Alexa, Play Lexington Emergency Management

DEM Blogger

September 15, 2020

Lexington Emergency Management’s AM Radio Station for Fayette County is now available as an Amazon Alexa Skill.

Here’s how to command Alexa to play Lexington Emergency Management and Radio Lexington:

In order for someone to listen to your audio stream on one of the various Amazon Echo smart speakers, the Current Information skill must first be enabled in their Amazon account. There are two different ways to do so:

— Say to the Echo, “Alexa, enable Current Information.”

— Enable the skill in their account on Amazon. You can either search for “Current Information” in the Alexa Skills department and then select and enable the skill from the results. You may also direct them to the skill with this link: https://amzn.to/2EwudEQ

Once the skill is enabled, the user must then start the audio stream with a spoken invocation. There are several different phrases that work well. You will want to pick one or two of them that are to your taste and then publish them on your website and literature to train your listeners as to what to say to start your audio stream. Some examples are:

• “Alexa, open Current Information for Lexington Emergency Management”
• “Alexa, ask Current Information to play Lexington Emergency Management”
• “Alexa ask Current Information for Lexington Emergency Management”

You should hear the audio stream from your Alexa device.

The station, known as Radio Lexington, is the federally-licensed radio service of the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government. Operating on 1620 KHz on the AM radio band, the station provides public service, tourism, traffic information, and emergency preparedness information.  During weather and other emergencies, the station will broadcast emergency alerts, warnings and recommendations for protective actions.

Maintained and programmed by Lexington Emergency Management, Radio Lexington transmits its low-power signal 24 hours a day/seven days a week. The station’s call sign is WQKE-967.

Radio Lexington is also available as Internet streaming radio via the Tune-In streaming network.