| Broadcast area | Canada |
|---|---|
| Frequency | variable |
| Format | Weatheradio |
| Owner | Meteorological Service of Canada |
| Website | WeatherRadio Home Page |
Weatheradio Canada, in French Radiométéo Canada, is a Canadian radio network that broadcasts weather information. Owned and operated by Environment Canada's Meteorological Service of Canada division, the network transmits in both official languages (English and French) from 199 sites across Canada.
In most locations, the service broadcasts on a special VHF frequency audible only on special Weatheradio receivers, although in some locations — primarily national and provincial parks and remote communities — a transmitter operated by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation transmits the service on a conventional AM or FM frequency.
As of August 2007, most of these AM and FM transmitters are unlicensed by the CRTC under a special license exemption granted to low-power non-commercial broadcasters.[1] The service does not, however, have transmitters serving every populated region of the country.[2]
The frequencies used for Weatheradio are the same frequencies used for its American counterpart, NOAA Weather Radio All Hazards, and weather radios designed for use in one country are compatible for use in the other. Since 2007, the service has been using Specific Area Message Encoding (SAME) technology.
Weather information is broadcast using a synthesized voice. The technology employed to produce the voice is the StarCaster text-to-speech system, which uses concatenative synthesis.[3]
Weatheradio has indicated that in the future it also plans to add other emergency information, such as natural disasters, technological accidents, AMBER alerts and terrorist attacks, to its broadcasts.
Contents |
Canada implemented its weather radio service at a later date than the US did.
For the most part the technology and VHF-FM bandplan are the same. Canada has not made any innovations to the transmission standard, as the technology was designed for US use and as such has evolved into having many features.
Weatheradio Canada signals are transmitted using FM, with a bandwidth of 25 kHz. The service uses these frequencies:[4]
When needed, an emergency alert is sent using Specific Area Message Encoding data bursts followed by a 1050 Hz audio tone, for severe thunderstorms, floods, tornadoes, and other public emergencies.
|
||||||||||||||||||||