Bayern Digital Radio implements regional forwarding of DAB+ Automatic Safety Alerts using RFmondial technology

DAB+ has developed Automatic Safety Alert (ASA) to respond to disasters, where weaknesses in mobile network failures and limited accessibility via radio were observed. As not every DAB+ network must implement a comprehensive warning management, alerts from other ensembles can easily be included in its own network using RFmondial’s technology. The mechanism to trigger such other ensemble alerts is implemented by Bayern Digital Radio GmbH (BDR) using several RF-DAB measurement and monitoring receivers throughout its Bavarian wide network.

To be operational for Germany’s nationwide Warntag 2026, BDR has implemented a fully redundant setup, which on the one hand receives the national multiplex on channel 5C. On the other hand, RFmondial’s RF-DAB receivers forward occurring ASA alerts to several regional DAB+ networks, which then signal the DAB+ consumer receivers to react to the alert by switching to the national program. The so-called pre-trigger are informing the radios early enough such that the receivers will have woken up and switched to the national channel 5C to receive the alert in time. Alexander Jahn, Operations Manager of Bayern Digital Radio adds that for a proper civil protection a resilient radio infrastructure is required and that the solution is one major step towards implementing ASA in Bavaria. A complete description of the implemented architecture at BDR can be found here.