| Buildings and campuses comprise mini-communities of their own. At times communication to this community becomes essential, such as when an emergency occurs (a child abduction, chemical spill, evacuation order, hurricane or severe thunderstorm, etc.). Less urgent announcements may also be important to communicate, such as notice of water being turned off, a traffic advisory, fire alarm testing, or an announcement simply welcoming guests to the facility. In all cases, however, the entire community needs to be informed. This community can include people with a hearing or sight impairment.
PB Alert Radio
PB Alert Radio was designed to communicate important information to an entire building or campus. It first receives Emergency Alert System (EAS) messages from one predetermined local AM and one local FM station, and NOAA Weather Specific Area Message Encoding (SAME) messages from the local NOAA transmission.1 The message is transmitted digitally (sounds, not words). The sounds are converted to text and then the information is filtered by the location that the message is meant to address (FIPS code) and the type of emergency to determine whether or not it will be displayed. Messages can also be entered manually into the system using a PC on the network. (This is usually done by system administrators.)
The message is processed immediately and displayed on IP addressable LED signs located around the building and campus, and “popped up” on Windows PC workstations attached to the community’s network. PB Alert Radio can also be connected to an existing public address system allowing the audio portion of the message to be announced (Figure 1).
Figure 1: Architecture of the PB Alert Radio System
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PB Alert Radio also displays the date and time, which it receives from orbiting satellites and is accurate to within 500 milliseconds. This enables our clients to use the LED signs to display date and time information and toprogram the signs to display messages according to a schedule.
The PB Alert Radio system consists of a PB Alert EAS server, LED signs, global positioning system (GPS) time server, AM antenna, FM/NOAA antenna, GPS antenna, and software that can be used on as many workstations as desired. The system is available for a one-time charge of $10,000. There are no recurring charges for the system.
Set Up and Installation
PB Alert Radio is meant to be installed and configured by the client’s computer staff. The hardware set up is amazingly easy. Each component plugs into an existing computer network. Clients can add as many LED signs as they want, but older signs cannot be converted for use.
Once PB Alert Radio is installed, information is received from AM, FM and NOAA stations, which are required by law to transmit the emergency alerts.
Definition of Acronyms
EAS: Emergency alert system
FIPS: Federal information processing standards
GPS: Global positioning system
IP: Internet protocol
LED: Light emitting diode
NOAA: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
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Andrew Iserson has worked in the IT industry for more than 30 years, having spent the last 20 years as manager of systems development at two organizations. He is a PB senior professional associate and a senior member of IEEE, and is on the adjunct faculty of Johns Hopkins University.
1 NOAA is a radio station that broadcasts only weather for an area. PBAlert Raido can be used only in the U.S for EAS/SAME messages.
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