Digital Radio Mondiale will be demonstrating the Emergency Warning Feature of the ITU recommended international DRM standard at an event hosted by India’s National Disaster Management Authority on Nov. 22.
The session entitled “DRM — Disaster and Emergency Warning” is scheduled for the final day of a four-day event held at the Gujarat Institute of Disaster Management, Gandhinagar (Gujarat). Alexander Zink, Fraunhofer IIS, vice-chairman DRM Technical Committee; Radu Obreja, DRM marketing director; and the Honorary Chair of the DRM India Chapter, Yogendra Pal will make presentations during the event.
According to DRM, the session will also include a technical demonstration of how emergency alerts and information can be signaled and managed using DRM in the country in general and the coastal states in particular.
“The inbuilt EWF in DRM is an excellent way to inform the public immediately about possible disasters and other emergencies. All the digital receivers get automatically tuned to audio and or data emergency warning signals in multiple languages, even if they are tuned to another station. India has nine coastal states, so this feature is of utmost importance to give emergency messages to fishermen and all those on ships, said Yogendra Pal.
“All India Radio is already in the process of installing 72 DRM transmitters, which will eventually cover about 70 percent of the population of the country. The EWF is freely available in these transmitters. If the government decides to use this feature, the only actions required would be to send the emergency signals to the transmitters. In parallel the government would need to inform receiver manufacturers to incorporate this feature in digital receivers.”
The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) has included the DRM Emergency Warning Functionality paper and recommendation in a recent document. Click here for the ITU document in full.
