Weatheradio Canada () is a Canadian weather radio network owned and operated by Environment and Climate Change Canada's Meteorological Service of Canada division. Weatheradio Canada is headquartered in Montreal, Quebec and transmits in both official languages (English and French) from 230 sites across Canada. Weatheradio Canada, as well as Environment Canada's weather telephone service Hello Weather, utilizes Nuance Communications text to speech voices. Starcaster Text to Speech, owned by STR-SpeechTech Ltd, was used from 1994 to 2021 (to 2022 to today in some places).
In most locations, the service broadcasts on one of seven specially-allocated VHF radio frequencies, audible only on dedicated "weather band" receivers or any VHF radio capable of receiving 10 kHz bandwidth FM signals centred on these assigned channels, which are located within the larger "public service band". The radio frequencies used by Weatheradio Canada are the same as those used by its American counterpart, NOAA Weather Radio (whose parent agency, the U.S. National Weather Service, is also a partner with the Meteorological Service of Canada) and receivers designed for use in one country are compatible for use in the other. Since 2004, the service has used Specific Area Message Encoding (SAME) alerting technology to disseminate severe weather bulletins. Weatheradio has indicated that, in 2021, it also plans to add other hazard and civil emergency information (such as natural disasters, technological accidents, AMBER alerts and terrorist attacks) to its broadcasts.
In some locations, primarily national parks, provincial parks and remote communities with little or no local media service, a transmitter operated by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation carries the service on a standard AM or FM broadcast frequency. As of August 2007, most of these AM and FM transmitters were unlicensed by the CRTC under a special license exemption granted to low-power non-commercial broadcasters.
History
In 1976, Environment Canada's Weatheradio service was launched and expanded to 30 locations in roughly 10 years. In the early-1990s, increased government investment permitted major expansion of the network to the present size of 230 sites.
In September 2020, Environment and Climate Change Canada began soliciting feedback on possible decommissioning of 48 of its 230 transmitters. ECCC stated that the transmitters were predominantly located in areas of overlapping coverage and where alternate methods of access (such as cell phones and the Internet) were available.
On May 26, 2021, ECCC announced that during the Required Weekly Test, they would announce Weatheradio's transition into its new voice technology system. The previous Starcaster voices had been in use for over 27 years. Among the new voices for the service includes Nuance Tom, a newer version of a previous voice on NOAA Weather Radio. This transition began on June 1st of that year, and while supposed to end on New Year's Eve of 2021, some stations held out into 2022 before making the switch.
On August 19, 2022, an announcement was sent on 8 transmitters in the network regarding the impending decommission of said transmitters within the next 6 months. The 8 transmitters announced for decommissioning were: Cooking Lake, AB; Saskatoon, SK; Orillia, ON; Brockville, ON; Fredericton, NB; Perth-Andover, NB; Aspen-Melrose, NS and Grand Falls, NL.
Frequencies
Weatheradio Canada signals are transmitted using FM (10 kHz bandwidth), with band spacing of 25 kHz. In some areas Weatheradio Canada also transmits on the AM or FM bands. Over 90 per cent of Canadians live within range of a Weatheradio transmitter. Broadcast range for Weatheradio Canada transmitters is between 60 and 80 kilometres depending on things like terrain, the quality of the receiver, and the antenna height above ground, however some areas can receive signals up to 100-130 kilometers from the weather radio when located on top of a mountain or in locations that contains a flat surface. The service uses these frequencies: 162.400 MHz 162.425 MHz 162.450 MHz 162.475 MHz 162.500 MHz 162.525 MHz 162.550 MHz