Apparatus and method for selecting geographical area information at a weather band, or other, radio device

• US 20070135108A1
• Filed: 12/14/2005
• Published: 06/14/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 12/14/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Global Franchising Corp., Radioshack Online IPCO LLC
• Original Assignee: General Wireless IP Holdings LLC (Retail Ecommerce Ventures LLC), General Wireless Operations Inc. (Retail Ecommerce Ventures LLC)
• Inventors: Carey, Richard
• Granted Patent: US 9,054,817 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 455/414.300
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 20/59 for emergency or urgency
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/51 of receiving stations
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/71 using meteorological information

Abstract

Apparatus, and an associated method, for a weather band radio that annunciates anomaly conditions. The radio has a set-up mode permitting a user to enter a home geographical area and also associated areas within a selected proximity to the home geographical area. When a National Weather Service SAME message is received at the radio that identifies the home geographical area or any of the associated geographical areas, the radio generates an alert.

Claims

1. Apparatus for a radio device operable to receive a signal selectably having a component that identifies a weather anomaly and having a geographical identifier of a first geographical area, said apparatus comprising:

a home area selection acceptor configured to accept selection of a home geographical area to be associated with the radio device;

an associated-area selection acceptor adapted to receive an indication of the home geographical area whose selection is accepted by said home-area selection acceptor, said associated area selection acceptor configured to accept selection of at least a first associated area geographical area associated with the home geographical area.

2. The apparatus of claim 1 further comprising a user actuator actuatable by a user of the radio device, selected actuation of said user actuator by the user of the radio device identifying the selection of the home geographical area that is accepted by said home area selection acceptor.

3. The apparatus of claim 2 wherein additional selected actuation of said user actuator by the user identifies the selection of the at least the first associated area geographical area.

4. The apparatus of claim 1 further comprising a user display configured to display indicia identifying geographical areas available for selection as the home geographical area.

5. The apparatus of claim 4 wherein said user display is further configured to display indicia identifying geographical areas available for selection as the first associated area geographical area.

6. The apparatus of claim 1 further comprising an associated area geographical area identifier adapted to receive an indication of the home geographical area whose selection is accepted by said home area selection acceptor, said associated area geographical area identifier configured to identify geographical areas in proximity to the home geographical area according to a selected proximity criteria.

7. The apparatus of claim 6 wherein the selected proximity criteria used by said associated area geographical area identifier comprises an adjacency indicia, geographical areas identified by said associated area geographical area identifier adjacent to the home geographical area.

8. The apparatus of claim 6 wherein the selected proximity criteria used by said associated area geographical area identifier comprises a range indicia, geographical areas identified by said associated area geographical area identifier within a selected range of the home geographical area.

9. The apparatus of claim 8 wherein said associated area geographical area identifier comprises a calculator configured to calculate a range value of each geographical area relative to the home geographical area, a geographical area having a range value within the selected range forming an associated area geographical area.

10. The apparatus of claim 6 wherein the selected proximity criteria is selectable by a user of the radio device.

11. The apparatus of claim 1 further comprising an annunciator configured to annunciate when the receiver receives the signal having the component that identifies the weather anomaly and the geographical identifier of the first geographical area when the first geographical area comprises any of the home geographical area and the at least the first associated area geographical area.

12. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the signal that the radio device is operable to receive is broadcast by a weather alerting authority and comprises a Specific Area Message Encoding (SAME) message, wherein the component thereof comprises a Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) formatted sequence and wherein the home geographical area and the at least the first associated area geographical area are selectably identified in the FIPS formatted sequence.

13. A method for facilitating operation of a radio device that operates to receive a signal selectably having a component that identifies an anomaly and having a geographic identifier of a first geographical area, said method comprising the operations of:

accepting selection of a home geographical area to be associated with the radio device;

accepting selection of at least a first associated area geographical area associated with the home geographical area; and

annunciating reception at the radio device of the signal when the signal contains the geographical identifier of the first geographical area in which the first geographical area identifies at least one of the home geographical areas and the at least first associated area geographical area.

14. The method of claim 13 further comprising the operation, prior to said operation of accepting selection of the home geographical area, of selecting the home geographical area.

15. The method of claim 14 further comprising the operation, prior to said operation of selecting the home geographical area, of displaying on a user display geographical areas available to comprise the home geographical area, and wherein the home geographical area selected during said operation of selecting is selected from the geographical areas displayed on the user display.

16. The method of claim 15 wherein said operation of selecting comprises actuating a user actuator to select the home geographical areas selected from the geographical areas displayed on the user display displayed during said operation of displaying.

17. The method of claim 13 further comprising the operation, prior to said operation of accepting selection for the at least the first associated area geographical area, of selecting the at least the first associated area geographical area.

18. The method of claim 17 wherein said operation of selecting the at least the first associated area geographical area comprises selecting a first-stage set of geographical areas eligible to form the first associated area geographical area, and selecting a subset of the first-stage set, the subset forming the at least the first associated area geographical area.

19. The method of claim 18 wherein said operation of selecting the first-stage set is performed automatically and wherein said operation of selecting the subset is user performed.

20. User interface apparatus for a weatherband radio operable to receive an alert signal selectably having a component that identifies an anomaly and a geographical identifier of a first geographical area, said user interface apparatus comprising:

a user-actuated home geographical area selector configured to select, responsive to user actuation, a home geographical area;

an associated area selector adapted to receive an indication of the home geographical area, said associated area selector configured to select at least one associated area geographical area associated with the home geographical area according to a selected proximity criteria; and

an annuciator for detecting reception at the radio device of the signal when the signal identifies the first geographical area that corresponds to any of the home geographical area and the at least one associated area geographical area.