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Germany conducts first nationwide emergency warning day in decades

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Re: Germany conducts first nationwide emergency warning day in decades

#71
post #58
post #13

Correction to the article: the annual test day will be the second Thursday in September, not always the tenth. I don't understand why Cell Broadcast is not used. Surely many people don't have the app installed? I'd never heard of it and I've lived in this country the whole time it's been available.

I have simply no idea who thought it was a good idea to implement a nation-wide warning system on an app that has ~15k downloads[0]~. We already get warnings through cell broadcast here in Hamburg for the weather (last year we got multiple high wind warnings). I'm very disappointed. [0] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.materna.bbk... Edit: As a commenter pointed out, it has 1M+ downloads. But I'm stil…

Any source for the cell broadcast in Hamburg? And what are you using (iOS?)? I only get the alerts over the app, despite also living there.

Re: Germany conducts first nationwide emergency warning day in decades

#72
post #71
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have simply no idea who thought it was a good idea to implement a nation-wide warning system on an app that has ~15k downloads[0]~. We already get warnings through cell broadcast here in Hamburg for the weather (last year we got multiple high wind warnings). I'm very disappointed. [0] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.materna.bbk... Edit: As a commenter pointed out, it has 1M+ downloads. But I'm stil…

Any source for the cell broadcast in Hamburg? And what are you using (iOS?)? I only get the alerts over the app, despite also living there.

Android, and have enabled the option in settings.

Re: Germany conducts first nationwide emergency warning day in decades

#73
post #72
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any source for the cell broadcast in Hamburg? And what are you using (iOS?)? I only get the alerts over the app, despite also living there.

Android, and have enabled the option in settings.

This seems strange. I have enabled everything, got messages also in the US like amber alert but never in germany incl. Hamburg. I thought this is not used here in germany (see other comments here e.g.)? Do you have some source of your information?

Re: Germany conducts first nationwide emergency warning day in decades

#74
post #4

Tests like this have been conducted on smaller scale in the past, either on Landkreis (county) level or state level. Some towns even test their fire sirens once per month. What makes this newsworthy is that it is conducted "nationwide". Beside that, it's not such a special thing.

I heard from several people in smaller towns (where this is tested regularly) that today it wasn't tested.

Sounds like a complete nationwide fuckup.

Re: Germany conducts first nationwide emergency warning day in decades

#75
Today, somewhere in Bavaria:

I'm at work, phone goes off - significant other on the line.

"Our smoke alarms just went off and i'm running around, trying to turn them off"

I'm like "Ooook, have you been cooking?" - "No, nothing, been working and it just went off, also no smoke anywhere to be seen".

Scratching my head, looking at my watch, 10:39 (alarms where supposed to go off at around 11:00).

So, we currently have 6 connected fire alarms around the house (Hekatron Genius Plus X + Base Funk (radio) module, so they're connected).

They're not connected to anything besides themselves, so i really wondered how and why they'd go off for this test alert.

Thing is, the smoke alarms do have a notion of what time it is as they turn off the flashing light from 9PM to 7AM, so i wasn't quick to dismiss them catching the publicly broadcasted signal and go off too...

Scratching my head even further, i figured i'd give Hekatron a call - the guy on the hotline tried really hard to keep his calm but chuckled and said it basically was just a coincidence and if the one that triggered the alarm would go off again i could basically RMA it.

Lesson learned, coincidences do happen, also people do win the lottery after all :)

Re: Germany conducts first nationwide emergency warning day in decades

#77
post #74
post #4

Tests like this have been conducted on smaller scale in the past, either on Landkreis (county) level or state level. Some towns even test their fire sirens once per month. What makes this newsworthy is that it is conducted "nationwide". Beside that, it's not such a special thing.

I heard from several people in smaller towns (where this is tested regularly) that today it wasn't tested. Sounds like a complete nationwide fuckup.

It would become a failure if the problems are not going to be addressed. Discovering problems is why one runs tests after all.

Re: Germany conducts first nationwide emergency warning day in decades

#78
post #13

Correction to the article: the annual test day will be the second Thursday in September, not always the tenth. I don't understand why Cell Broadcast is not used. Surely many people don't have the app installed? I'd never heard of it and I've lived in this country the whole time it's been available.

> I don't understand why Cell Broadcast is not used Because of utterly dumb people in charge: https://www.spiegel.de/panorama/gesellschaft/warntag-zum-ziv... > Unger: Ja, die Niederlande zum Beispiel setzen auf dieses Cell-Broadcast-System. Wir haben davon Abstand genommen, weil die Mobilfunknetze - wie man etwa an Silvester sieht - im Fall der Fälle nicht ausreichen. Hinzu kommt ein datenschutzrechtliches Problem. W…

> *Anmerkung der Redaktion: In einer früheren Fassung hieß es, der Bund habe wegen vermeintlicher Kapazitätsprobleme der Mobilfunknetze und aus Datenschutzgründen Abstand von einem Cell-Broadcast-System genommen. Das Bundesamt für Bevölkerungsschutz und Katastrophenhilfe hat diese Antwort nachträglich korrigiert

They basically revoked this comment about capacity. The new reason is that mobile service providers don't offer this type of broadcast in Germany and that it's checked whether this can be implemented in the future.

Re: Germany conducts first nationwide emergency warning day in decades

#79
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I heard from several people in smaller towns (where this is tested regularly) that today it wasn't tested. Sounds like a complete nationwide fuckup.

It would become a failure if the problems are not going to be addressed. Discovering problems is why one runs tests after all.

I stand corrected. The interior ministry themselves consider it a failure.

https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/warntag-115.html

Re: Germany conducts first nationwide emergency warning day in decades

#80
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Berlin has no sirens anymore apparently. I also didn't hear anything.

Why though?

Look, if the Russians invade, you don't want us letting them know that we know that they're invading, do you? That would just be crazy.
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