Background: The use of telephony-based warning systems in rapidly-evolving disasters has been complicated by technical problems, including slow and unpredictable delivery of warnings and failure of the system with prolonged power outages and failure of mobile telephone infrastructure.  Radio broadcasts on AM or FM band have proven the most reliable in natural disasters. The YellowBird ALERT system uses a triggering tone broadcast on existing radio stations to provide a wake-up and warn capability.

Method FM radio units with YellowBird chips were constructed in rugged cases for the trial.  The radio units were programmed to a participating community radio station with broad coverage across the ACT, involving numerous geographical locations.  Pre-trial testing was undertaken using true and sham triggering tones to refine the program algorithm.  The triggering tone was downloaded to the community radio station for transmission.  Signal strength maps of the radio station were used determine trial radio locations.  ESA staff took the radios to test locations to monitor the triggering response to the triggering tone.

Results: The trial used five devices across multiple geographical locations during both day and night.  Response profiles of the radios were used to further refine the chip algorithms.      

Conclusion: The trial confirmed the usefulness of radio-based wake-up warning in the region.  Further trials are now planned using AM radio bands, and integrating location-aware precise triggering integrated with GPS including transition to its application to the radio component of mobile phones.  In addition, further confirmatory work is required in specific adverse situations, most notably electrical storms and near fire fronts, as the opportunity for such trials arises.