Emergency Weather Radio ?

[docj]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jzick This kind of radio works ok if you are parked in one place and can learn what county you are in. The problem with them is that they are set by county and meaningful alerts can be many miles away or in neighboring counties with storms headed your direction. Our winter home, for instance, is 60 miles from the farthest boundary. If you are trying to sleep on a stormy night it can get difficult with storms within 30 to 50 miles causing a warning to be issued. After a season of cowering in fear and doing without sleep, we decided that we would turn the darn thing off, check the radar before we go to bed, and then take our chances. We have 2 radios for the motorhome and 2 for the stick and brick. None have been turned on for four years.

IMHO this is the same philosophy as taking the batteries out of the smoke detector because it goes off occasionally when we are cooking. It doesn't take more than a minute to Google the city we are in to find out what county it is part of. Then another minute to find out the SAME code for the radio.

Our experience has been that if weather is coming at you from neighboring counties the weather service tends to err on the side of caution and alerts you to the possibility. That's the whole reason for both "watches" and "warnings". I'd much rather be awakened to a potential tornado situation, for example, than sleep through it trusting luck to be on our side. Furthermore, most radios permit you to program multiple SAME codes so you can add surrounding areas, if you choose to.

Last spring we were on the Alabama Coast while a tornado ripped through Tuscaloosa. It was re-assuring that we could go to sleep knowing we would be awakened if one came towards us.

[Ed S]

I travel with two, one built into my cb with an alert built in which like for night time sleep time. Finding local weather is one of seven channels I think. The other is built into my dash radio and works by scanning the weather channels. I would not want to leave home without it. The other thing I will do when the weather looks bad ahead as we are traveling I will have DW turn on the over the air tv and try to get some real local updates. With this infor I then can make a decison if I will keep driving or find a place to park and weather the storm.

[wa8yxm]

Regarding the comment about "If parked in one area and know the codes".

True.. They also work well if you move around and put it in travel mode. Many of these radios have multiple modes.. As Shipped they receive all alerts, Fire, Flood, Wind, Ice, Tornado, Hurricane, Earthquake, Bio-Hazard, every alert possible sounds the alarm.

You can then select the alerts you want or do not want to hear. .. For example I'm not much interested in ICE since I winterize by the "S" method (Drive to where there is none).

Then you have the option of "Localizing" them, many of them can hold 10 or more "locals" so, for example, Mine in non-travel mode is programmed for Genesee County MI, St, Clair county, MI, Wayne county, MI (Plus surrounding) Oconee County, SC, and MacIntosh County GA, If I'm in Michigan it never gets the GA or SC alerts.

In travel mode it picks up .. Whatever is close enough to pick up. (Exactly as though I had not "localised" it by programming in counties.

Plus, of course, all my VHF radios have NOAA capability. Just punch in chan 30 and go up from there (The first radio I programmed, 30 was the first NOAA frequency I programmed,,, And once I established that I just kept it up so I don't need to remember which radio I'm using, it's always 30 and up.)

[Shadowcatche]

After a good bit of research I settled on a Recom Reecom for one reason, it is th only one that shuts itself off after an alert. We were on the edge of a tornado a couple of years back that convinced me it would be a good idea. I do leave it to receive all of the alerts as knowing what is coming is part of the value.