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Where
Is That %$#@%## Tornado?
On
July 3rd, 1997, we were pursued by a killer tornado that roared
through Dearborn on its way to Lake St. Claire near Detroit.
In those few harrowing moments, as we witnessed park benches
and other assorted debris fly past the window of our RV, we
desperately needed to know where the tornado cell was and
how we could best avoid it. It was a near-death experience
for us, and although our on-board NOAA weather alert radio
was urging us to take cover we had no way of knowing where
we should go.
Trucking
fleet operators, school bus dispatchers and public safety
officers have long sought some form of an early warning system
that would allow motorists to receive timely and accurate
information about weather conditions and road hazards. Most
state DOTs (Department of Transportation) have implemented
some version of early warning programs such as the posting
traffic flow information on web sites and/or the installation
of lighted signs alerting motorists of slow traffic. Millions
of dollars are being invested by firms seeking ways of packaging
information about shopping opportunities and delivering them
to captive audiences sitting in vehicles during their daily
commutes.
There
are a couple of systems in existence that, if they were fully
developed and implemented, might one day provide the kind
of information that we so desperately sought that afternoon
in July. The programs are known as Safety Warning System (SWS)
and Safety-Alert System (SAS). SAS is a proprietary program
of Cobra Electronics Corporation, the makers of the #1 CB
radio for truckers and a very successful line of radar detectors.
The SAS is currently operating in its most basic mode for
most of the country. The SAS targets the strobe light system
that is installed on the light bars of hundreds of emergency
vehicles and traffic control signals throughout the United
States. When an emergency vehicle uses the strobe transmitter
to change the traffic light to green, an alert flashes on
the radar detector indicating that an emergency vehicle is
nearby.
The
more advanced and useful element of the program is being implemented
extremely slowly. It requires a series of transmitters installed
on the roadways around the country that can enable the broadcast
of digital messages regarding hazards alerts. Cobra is releasing
a new detector, the ESD-9230WX, in early summer that can deliver
both voice and visual alerts from the NOAA "All
Hazards Alert," as well as the Federal Emergency
Alert System (which used to be the Emergency Broadcast System),
and information about severe weather. The ESD-9230WX will
cost about $180.
A
more extensive program was developed in 1995 under the auspices
of the Georgia Technical Research Institute and engineers
from a consortium of mobile electronics firms including Bell-Tronics,
Santeca Electronics, Uniden American and the Whistler Corporation.
The SWS system also employs the K-band (24.1Ghz) and can transmit
up to 64 pre-programmed text messages to radar detectors made
by a number of firms. The messages are transmitted by the
use of small transmitters that can either be mounted in a
fixed location or attached to vehicles. For example, a mobile
transmitter could be attached to a school bus providing alerts
to drivers about the location of a bus picking up children.
The alerts can be received within 1.5 miles of the receiver
in ideal conditions. A few representative alerts are: "right
lane closed ahead," "train approaching/at crossing,"
"ice on bridge ahead," "expect 10 minute delay,"
and "police in pursuit." Uniden's
GPS-RD with just about every bell and whistle including
GPS, electronic compass, elevation and SWS retails for $229.
The
big problem with all of these road alert systems is the lack
of transmitters currently in existence in the USA. Last week,
I spoke with representatives of both Uniden and Cobra about
their plans for increasing the effectiveness of their respective
programs. It is an expensive and daunting task to equip the
nation's DOT trucks with sufficient transmitters to be effective.
One of the ardent evangelists of the SWS program is Janet
Lee, and information about her program is available at www.safetyradar.com.
While
it is doubtful that having a SWS or SAS-equipped receiver
would really provide sufficient information to avoid a close
encounter with a tornado, perhaps one day soon it WILL provide
an effective warning about that stretch of black ice you might
otherwise drive over! Next week, part three from my report
from CES-2002.
Mark
Sedenquist
Tucson, Arizona
January 21, 2002
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