Today is June 1st 2024 and it is the 3rd anniversary of i-Notify going live on Weatheradio Canada. This post will look back and review how things have gone, from 2021 to today and there will be some of the same opinions, hopes, dreams, wishes, wants and needs from listeners like myself and others. This will be a review with much the same text, but since late 2022, there have been developments, both good and bad. I am not going to talk about any decommissioned stations, rather talking about the opposite and any modifications which have taken place with a configurations of some WXRs.
On June 1st of 2021, i-Notify first went live as Weatheradio Canada had begun the transformation from the old AVIPAD’s software, to i-Notify. This came a week after a message which was played during the RWT over the entire network on May 26th. The transformation from old to newer technology and voices, was advertised as a gentle reminder, rather than inserting it into the sequence as a public service announcement. From that, I was excited and so were others, because we would Potentially get to hear all four voices as I had described them in a post from August 2018. We eventually heard all 4 voices on the network in Quebec, after a few days of the initial migration.
From my 14th floor apartment in midtown Toronto, I was able to listen to the stream of the Montréal WXR, via a Weather Radio streaming app. I had heard about the switch from AVIPADs to i-Notify on a Facebook group I co-administrate and when it had been revealed in the post, I immediately went to my phone and the app in question.
My first impressions were initial disappointment, only for the lack of voices that I heard on the broadcast. Don’t forget, that we had known about all 4 voices and I expected more than just a boring and dull broadcast, which is what it currently is now. I have always expressed my opinions as to which voice should do what and when I found out that the male voices were doing all the talking (during the regular cycle) I was not happy. I had emailed Weatheradio Canada, with my June 2nd blog post expressing how I felt and letting them know how I feel in separate emails, about what voices should have been speaking certain things such as the station ID and marine forecast. Which I will get to later on!
On Saturday June 5th, there were severe thunderstorm watches and warnings for parts of Quebec (including Montréal) and only the male voices were doing all of the yacking, including weather alerts. Before then, I had emailed Weatheradio Canada, asking why weren’t the female voices doing any of the talking and I was told that they were supposed to be doing any and all alerts. When I had heard only Tom and Nicolas speaking everything (including the severe weather alerts) I emailed Weatheradio Canada and told them what I had heard. It was eventually taken care of and shortly, we heard all 4 voices on the network, as i-Notify had begun to spread.
On June 15th, it was Atlantic Canada’s turn and it was a more bumpy transition, as with Quebec it just changed without warning and everything on the network was new. When Atlantic Canada began to use i-Notify, it was a different situation, where it went back and forth, between the new and the older AVIPAD’s, with one or two of the bins remaining and as of now, the new station ID plays, complete with the time announcements. At first, the older ID had played and eventually, it was removed, as i-Notify had become more common throughout Atlantic Canada. One of the main problems with i-Notify was a lack of SAME alerts to radios and that was fixed, dew to many emails and phone calls. As of now, things seem to be going well on that front, with SAME and the 1050 Hz tone inside severe thunderstorm and tornado warnings, along with the RMT alerts. One of the stranger things about the spread of i-Notify was the inclusion of Chantal doing the French translation of everything for a time, except for the station ID. This was switched back to Nicolas as the French counterpart to Tom (throughout the network by late summer) when Ontario had migrated and I had expressed my feelings on this as well. The response was no specific response except that things will stay as they are at the moment, as they have.
On June 9th 2022, Winnipeg had migrated and I had posted the Youtube video in the August 2022 newsletter and as I had said, the upgrade had gone much like it had done with Toronto in November 2019. The difference being that Toronto was still on AVIPADs and i-Notify hadn’t gone live as yet. Of course, we would have to deal with a pandemic and any plans being scuttled because of public health rules.
Another development is with what I am going to call editing of the configuration. As we know, since the new voices and software have come, we only hear the seven day forecasts for every region in the listening area. In some cases, there are WXRs with 6 or 7 regions which are covered, while others have 3 or 4. With the seven day outlook for all regions, it obviously makes the broadcast cycle long, in both English and French, including the AQI forecasts. Toronto is among those with the long cycles! To counter this, a few regions were taken out of the public forecast boxes and I thought then and still think that was a foolish idea. The only thing which saves itfrom being totally stupid is that we hear the seven day forecasts. However, that should be gone from the broadcast at some point, as the short term forecasts are set to return, for all but the main some time in the future. For example: Toronto will still hear the seven day forecast while the rest of the listening area will hear the 48 hour forecast for today, tonight and tomorrow, or tonight, tomorrow and tomorrow evening and overnight.
Something else which made things interesting is the question of, how are we going to hear not only English, French and the other native language to Canada, on the network? I am talking about Inuktitut and it is heard in parts of northern Canada, including Resolute Bay. I was told that Inuktitut will continue to sound like it did, with the same voice from AVIPADs, despite no Nuance male or female voices for this language as of now. I had talked about that in the May 2023 newsletter and I don’t know if this language is even available onHello Weather!, because I haven’t checked. Either way, it will be interesting if and how the language will be fit into the phone line, as there is no option other than English or French.
Today, i-Notify covers Weatheradio Canada from coast to coast. Ontario had taken their seat on the train, on September 8th 2021, throughout selected parts of the province. The WXR’s selected for migration were those which had been upgraded and even some which were slated to be turned off. This includes, Toronto and Collingwood and both had been upgraded prier to the switch. Toronto was of course, upgraded in November 2019 and Collingwood had its own upgrade in one day, as apposed to Toronto, which took 2 days to complete. I have of course, documented it in both a Weather Radio Listeners Newsletter post and a standalone post recently.
For those who speak and understand French, the French programming hasn’t changed all that much. A stuttering issue is still an occurrence on Stations outside of Ontario, namely the french words for “probability of precipitation”, which has removed the stutter for Ontario. If you live outside of Canada’s most populated province, you hear “Pro……..babilité” as apposed to “probabilité spoken by Nicolas. I noticed this also on other WXRs on both sides of Canada, so Quebec is not alone in this.
Another issue I keep going back to is the station ID and unfortunately, I am partly to blame for this. To review, it is no secret that I had access to all 4 voices back in 2016, but I didn’t know for sure that Weatheradio Canada would be using: Tom, Nicolas, Chantal and Ava until the 2017 tests in April of that year for selected locations. I have all 4 voices and more, on my iPhone and they are still there, but with newer versions of each. However, they are basically the same with different inflections for certain words. For example: Nicholas sounds better with no stuttering and all 4 of them sound more natural than they do on Weatheradio Canada currently.
I was asked which voices I think should be doing the ID (back in 2019) and I had suggested Tom and Nicolas. I had no idea that they would become the assigned voices for this function on the broadcast and my thought was, that they would only be the ID voices during the testing period. You can imagine how I felt after hearing what I had heard and my hope is that the station ID voices will eventually change, from male to female tones.
As I had said, the broadcast is rather dull and there is no variety, when it comes to the voice selections for different parts of the broadcast. Right now, the male voices do all the heavy lifting except for alerts and special announcements. If you are listening to find out what is going on, you need a voice which provides some urgency. The point is not to scare people, but to get listeners to take precautions against severe weather which is imminent or occurring at the moment. You see, Ava and Chantal sound way too relaxed and friendly, where as Tom and Nicolas provide that urgent thrust we need to hear, in order to wake up and get the hell a move on, in order to save your life and those of others too. We need the male voices for alerts and the females for something else, which I will get into below. By the way, Tom and Nicolas sound friendly too, but as male voices they are kinda commanding and get your attention, while Ava and Chantal sound rather laid-back and calm, which is what we don’t need in order to alert us of severe weather. No, we obviously can’t have any bad words on the network, but having 2 female voices which are more emotionless than the males alert us to possible dangerous weather, is just plain wrong.
As for forecasts and weather conditions, that can be interchangeable and I would be happy, with Tom and Nicolas doing any and all forecasts, with Ava and Chantal speaking weather conditions once in a while.I would really be happy with them speaking the station ID messages on a regular basis too and maybe even switching to the AQI forecasts once in a while. Another solution to shortening the cycle is getting rid of the Air quality index forecast entirely from the broadcast. If people wish to get the 7 DAY forecasts, or even the AQI forecasts, that is where WeatherCAN comes in handy and believe me when I tell you, people really want to hear the 48 hour forecasts the most, out of anything to do with the public forecast.
As for the voices, no more complaints and complaining about the French voices because I know how bad they are. I am used to all of the voices because I have them on my iPhone and I also sleep with my WX radio on at night. I don’t like the French voices all that much either, but these are the voices which were licensed to Weatheradio Canada and that’s what we get. It’s a shame that other voices weren’t allowed to be used, because they have more expression than Tom or Ava at times. For example: Samantha would have been good, or even a British voice like Daniel would’ve provided a change. Even an Australian voice like Karyn would’ve been nice to hear, but we don’t have any of those voices. We are stuck with the voices we were given so, let’s learn to live with them.
Something else which had been addressed was the weekly and monthly tests. During the tests, where the voice says something to the affect of “this is provincial short-form (i-e) ON and a 3 numerical digits, such as 004. What does this mean and why are they mentioned on the broadcast? We should be hearing that this is a weekly test of our Weatheradio equipment and a reminder of when it is conducted every Wednesday, as we had heard this for years and years. We should not be hearing “ENVIRONMENT CANADA HAS A MESSAGE TO BROADCAST, THIS IS A REQUIRED WEEKLY TEST FOR (AREA) I REPEAT, THIS IS A REQUIRED WEEKLY TEST FOR (AREA).” This is not general as it should be and the original script was exactly what we need to hear, as it tells you what you are hearing, why you are hearing the alarm and when to expect the next one to occur. New listeners may not understand that and so, the script as it has been for the past couple of years seems meaningless (rather than superfluous) in that we don’t think of an area as a series of 3 digits, other than the text on the screens of SAME radios when an alert comes in.
I think the original script for the RWT and RMT should return as this is similar to CBC’s now defund National Time Signal announcement at 1:00 PM every day, regardless of time zone in Canada, with the obvious difference being that the RMT and RWT takes place on Wednesdays only. This had a specific script which was read out on the air and as we had heard it, beeps went on in the background, until seconds before the top of the hour and the long dash. If we had the regular scripted preamble during the RWT and RMT I had mentioned above, there wouldn’t be a problem and I and others wouldn’t be emailing about this. By the way, a similar script for the alert tests were a part of the original tests in April 2017 and so, why wasn’t that kept for the launch in 2021? The main reason this needs to be further addressed is because the way it has been until September 2023 to today, it was too short and sometimes, some radios didn’t turn off and go back to standby mode, like they should. Case in point, during the May 31 2023 RWT, my scanner which I use to listen to the Niagara WXR alerts turned on, but couldn’t go back to standby and that has also happened with my Sangean CL-100 WX radio too, sometimes. It just keeps playing indefinitely, until I do something about it like turning it off, or manually putting it back to standby mode. So, maybe this can be given a listen in the log and then, remember that not everyone uses the same radios every day. Some radios react differently, to SAME and it was much better, with the egg timer and the human voices reading out the blurb, for both the RWT and RMT. Obviously, the humans are gone and so is the egg timer in Ontario, but what about the script before 2021, stating the fact that this is a weekly test of our alert equipped Weather Radios conducted every Wednesday near noon… in both English and French? Certainly this can be brought back and should have been left as it is with which ever voice would be selected.
The new script for the RWT and RMT test alerts is too long and is not concise enough,. All we need to hear is something to the effect of indicating that this is a test of our “alert equipped weather radios, held every Wednesday near noon” and that’s it. We don’t need to hear a bunch of gobbledygook, which only a few people (on the inside) may understand. We simply need the old scripts back, which are clear and concise and that’s all we need.
As for what will happen with i-Notify in the future, I don’t know and nobody from Weatheradio Canada has come forward with any earth shattering news, as to any changes to the voice selection and whether I approve, or disapprove of them. I’ve always said, my doors always open if they need help with selecting which voice performs certain functions on the broadcast. However, even I as a long time old reliable listener am not immune to being shut out of decision making and unfortunately, the great unwashed (majority) get the final say, as opposed to someone who knows what sounds best for a particular box. Everything is all in one basket and their needs to be a shake-up in the cycle, in order to make the broadcast more interesting. By which I mean that there needs to be more variety in what voices are selected to speak certain things and not a change in the order of the forecast all the time, as there needs to be consistency, in what we hear and when we hear it, but not at the cost of sacrificing regions from the broadcast cycle for public forecasts. At this point, the voices are consistent but not the order of the public and marine forecasts an this has to change quickly, so that more people who are listening, will get a general idea of when what they are listening for is coming up soon (i-e) the local forecasts.
These are my personal hopes for Weatheradio Canada and my desire, to continue contributing to it by not just commenting, but also helping to make final decisions on certain things. I hope that any changes which are slated to happen with i-Notify, will happen quickly. Also, I hope that those of us who are active listeners will get a heads up, as to what and when any changes will happen. Personally, I hope that I am the first, as I email Weatheradio Canada every week with my RWT and RMT reports for two WXRs which I can hear. I also wouldn’t mind having a say, as to any of the changes as well, as I know all 4 voices like the back of my hand. All that would need to be done, is to give me the text of what ever could be selected to have a change in voice, or even the phraseology involved. For example: a change in the station ID and maybe even a mention of WeatherCAN or providing an email Address, for those who wish to provide comments to Weatheradio Canada, outside of calling a voicemail.
Despite how the past 3 years have gone, I am glad that i-Notify is here and I believe that at some point, things will get better and we will hopefully be shocked and pleasantly surprised at what we will hear in the coming months to a year. I have hopes, but I also know that there are those who are not so optimistic and I hope that those minds can be changed. This new software is providing a golden opportunity to show listeners who weren’t around before AVIPADs, that Weatheradio Canada used to be much like NWR is now, but with humans reading out the text on tape. Now that we have text to speech, things can only get better, if they want to make it so. Well, do they? Of course they do.
To summarize my wishes, I hope that any changes being made to i-Notify will happen swiftly. If anything happens within the next 12 months, I hope to be pleasantly surprised and it would be nice to hear: the station ID messages spoken by Ava and Chantal, Tom and Nicolas doing weather forecasts, weather conditions and alerts. Also, the monthly and weekly tests as spoken by the ladies telling us that this is a test of our radios, along with the return of short term forecasts to the network and recreational forecasts to smaller lakes throughout Canada, to give us listeners more of an easy-going vibe on the network during the boating season. The changes I am proposing are in order to stop any and all complaints by listeners, or as many of them as possible. If people don’t like the sound of the voices, I have given detailed posts on them in more than one post in this blog and the latest was from August 2022. I-Notify has stayed the same for 3 years now and we need a shake up in the broadcast, which is positive and not something to provoke complaints from listeners. I have been a listener since I was 14 and now that I will be 51, I will have gone through 2 major changes to the broadcast in terms of the voices and the inclusion of SAME in the 2000s. Surely Weatheradio Canada can constantly improve the broadcast and if not, maybe a bunch of people will stop listening, which will give the wrong impression that stations need to be decommissioned. Is that what management wants? I hope not.
Speaking of that wrong impression, I also hope that we will have no more killing off WXRs for a long time. None of the currently decommissioned stations needed to be murdered. I say that because if a severe weather event happens in the areas which currently have no WXR service and a lot of people die, Weatheradio Canada will get the blame for it, from those who listen and some of us have blogs, which have the potential to reach all around the world. Also, what about July 8 2022 and the Rogers outage in Canada? I was one of the ones who were affected by it and I was lucky. What about those who may not have been so lucky? What if another major outage (because of severe weather like an ice storm ) happens not only to Rogers, but possibly other telecom providers, including Bell Canada? Bell is great, but nothing is indestructible, including us and cell phone towers. WeatherCAN can not be the end-all-be-all to save lives and we need older technology like Weatheradio, to continue to be there and sound good. It may not be as big a deal in Canada as NWR is in the US, but that is down to a lack of promotion and now, the imperfect sound of the network and stations being terminated, like the Vogons destroying worlds at will. If you don’t know what I just said, do a Google search of Douglas Adams and his five book and radio series entitled The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and I may do something about it, in the newsletter in a future post. After all, it does include a Rain God. Well, I also included a possible spoiler alert.
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