverage and where alternate methods of access (such as cell phones and the Internet) were available. On May 26, 2021, ECCC announced that during their Required Weekly Test, they would announce Weatheradio's transition into its new voice technology system. The previous Starcaster voices had been in use for over 27 years. Among the new voices for the service includes Nuance Tom, a newer version of the old NOAA Weather Radio voice, that was used until 2016. This transition began on June 1st of that year, and while supposed to end on New Year's Eve of 2021. Some stations held out into summer 2022 before making the switch. On August 19, 2022, an announcement was sent on 8 transmitters in the network regarding the impending decommission of said transmitters within the next 6 months. The 8 transmitters announced for decommissioning were: Cooking Lake, AB; Saskatoon, SK; Orillia, ON; Brockville, ON; Fredericton, NB; Perth-Andover, NB; Aspen-Melrose, NS and Grand Falls, NL.


Frequencies

Weatheradio Canada signals are transmitted using FM (10 kHz
bandwidth Bandwidth commonly refers to: * Bandwidth (signal processing) or ''analog bandwidth'', ''frequency bandwidth'', or ''radio bandwidth'', a measure of the width of a frequency range * Bandwidth (computing), the rate of data transfer, bit rate or thr ...
), with band spacing of 25 kHz. Over 90 per cent of Canadians live within range of a Weatheradio transmitter. Broadcast range for a Weatheradio transmitter is approximately 60 kilometres, but this depends on things like terrain, the quality of the receiver, and the antenna height above ground. The service uses multiple frequencies: *162.400 MHz *162.425 MHz *162.450 MHz *162.475 MHz *162.500 MHz *162.525 MHz *162.550 MHz At selected locations, low power broadcasts without the alert tone are transmitted on the regular FM or AM band. A Weatheradio receiver is not required to hear these broadcasts.


Programming

Weather information is broadcast in both official languages which is English first then French. Prior to June 2021, broadcasts in
Quebec Quebec is Canada's List of Canadian provinces and territories by area, largest province by area. Located in Central Canada, the province shares borders with the provinces of Ontario to the west, Newfoundland and Labrador to the northeast, ...
were in the opposite order. The language order became uniform after new systems were installed. Weather alert broadcasts are inserted within the normal playlist, and are available in both official languages. Wind and wave marine forecasts are broadcast on a regular basis on transmitters located near marine zones. However, these and other forms of marine forecasts are more conveniently broadcast on the marine frequency, which is not available on most weather radios. One requires a special receiver capable of receiving the marine frequency, which varies by province. Weather broadcasts also include the UV index for the forecast day, and for the following day during the UV index season. The index runs from 1 (low) to 11+ (extreme). The air quality health index forecast is broadcast at the end of the broadcast cycle for cities in the station's service area.


Alerting

Whenever a weather or civil emergency alert is issued for any part of a Weatheradio Canada station's coverage area, many radios with an alert feature will sound an alarm or turn on upon detection of a 1,050 Hz attention tone that sounds just before the voice portion of an alert message. The specification calls for the Weatheradio Canada transmitter to sound the alert
tone Tone may refer to: Visual arts and color-related * Tone (color theory), a mix of tint and shade, in painting and color theory * Tone (color), the lightness or brightness (as well as darkness) of a color * Toning (coin), color change in coins * ...
for ten
seconds The second (symbol: s) is a unit of time derived from the division of the day first into 24 hours, then to 60 minutes, and finally to 60 seconds each (24 × 60 × 60 = 86400). The current and formal definition in the International System of ...
and for the receiver to react to it within five seconds. This system simply triggers the alarm or turns on the radio of every muted receiver within reception range of that station (in other words, any receiver located ''anywhere'' within the transmitter's broadcast area). Generally, receivers with this functionality are either older or basic models. Many newer or more sophisticated alerting receivers can detect, decode and react to a digital signal called
Specific Area Message Encoding Specific Area Message Encoding (SAME) is a Communications protocol, protocol used for framing and classification of broadcasting Emergency population warning, emergency warning messages. It was developed by the United States National Weather Serv ...
(SAME), which allows users to program their radios to receive alerts only for specific geographical areas of interest and concern, rather than for an entire broadcast area. These advanced models may also have colored
LED A light-emitting diode (LED) is a semiconductor device that emits light when current flows through it. Electrons in the semiconductor recombine with electron holes, releasing energy in the form of photons. The color of the light (corresp ...
status lights which indicate the level of the alert as an "advisory"/"statement", "watch" or "warning" (either amber or green for advisories and statements, orange or yellow for watches, red for warnings). When an alert is transmitted, the SAME header/data signal is broadcast first (heard as three repeated audio "bursts"), followed by the 1,050 Hz attention tone, then the voice message, then the end-of-message (EOM) data signal (repeated quickly three times). This encoding/decoding technology has the advantage of avoiding "false alarms" triggered by the 1,050 Hz tone itself in locations outside the intended warning area.


Test procedure

Every local Weatheradio Canada stations is required to conduct a scheduled Required Weekly/Montly Test of the Weatheradio Canada public alert system, occurring every Wednesday at noon (first Wednesday of the month during a monthly test). The required weekly test (SAME event code "RWT") interrupts regular WRC programming — during the test, a SAME data header is sent, followed by the voice test message, then a SAME end-of-message (EOM) signal. The text of the test message used by Weatheradio Canada stations is as follows:
"Environment Canada has a message to broadcast: This is a required weekly test for all sign I repeat, this is a required weekly test for all sign" "Environnement Canada a un message à diffuser: Ceci est un test hebdomadaire obligatoire pour all sign Je répète, ceci est un test hebdomadaire obligatoire pour all sign


See also

*
Alert Ready The National Public Alerting System (NPAS; ), branded as Alert Ready (), is the national warning system in Canada, broadcast to Canadian television, radio, and wireless devices. The system consists of infrastructure and standards for the presen ...
*
Alberta Emergency Alert Alberta Emergency Alert (AEA) was a public warning system in Alberta. The system was implemented in October 2011, replacing the former Alberta Emergency Public Warning System (EPWS). Based on Common Alerting Protocol (CAP), alerts were dissemin ...
* Interagency Volcanic Event Notification Plan *
Forecast region A forecast region is a unique geographical area for which individual weather reports are issued. Canada In Canada, the Meteorological Service divides the country into several forecast regions for the purpose of issuing routine text forecasts and ...
* Canadian Location Code *
NOAA Weather Radio NOAA Weather Radio (NWR), also known as NOAA Weather Radio All Hazards, is an automated 24-hour network of Very high frequency, VHF Frequency modulation, FM weather radio stations in the United States which broadcast weather information direct ...
* Specific Area Message Encoding (S.A.M.E.)


References


External links


Weatheradio Canada

Weatheradio transmitter directory
- Weatheradio Canada
Weatheradio - Transmitter lists (including AM and FM transmitters)
- Weatheradio Canada
Weatheradio - Transmitter Lists By Province (streema.com)


{{CBC Radio 1976 establishments in Canada Canadian radio networks Meteorological Service of Canada CBC Radio Weather radio Emergency population warning systems in Canada