Utah Alerts

[N7YUO]

At various times in the past, we had Utah Alerts.
Someone monitoring would hear a major incident and send Out an alert.
Subscribing members would receive a text message about the incident.
Some examples were:
Active shooter trolley sq SLC Liberty
Fire 2AL 5133 Heath av LDS Ch SLCO fire ch 2
any persuit: 10-80 UHP Statewide
any Rescue: SAR in Gr Salt Lk for Missing A4 Skyhawk plane Davis SAR

The texts were abbreviated. Just enough details so thata local subscriber
would know whats happening and where to tune in.

I once subscribed to a national network, but they had
so many rules that it wasn't practical for local use.
If I'm trying to report a persuit, from my phone, I don't have time to give them:
Type of incident, State, County, Agency, System, Frequency, etc.

One of the first variations of our alerts would send a text to all of our subscribers.
But some phones would always reject any SMS message with multiple recipients.

The next version was changed to send out multiple individual text messages.

We had a version where you could email the alert to
utalerts@twittermail.com or something similar.
We could "follow" utalerts on twitter and get notification
whenever someone sent an alert. Twitter shut it down.

Is anyone else interested in trying to resurrect the alerts?

 

[bneilson]

UtahAlerts is still active: x.com

There are challenges with having multiple people sending alerts but if you are interested, please reach out to me directly.

If there is a better platform for this I am open to looking at it. Something like WhatsApp might be better and allow for a bit more closed system.

 

[KD7DDC]

At one point I was working on a Discord integration for the SLVSA.

 

[522]

I am definately interested... What platform would be the easiest, best suited? How would the platform alarm the patrons who wanted said alerts?
Also, what justifies an 'Alert"

 

[BinaryMode]

Do you guys think Pushbullet would suit you perhaps? It's very cheap, and cross platform.

I'd also create a website with GravCMS. Waaay better than WordPress which is very well sought after by hackers. I know because my web properties protected by Cloudflare block drive-by WordPress vulnerability scanning bots practically every minute of everyday. That's how attractive the WordPress CMS is.

Or static HTML content can be done using Amazon S3 which is a pay as you go service. I use S3 myself.

Anyway, I absolutely loves this stuff. I'm not a massive pro by any means though.

Full disclosure. I live over the border in Colorado. Used to live in Clearfield for a little over a year going to school.

 

[bneilson]

@BinaryMode I will take a look at Pushbullet, but if there is a cost that might be a non starter. We have paid for some backend services in the past for UtahAlerts but I would like to avoid that.

We are currently testing another platform that looks promising.

 

[enosjones]

I've followed the Utah alerts in the past, I have X and discord.. either works for me

 

[MrBungle]

I will never, ever log into Twitter. You could personalize all the alerts you want, but I won't see them. I don't know what it is with American's and their obsession with Twitter but ok.

 

[N7YUO]

How would the platform alarm the patrons who wanted said alerts?
Also, what justifies an 'Alert"

In the past, w generally received text messages on phone or pager.
What justifies an alert? Anything that the local news would likely report on. In addition, Persuits (10-80) , Avalanches, SAR, Large fires.
You get the idea. What not to alert: any undercover or surveillance, suicides,
On fires, I remember reading some previous instructions that stated: Send alerts on fires only if they are confirmed, not when they are dispatched. Also, refrain from play by play unless there has been a significant escalation.
Example: A brush/grass fire on a windy day jumped in size and consumed two homes. The fire chief kept adding alarms. I think it went to five.
I don't remember the year, but it happened in southeast SL County.

 

[522]

In the past, w generally received text messages on phone or pager.
What justifies an alert? Anything that the local news would likely report on. In addition, Persuits (10-80) , Avalanches, SAR, Large fires.
You get the idea. What not to alert: any undercover or surveillance, suicides,
On fires, I remember reading some previous instructions that stated: Send alerts on fires only if they are confirmed, not when they are dispatched. Also, refrain from play by play unless there has been a significant escalation.
Example: A brush/grass fire on a windy day jumped in size and consumed two homes. The fire chief kept adding alarms. I think it went to five.
I don't remember the year, but it happened in southeast SL County.

We are certainly past the days of pagers. Some may/may not want actual text messages on their phone, and rather an App to alert them.
Again, back to what App would be best suited.

Anything the local news reports on? Thats very subjective to what someone may think is important, especially on a slow news day.
I was thinking that something a local news agency may call "Breaking News" is definately worthy of an update, but a lot of the rest is again subjective and probably less worthy of an "alert"

 

[Spadinator]

I am definitely interested.