Emergency alerting continues to be a hot and evolving topic that overlaps substantially with the broadcast world.
Two companies familiar to RW readers, Sage Alerting Systems and SpectraRep, are at CES, jointly demonstrating delivery of “enhanced” emergency alert messages to HD Radio receivers.
“The demonstration is intended to emphasize the suitability of HD Radio technology as an ancillary capability for public alert and warning, public safety, campus emergency communications and other emergency communications purposes,” the companies stated. The demo is at the iBiquity booth.
They said this is the first public demo of interoperability between SpectraRep’s Alert Manager system and the Sage Digital Endec, as well as the first of emergency messaging received by both home and portable HD Radio receivers.
“For this demonstration, emergency alert messages are originated and routed with the SpectraRep AlertManager emergency notification system, and the Sage Digital Endec processes and delivers the authenticated alerts into the HD Radio infrastructure,” the companies stated.
“HD Radio AM/FM receivers receive and present the geo-targeted alerts, with audio and expanded multi-lingual text displays.”
The companies want to promote their combined platform to let broadcasters offer info to the general public and to targeted populations such as first responders, government agencies and individuals with special needs or in specific areas.
“The CES demonstration employs a series of home and portable HD Radio AM/FM receivers. The emergency messages transmitted in the system — from origination through display — utilize the Common Alerting Protocol (version 1.2) as well as the CAP-to-EAS implementation profile provided by the EAS-CAP Industry Group (ECIG).”
The announcement was made by SpectraRep’s Executive VP Edward Czarnecki and Sage Alerting’s Harold Price. The latter stated: “This demonstration shows how CAP and EAS can be deployed on new presentation platforms, providing additional methods for broadcasters to provide emergency information to the public.”
