[LINK] No cash for phone alert system

[Richard Chirgwin]

stephen at melbpc.org.au wrote:
>>>> Something specific to your area, and will grab your attention. CFA  
>>>> siren and police megaphone cruising (and) SMS specific to your area
>>>> (eg quarter-cell?) registered for or you're in could save many lives 
>>>>     
>>>>         
>> Stephen... it's interesting noting the scope-creep through this thread.
>> The original news article ran with the line that alerts are easy and
>> cheap, and it's only incompetent bureaucrats and cynical telcos that
>> stand in the way.
>>     
>
>
> dont care what any Link thread starts with, as long as smartish people
> on Link arrive as some sort of best-consensus (more-or-less) re issues
>
>   
>> I would say city slicker folly! - More like city slicker lack of
>> imagination; people who are never out of touch can't imagine that
>> country people frequently are. RC >Lea, 'Yes! The fires scared us!'
>>     
>
>
> So thinking cap on Richard, what can you add to this importaqnt thread?
>
> I think we *first sort out accurate-data-collection* then dissemination.
>   
That already exists. OK, I made fun earlier, but now I'm serious.
Knowing where a fire is *now* is already solved. The choppers and
spotter planes are already there. The incident HQs have the data,
including (of course) the incoming reports from people on the ground.
> Ideally, half a dozen light helicopters, with automatic capture & send
> infra-red cameras, and fire-spotters with an ABC open-mic, all relaying
> fire-front speeds and directions through smoke obstruction, mashed with
> google maps or whereis and the spotter's Melways on his lap for the ABC
> radio-warnings and to text-update his quarter-cell sms-all phone number.
Dissemination is the problem. Looking through the prism of "city
channels" ignores the life of the remote.

Let's see; this weekend just past, I was in the southern tablelands of
NSW. SMS is no good; no mobile coverage. Google maps mashups are
insufficiently real-time, and depend on the user being in front of the
screen. Out where the city channels don't reach, people still use VHF /
UHF radio - and guess what, so do the brigades. So if someone at
Jerricknorra needs to know whether a fire is heading their way, they
talk to the fire base.

Paul Brooks mentioned the station sirens - which I remember from my own
teenage years on the Blue Mountains. And there's also the
straightforward police-led evacuation (does anyone remember the Boral
Gas explosion in Sydney in the early 90s? I sure do, I was living about
500 m away).

I am seriously concerned that a focus on city technologies would only
enable more effective rubber-necking from a safe distance, without
changing anything for those in the fire path.

RC
>  
>
>
> Cheers Richard
> Stephen Loosley
> Victoria Australia
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