Hi folks. It’s April 5 2023 and it is also a severe weather day, in parts of Canada and the US so, if your RWT doesn’t go off today, maybe tomorrow your WX radio’s alarm will sound. I’m looking forward to hearing any additional severe thunderstorm watches and or warnings which may be issued, because of any potential severe thunderstorms in parts of Southern Ontario. There have been watches and warnings issued already, with one coming just after 10:00 AM EDT an more to come I’m sure.
Also, if you have the WeatherCAN app, you may have noticed something called “Met Notes”, which I had begun to come across last month. It basically is a heads up on the potential for the possibility of severe weather in the area and in the case of today’s thunderstorm activity, it basically said two things we have heard many times. First, the classic line about conditions being favourable for the development of thunderstorms. No, it didn’t say severe thunderstorms, but it did plant that possibility in my mind. The second thing is another classic saying that those of us who are either CANWARN or SKYWARN trained know all to well, “when thunder roars, go indoors” and I have always believed in this mantra, despite that others may not even have heard, or read that saying anywhere. I believe that it should be widely stated on the radio, TV and on any and all weather applications for smart phones , especially during severe weather season. Besides, these 6 words can potentially save lives as we are not indestructible you can be struck by lightning while inside, but chances are better, if you are out and about, during a thunderstorm. This episode from a podcast I follow has come to mind for me. https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/i-was-8/id1494633736?i=1000493153431
If you wish to hear this story and you do not have an Apple device, here you go. https://youtu.be/gTLfzN_O7S8
It was 6 years ago today, that something had happened on Weatheradio Canada, which would be a signal as to what we would hear on the broadcast in the future. Some of us had heard the current voices on the broadcast for the first time on the air, only as a test of the new software.
I remember on the NOAA Weather Radio and Weatheradio Canada Facebook group when I had heard my phone speak similar words to this affect and when I had either clicked a link to a Youtube video, or to an MP3 file, I immediately recognized that the voices I had heard were available to me, on my iPhone, as of the release of iOS10 the previous September. Some of you know that i am blind and I had done posts on what I use, in order to navigate the iPhone using something called VoiceOver, which has more than 100 voices in many languages throughout the world. With US English and Canadian French, Weatheradio Canada uses 2 voices each, with Tom and Ava in English and Nicolas and Chantal in French. The male voices are heard regularly, with the females talking during tests, special announcements, or when alerts are issued. I used to use Samantha as my voice of choice and when I had found out which voices would be used for Weatheradio Canada, I had switched to using Tom and Ava for English US and Nicolas and Chantal for Canadian French. I did it because I wanted to get an idea of what Weatheradio Canada may sound like, as it would have been using the same script as AVIPADs and I had used Tom as my default English voice and Nicolas for French, as I knew that they would be the main voices we would hear on the broadcast. I would use the public text bulletins as a template for what i-Notify would sound like and obviously, things sound different from what is written on the website, with how the forecast text is positioned. I encourage anyone and everyone who is in Canada, who is a Weatheradio Canada listener and who, has the ECCC Weather website bookmarked, to take a look at the public text bulletins for the public forecasts, read or listen to them and then, realize that what you see or hear is somewhat how Weatheradio Canada sounded in either English or French, before AVIPADs was escorted out, after having too many drinks at the bar. I have even done a post on the voices and what I had used, to prepare myself and the rest of us, for what was to come in 2021. Of course, I had no way of knowing that a pandemic would slow things down by a year or so, along with a threat of discontinuation of Weatheradio Canada, in select cities including Toronto, where I was born and currently live.
Anyway, I know that I have posted this before, but it is worth hearing again, as this is what we should be hearing on the broadcast, with all 4 voices getting a chance to be regular contributors to the broadcast cycle in either language. I also hope that the RWT and RMT tests will eventually have a more conventional blurb being spoken, during the test in the future. First of all, here is the test of the broadcast cycle, as it was heard on the Winnipeg WXR in April 2017. https://youtu.be/Ihm5bNBD-4g
Here is the RWT as it was heard on the same transmitter on April 5 2017. https://youtu.be/Vnq5s8j2eVU
I use Samantha again to navigate my iPhone, because I can go to Tom, Ava, Chantal or Nicolas any time I wish, thanks to a VoiceOver feature called Activities and I have created one for each English speaking US, British, Australian, South African, Irish, Indian and Scottish voice which is available to use. This includes all of the robot type voices except for voices outside of US English, used by Eloquence. Besides, it would be too much and too confusing, as I give the activities the same name as the voices, with some exceptions. For example: I give Tom, Ava, Chantal and Nicolas activity names which start with the words “Weatheradio Canada” and either 1, 2, 3 or 4. I put Tom at 1 and Ava at 2, Nicolas at 3 and Chantal at 4, for a reason I am not even sure of. It just is. Here is a well done explanation of how to create Activities for VoiceOver and how someone like myself, can have a lot of fun and use my iPhone to help with Weatheradio Canada. https://www.applevis.com/podcasts/how-create-use-voiceover-activity-profiles-ios
Anyway, 6 years later here are reports from both Weatheradio Canada and NWR listeners, with the current voices on either network and on that note, it would be nice if both networks would have the same English speaking voices, with Paulina and Juan as the Spanish-speaking voices for NWR. I’m just sayin’… … Anyway, let’s get on with the reports.
Here are the SAME test reports for Wednesday April 5 2023.
Toronto (XMJ225 162.400 MHz.) (RWT) 12:02 PM, (RMT) 12:04 PM EDT, St Catharines VAD 320 (162.475 MHz) (RWT) 12:01 PM, (RMT) 12:02 PM EDT.
XMJ374 Thunder Bay test report for April 5th, 2023.
Required Weekly Test sent at 12:01PM EDT.
Required Monthly Test sent at 12:04PM EDT.
Monthly and Weekly Tests Report!
KIG60 162.400MHz Mt. Mansfield VT: Postponed *1
XLM300 162.550MHz Montréal QC: RWT at 12:03PM, RMT at 12:04PM
XLR412 162.475MHz Sherbrooke QC *2: RMT at 12:04PM, RWT at 12:05PM
Notes:
-Signal strength was fluctuating widely for both XLR412 and KIG60, an indication of the weather turmoil currently happening.
-EC’s station XLM300 in Montréal was down for several days and brought back on the air just in time for these tests. I listened to its programming at the time of the monthly and weekly tests, in case my weather radios wouldn’t be able to catch SAME bursts, a known recurrent problem with this transmitter. All of my SAME-enabled radios got both monthly and weekly tests just fine.
-For the same reason I used my little CCrane AM/FM/WX radio, wondering whether it would catch the 1050Hz tone from the Monthly Test (RMT). It did! So it’s a clean bill of health for station XLM300!
*1 As expected, no RWT (Weekly Test) from NOAA’s KIG60 because of the violent weather.
*2: Save Environment Canada’s weather radio transmitters! XLR412 Sherbrooke QC is among the original 48 transmitters all across Canada that are considered for decommission.
Show your support for your weather radio (and alert!) service! Call or send an e-mail to:
Environment Canada Weatheradio: Call 1-877-789-7733 or E-Mail radio@ec.gc.ca
Environment and Climate Change Minister Steven Guilbeault: Phone: 613-992-6779 E-Mail: ministre-minister@ec.gc.ca
Voilà!