Xander (KanawhaCountyWX)@KanawhaCountyWX@mastodon.social

Yeah crazy to believe it's already been a decade. My office transitioned on 06/23/2016 during a historic flooding event... not the best timing there Charleston. One slight point of correction, the modern voices are from VoiceText, not NeoSpeech. They're very similar, but VoiceText is more distinct in its intunation.

Alex Krier@AlexSpectrum93@dragonscave.space

I can't believe its been 10 years since NOAA Weather Radio transitioned from the Console Replacement System (CRS) which used NWS DECtalk, AT&T Mike (later replaced with Speechify Tom), and AT&T Crystal (later replaced with Speechify Mara) for English, and Speechify Javiar for Spanish, to the Broadcast Message Handler (BMH) which uses NeoSpeech Paul for English and NeoSpeech Violeta for Spanish. Personally, I would've chose James instead of Paul, since I think James has that more formal professional intonation perfect for weather related events, Paul sometimes sounds a little bit high pitched.

DFW-EAS@DFW_EAS@someplace.social

Replying to @KanawhaCountyWX@mastodon.social

@KanawhaCountyWX Fort Worth switched around the same time. I forget what day it was exactly, but I do remember that I woke up one morning, checked the walkie talkie (it's all I hhad at the time) and it was normal, then I checked again before I left and it had a new voice. Went up to Tulsa that week and NWS Norman and Tulsa were both still using CRS. I honestly figured it was an NWS Fort Worth specific thing for a while. That was before I had easy access to the internet.

Xander (KanawhaCountyWX)@KanawhaCountyWX@mastodon.social

Replying to @DFW_EAS@someplace.social

@DFW_EAS So the reaosn I remember the exact date, we had catastrophic flash flooding that day with multiple flash flood emergencies being issued and some towns being completely washed away. There's a video of a home in Clendinnen floating off its foundation down an overflowing creek while engulfed in flames. For an hour, WXJ85's programming was airing on WXJ84, these are stations 120 miles aparr and on diferent frequencies. I had some sort of an app on my iPad, when I went to my

Xander (KanawhaCountyWX)@KanawhaCountyWX@mastodon.social

Replying to @DFW_EAS@someplace.social

@DFW_EAS Yeah it was, I heard it say "WXJ85 on 162.550," looked at my scanner and it was indeed on 162.400. Sadly there's not any recordings of the switchover, I was too young and terrified to have recorded it. At the time the EAS still scared me, and I was just hoping our house wouldn't take damage (thankfully it didn.t) Worst thing that happened that day was I knocked my phone out a second story window.

DFW-EAS@DFW_EAS@someplace.social

Replying to @KanawhaCountyWX@mastodon.social

@KanawhaCountyWX Wow. I'm glad your house didn't have any damage. I would've been terrified as well. I had a pretty close call with a tornado in 2012. Dad came to pick me up early from school that day because he'd seen the radar and was worried about it. I just remember all the street lights being on which was super weird for 1:00 in the afternoon. At one point we were driving (Dad wanted to check on some family of ours).

So imagine this. You're five years old. You and your Dad are in the car right near a tornado. He gets out of the car to walk up to their house. It's raining so hard it's difficult to hear anything. You have light perception but it's not very useful given how dark it is. So as he gets further and further from the car, as he's walking through the rain away from you, his shadow gets more and more distorted until you can see nothing at all. Then it starts hailing and the sirens start blaring. You are in the back of the car and can do nothing but listen to the radio and look out the window hoping that he didn't get sucked up by the tornado.

That was my introduction to EAS and weather stuff. Brad Barton is great, by the way. When there's a particularly bad storm, hearing his voice still has a calming affect all these years later.