radiorob
commented
1 year ago I asked Pelmorex about this... At the moment there isn’t any specific feed or location dedicated for testing purposes. There is one test alert that is issued on a daily basis for a remote location in NWT, however its issued only once per day. We can determine one location in NWT and issue that alert daily for it, if that helps.
Generally, tests are scheduled on a need basis, an LMD who wants to test their equipment coordinates a test directly with the Issuing Authority (or they can use an already scheduled test posted on our website at this LINK). It also depends on what alert filters are needed by the LMD, do they want a basic test alert that is not intended for distribution or do they need filters that represent an alert meant for distribution to the public?
If Pelmorex isn't able to issue this type of test, it might be something that OpenBroadcaster could do. We might create a third field to put in a additional NAAD feed and issue out a properly formatted CAP-CP message. As I recall Canada has a single NAAD (Pelmorex) and in the US there are 180+ NAAD
Could the existing 'inject test alert' mechanism be used for this? Or are you wanting this to be an automatic thing instead of manually testing the system? It might be possible to add a setting so that you can have the player inject a test alert periodically. The injected test alerts are treated like any other alert in the system, so it would test everything except the internet connection to pelmorex. It's possible to add additional test alerts to the system with just the CAP xml for the alert. The existing test alert xml files can be found in obplayer/alerts/data/testalerts/.
The idea was to be able to turn on the "test" region geocode to have an "honest" end to end test. Once test was completed the test region geocode would be removed for the geocode list. The reason for asking for a "test geocode" is that the "Inject Test" will provide a test message - even if the network connection is down, or Pelmorex is down, or my nic has failed, or whatever. Just an idea to make the system better! Dave
It appears that the regions for the Canadian Geocodes range from 1 to 6. Would there be any merit in Pelmorex sending a periodic (maybe 3 or 5 minute interval) TEST Alert to a Geocode starting with something like 9 or 0. Then for testing we plug in the TEST Geocode and we can verify the reception and audio capabilities of the system.