I'm noticing advertisements for more and more GPS phones. Music, video...cell phones are doing more.

Tonight at our local civic pride celebration we were eagerly anticipating the start of the Marine Band concert when an announcement regarding the weather was made. Our county was under a Severe Thunderstorm Warning...hail was on the way, but no lightening coming close to the ground. When the sprinkles began, we broke out our ponchos (my wife packed for her and the children...I was impressed! <img src="/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />) And pea sized hail and heavy rain assaulted us, but people were huddled under umbrellas, blankets or just taking it.

When the rain let up, I checked the radar from the Weather Channel program on my phone and got to thinking how handy NOAA reports coming over the phone would be.

Do you think the technology is possible to cram into a cell phone? Maybe the alert gets held like a text message or voice mail and when you choose to play it you can have the phone automatically activate the speakerphone or listen in the handset or bluetooth headset.

Should I file for a patent? <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

It's easy. There are three ways to do it.

One is to put a NOAA band reciever into the phone. That would make it bulkier and cut into battery life, but not radically so. But I haven't seen a cell with FM capabilities yet, and weather band is much more of a niche market.

The next is something called "reverse 911". Everyone in a given area is called by a computer pretty much simultaniously. Places near nuclear power plants or where there are tornados have been talking about it for a while, but I don't know of any wide spread implimentations.

The easiest way is to sign up service that will alert you. I think the Weather Channel has one for text messages.

The problem with the latter two is that cells roam. Conceptually, it wouldn't be too hard to get an idea of where you are by what tower(s) you are contacting, but that would create an amazing amount of overhead. None of the cell providers woudl do it, no profit in it.

In California, we have EDIS (electronic digital information service) (www.edis.ca.gov), which will deliver information via e-mail to anything with an e-mail address (including an alpha-numeric pager, cell phone, or Blackberry, which is what I use). One can select a geographic region, and/or also statewide, and also what message priority one wishes to receive. I get National Weather Service info that is a watch, warning, or above, as well as anything that would be broadcast via the Emergency Alert System, Amber alerts, and a few other categories. Your state may have something similar.

Ors,

Please clarify as the Weather Channel has mobile alerts already available. I use this one and I have had good luck them as well. The problem with some service providers like the Weather channel and Accuweather is they charge a fee for their services in addition to the fees you would pay with your service provider. Oregon Scientific makes a pocket NOAA weather receiver as does Midland some of the FRS/GMRS radios also have NOAA weather monitoring capabilities. These are all nice, but won't let you see the radar like your cell phone, blackberry, PDA, which is why I use a Palm Treo 650. Now if I could only get an instant (NOAA) weather alert on it as I have noticed a delay of up to 1/2 hour <img src="/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" /> I would not need a portable weather alert monitor. <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Take care,
Stargazer
ASAP = Always Suspicious, Always Prepared.

Another option (if you are within a certain range of the NWS alert transmitter), is to purchase a used "fire department" pager and have the NWS frequency and alert tone programmed into it. Some models even have a voice feature that plays the warning information over the internal speaker or saves it until you activate it. Minitor is the model that comes to mind, though there are others. That would take care of your delay problem, as the warning comes straight from the NWS and doesn't have to pass through a paging service, TV or radio station.

One way to do this with your existing phone is to use a PC that is always running some code that monitors NOAA and sends your phone a text message (email) based on whatever conditions you give it.

Before you think, "impossible for the 'regular' guy," check out Misterhouse ( www.misterhouse.net ). It's open source (i.e. free). It is a collection of Perl files that can handle something like this - or full home automation. You may have to tweak some code a little, but the email list is a wealth of help. I do know that there is a guy who wrote some code to do almost exactly what you want, and he'd likely share it with you.

Neat stuff, for sure.

http://www.emergencyemail.org/

I use this. It sounds like exactly like what you want. For instance when I Tornado Watch or Warning is issued I get sent a text message with the EAS Alert from the NWS. It works nicely.

Some major metropolitan communities have it as part of their Emergency Operation Centers. Fairfax County has a service that they will text message when there are alerts. It is a good service, but when traveling I’m notified of the bad weather back at home, but not in the area I'm visiting.

One cellular phone company allows friends and family to see where you are at, if you have a GPS equipped phone. This may also be a "parental" feature. There is no technological reason I know of why GPS equipped phones could not connect either a server and give their GPS location, and have custom alerts "pushed" to the phones. Every GPS phone on the market (AFAIK) has built in web. This would not be an issue, only someone coming up with the program to do it.

Of course, this will cause your location at a period of time to probably be recorded, and subject to later retrival.