Are Amber Alerts affecting your flight safety?

[Dry Guy]

You can still have 3G data on and not receive the alerts. It is the LTE you have to turn off.

[PilotDAR]

Yeah, I think their system is flawed, and I do not have confidence in it. Even amber alerts, though important in some locales, are not important to me at home (I live on the edge on nowhere, on a dead end road). I'm not going to jump into my car, and drive out to the highway, in the hope of randomly seeing a suspect motorist. I agree that radio, and overhead highway signs are an excellent place to broadcast amber alerts - my phone is not! I spent 27 years answering a pager in the middle of the night as a firefighter, I like to think that I have now earned the right to have my sleep not interrupted, unless someone knows that I can actually help (in which case, they will phone my cell phone, and I'll go fly a search).

In the mean time, last time I followed the proper channels to inquire as to the right of emergency services to use my cell phone, I was provided an email address. That time, I was carrying a can of paint, ans was so startled by the shrieking tone, I damned near dropped it! For Ontario, it is: "askofmem@ontraio.ca". I was told that requesting there to have your cell number removed from the list will make it happen. I emailed this morning, and asked for confirmation when my number was removed. I will report back here with what I learn.

When I understand that the emergency alerting system has been refined to be appropriate to locale, I'll rethink my willingness to involve my cell phone. I agree that these systems have value, but it sure is reduced, when people who have no conceivable likelihood of being involved are woken up, or otherwise disturbed.

[Trematode]

They're abusing the system in Canada and not using it as designed.

The "Amber" alerts they're sending out, are by legislation, being sent out at the highest priority level in the system as opposed to the designated amber alert level already included in the specifications (more or less a text alert, that can be silenced) -- instead, this highest priority they're actually opting to use is designed to bypass the "do not disturb" functions of your phone and force an aural alert for events like nuclear war and natural catastrophes where there is imminent danger to the user of the phone. Some android devices have the ability to silence these anyway (this is also not in accordance with design specs). iPhone's can't, though.

The whole thing is a mess, and because people are being disturbed in their sleep for the wrong things, they end up finding ways to disable the system entirely, by silencing alerts if possible on their particular phone, by disabling LTE, or by turning off their device entirely.

The end result of all of this misuse is that there are less phones active in the system, and so the effectiveness of the early warning/emergency notification system as a whole is severely handicapped.

Conversely, I'm sure nobody would mind if the system was used properly and only forced the aural alerts if something like a wild fire, or flash flood, was directly threatening their lives as they slept. We'd have people happily leaving their phones on, and contributing to the overall effectiveness of the national warning system.

It's totally SNAFU. They're using MAYDAY when they should be using PANPAN, basically.

[photofly]

So who got woken up by the Nuclear alert? Seems like it was just sent in error.

Me.

I confess my second thought (first was "do I need to evacuate the children?") was I wonder if there'll be restricted airspace for my flights over that way, today.

[valleyboy]

I do not think the alert is sent over "data".

You are correct it is sent through the LTE network separate to data and the only possible way to not get notices is to either turn the phone off or select "airplane" mode and if you wanted to turn wifi on for email you could. The messages come through the LTE network. You can silence all modes except the prezidential (for whatever reason the proper spelling is blocked by web site - is it a dirty word???) through the apps and notification menu on android (I have no clue about an apple fone. The app in question is called "cell broadcasts" and it's a system app meaning it can't be changed unless you have super user access and a rooted phone.

[98 Corolla]

THIS WILL SOUND EVERY 3 SECONDS UNLESS SOMETHING ISN'T OK.

[Heliian]

THIS WILL SOUND EVERY 3 SECONDS UNLESS SOMETHING ISN'T OK.

What are you so stuck up about? It was a well publicized test.

[RedAndWhiteBaron]

THIS WILL SOUND EVERY 3 SECONDS UNLESS SOMETHING ISN'T OK.

What are you so stuck up about? It was a well publicized test.

I would disagree. I read a daily paper, listen to a crapton of talk radio, and watch broadcast TV news about twice a week. I heard nothing about it.

[digits_]

THIS WILL SOUND EVERY 3 SECONDS UNLESS SOMETHING ISN'T OK.

What are you so stuck up about? It was a well publicized test.

I would disagree. I read a daily paper, listen to a crapton of talk radio, and watch broadcast TV news about twice a week. I heard nothing about it.

The only thing it accomplished was me trying to find another way to switch it off again. I should really root my phone.

[rookiepilot]

Remember everyone.

ITS ALL ABOUT YOU.

[digits_]

Remember everyone.

ITS ALL ABOUT YOU.

What was that test supposed to accomplish? It's one thing if they would send an alert that is actually useful. But a random test without any feedback option? What's the point?

[Inverted2]

I just leave mine on silent mode so I don’t get any when I’m sleeping.

[digits_]

I just leave mine on silent mode so I don’t get any when I’m sleeping.

You're funny

[FL030]

I jumped out of bed after today's 4am Amber Alert to start driving towards Ottawa from Toronto to search for a car with no make, model, or license plate details, and a 70 year old person named Miriam with no other description.

[montado]

I jumped out of bed after today's 4am Amber Alert to start driving towards Ottawa from Toronto to search for a car with no make, model, or license plate details, and a 70 year old person named Miriam with no other description.

Thank you for your service. But now we have to give you a fine as that was not essential. The amber alert was not for you to actually take action and look for the 70 year old, it was only to make you aware of what was happening in the world 500km away. You were just supposed to wake up, say a prayer and go back to bed... send those positive vibes!

[valleyboy]

great concept but shitty tech. Because of the piss poor tech and the way it is managed people turn these alerts off (yup it's possible unless you are an Iphone weenie -- lol ). I have because when I'm in bed I can't help anyway.

It's like the EV the concept is great but the tech isn't there yet.

[photofly]

The second one, two minutes later, the same data but in French, is that one that ruined my sleep.

[Inverted2]

Any iPhone experts want to weigh in on how to stop these? When I’m on call for work I can’t put my phone in silent mode or “airplane” mode.

“Do not disturb” doesn’t keep Amber quiet so any other ideas?

Whoever thinks that having that horrible screech go off at 4am on peoples phones 700km away should be locked up and listen to that sound 24hrs a day.

[photofly]

IPhone in Canada: the option to silence Amber alerts has been removed by Government fiat, so you cannot.

[digits_]

On android it's called presidential alerts. You can't disable it either without hacking your own phone.

The government of Canada is abusing that function, while the US government has never sent out a presidential alert.
There is a variety of levels of alerts they could use, and those can all be disabled by the user, but not the presidential alert.