Weather Radios

[csaws]

What one do you use? We have one but it rarely if ever goes off, yes it is setup for our area. My wifes sister called her the other day and asked he r how things were, she said fine... why? Her sis says you have a tornado warning until such and such time... no weather radio alert at all so if her sis had not called she would have had no idea.

 

[BloodEclipse]

I have this one and it goes off plenty.
Product Card

 

[fg12351]

I have this one and it goes off plenty.
Product Card

How do you like your Eton? I've been looking into a weather/hand crank emergency radio. Good reception? Durable?

 

[Bubbajms]

Eton Radios are very nice..

My recommendation (I sell a lot of these) is this..

Get a good SAME radio. These can be set for county and alert type, so if you're nowhere near a river and couldn't care less about flooding, you can turn off the alarm for flood warnings so you're not getting startled awake in the middle of the night.

It's also a good idea to have a hand crank radio. Just in case the power is out for a really long while AND you run out of batteries..

And, as always, if anybody is in the West Lafayette area and would like a good deal, PM me - I'm willing to help out my fellow INGO members if I can

 

[tyler34]

I bought one of these on clearance at sam's and works great except the battery pack is crappy so it doesn't hold a charge very well so the lantern doesn't always work but the led's and radio always do.

Lanterns - Vector Weather Channel & Lantern

 

[BloodEclipse]

How do you like your Eton? I've been looking into a weather/hand crank emergency radio. Good reception? Durable?

I like it. It does go off for things that don't concern me but I'd rather it do that than not alert me when I need it.
I haven't taken it out of the house so I haven't really tested it's durability.

 

[swatdoc]

SAME radios are very nice. They will only alert you when you need and/or want alerted.

Stay away from this one, though. It's been nothing but troublesome for me. Sima First Alert WX-268. Gives a lot of "reception errors" which unfortunately also sound the alarm as if for a real warning.

 

[Bubbajms]

Radioshack has two SAME radios (one desktop, one handheld) for $25 right now..

 

[cosermann]

As a weather spotter and HAM for close to 20 years, my experience with these has been varied. The best consumer radios, in my experience, are the top of the line Radio Shack models (which seem to change every few years). The Radio Shack ones I've had have all at least worked out of the box. I can't say the same for a number of other brands, including the consumer grade Midland models.

The NWS runs a test every week so you can make sure yours works. If it doesn't then return it.

There's also a commercial line of all hazards radios, mainly intended for emergency personal. They're more expensive (over $100), but they have some neat features.

 

[Keith_Indy]

We had a weather radio at our last house, non-SAME, that we eventually turned off unless we knew there was tornado weather coming. To many alarms that didn't have anything to do with us, or for which we didn't care (like severe thunderstorm.)

Currently we have a Reecom R-1630 All Hazard/Weather Alert Radio. It's a little pricier at $60, but we're able to filter out a lot of the alerts we don't care about. And it still records them in memory if I want to check out what's been going on.

Here's where I bought ours. Reecom R-1630 All Hazard/Weather Alert Radio

 

[agentl074]

I have a Cobra 38 that has 10 NOAA channels and weather alert - I cant wait to hear it hehe.

 

[Scutter01]

I bought a cheapie SAME radio from Radio Shack last year. It works great on AC or batteries. My only complaint is that you can't set the volume of the alert tone. It's LOUD, and when there's severe weather, the thing goes off like every five minutes (usually with just a minor update to the alert). The unreasonably loud tone tends to make me turn it off after awhile.

I'd like it to have, I don't know, "levels" of alerts, where minor changes only alert you once, but SHTF OMGTORNADO!!! always alerts or something. That way I could get a wake-up alert that there's a storm coming, but still be able to go back to sleep.

 

[agentl074]

I bought a cheapie SAME radio from Radio Shack last year. It works great on AC or batteries. My only complaint is that you can't set the volume of the alert tone. It's LOUD, and when there's severe weather, the thing goes off like every five minutes (usually with just a minor update to the alert). The unreasonably loud tone tends to make me turn it off after awhile.

I'd like it to have, I don't know, "levels" of alerts, where minor changes only alert you once, but SHTF OMGTORNADO!!! always alerts or something. That way I could get a wake-up alert that there's a storm coming, but still be able to go back to sleep.

LOL well maybe I might not like it after a while then Hahaha I agree

 

[cosermann]

We had a weather radio at our last house, non-SAME, that we eventually turned off unless we knew there was tornado weather coming. . .

. . . It's a little pricier at $60, but we're able to filter out a lot of the alerts we don't care about. . . .

Ding ding ding! Excellent point. As someone who's radio is on 24x7, I was pretty ticked when Amber Alerts started going out over NWS radio. Filtering capability is the answer, not just SAME capability, but the capability to ALSO filter out certain TYPES of alerts that you have no interest in (such as amber alerts at 2 AM!).

As an FYI, the Radio Shack 12-382 has this capability. I like to filter for just my county and adjacent counties (via SAME) and ALSO block Amber Alerts and flood related watches/warning (as I live on high ground).

I was really glad to see the capability to filter alert types in a consumer grade radio. A few years ago, one had to buy a commercial radio to get that capability.

 

[Bubbajms]

Yeah, that's a good radio cosermann.. and at $25 it's a good deal! There is also catalog number 12-259, which is the same basic radio in a handheld version. Great for hunting!!

 

[Scutter01]

Yeah, that's a good radio cosermann.. and at $25 it's a good deal! There is also catalog number 12-259, which is the same basic radio in a handheld version. Great for hunting!!

That's the one I have, mentioned a couple of posts back.

 

[Soundslikejosh]

I bought a cheapie SAME radio from Radio Shack last year. It works great on AC or batteries. My only complaint is that you can't set the volume of the alert tone. It's LOUD, and when there's severe weather, the thing goes off like every five minutes (usually with just a minor update to the alert). The unreasonably loud tone tends to make me turn it off after awhile.

I'd like it to have, I don't know, "levels" of alerts, where minor changes only alert you once, but SHTF OMGTORNADO!!! always alerts or something. That way I could get a wake-up alert that there's a storm coming, but still be able to go back to sleep.

Just last night I purchased the handheld version, figured I would give it a try. It is possible to change the level of the alert tone. The only thing that bothers me is that mine didn't come with an AC adapter and the salesman said it would "double the cost" to buy one separately. You can buy an awful lot of batteries for $25, so I guess that's what I will do.

This may have been said, so I apologize if I am repeating, but with this radio you can customize the alerts so you don't hear certain categories like floods, amber alerts, etc.

So far the radio seems pretty good. Awfully flexible and customizable for $25. Once a few storms roll through I will be able to comment on its utility, but so far it looks like it should be a great unit. There were 4 more at the Bloomington Radio Shack (College Mall). Also, they had the desktop model for the same price.

 

[K_W]

We have a Midland desktop and a RadioShack handheld. Both are great radios.

If you are going to get one MAKE SURE you get one that has the S.A.M.E. technology in it or it will go off way too often, and you will begin to ignore it or turn it off and it becomes useless. Program in your county and the counties to the immediate west of yours. I am in southern Hamilton county so I have Hamilton, Marion and Boone In mine, and if mine goes off I know it means trouble is going to be here soon.

Also the better RadioShack ones let you turn off less critical alerts you don't want like thunderstorm and flood watches.

Oh and Soundslikejosh, go ahead and get the AC adapter, you will need it the handheld one eats batteries like candy. the AC adapter will power it while the power is on and the batteries will take over when it goes out or you take it to your "safe place".

And while we are talking about radios, the more you have the better, my safe place (SW corner of the basement under the stairs) has 4 radios, the handheld weather radio, a police scanner, a handheld CB, and an AM/FM radio.

 

[Scutter01]

Just last night I purchased the handheld version, figured I would give it a try. It is possible to change the level of the alert tone. The only thing that bothers me is that mine didn't come with an AC adapter and the salesman said it would "double the cost" to buy one separately. You can buy an awful lot of batteries for $25, so I guess that's what I will do.

This may have been said, so I apologize if I am repeating, but with this radio you can customize the alerts so you don't hear certain categories like floods, amber alerts, etc.

So far the radio seems pretty good. Awfully flexible and customizable for $25. Once a few storms roll through I will be able to comment on its utility, but so far it looks like it should be a great unit. There were 4 more at the Bloomington Radio Shack (College Mall). Also, they had the desktop model for the same price.

I wasn't able to find any way to change the volume of the alert tone (other than perhaps between "blaring" and "ear splitting".

Yeah, you can set categories, but that's not really what I meant. If there's a storm warming, for example, I'd like to get an alert about that, but then have it ignore further storm warnings unless there's a major update. Once it's warned me, I can evaluate if I need to be concerned and then either seek shelter or go back to bed. If I choose to go back to bed, I don't need another alert in five minutes telling me the same thing.

As for batteries, the thing goes through them pretty quick. An AC adapter is worth the price of admission.

 

[Soundslikejosh]

I wasn't able to find any way to change the volume of the alert tone (other than perhaps between "blaring" and "ear splitting".

Yeah, you can set categories, but that's not really what I meant. If there's a storm warming, for example, I'd like to get an alert about that, but then have it ignore further storm warnings unless there's a major update. Once it's warned me, I can evaluate if I need to be concerned and then either seek shelter or go back to bed. If I choose to go back to bed, I don't need another alert in five minutes telling me the same thing.

As for batteries, the thing goes through them pretty quick. An AC adapter is worth the price of admission.

Mine certainly does have volume adjustment for the alert, which is cool. It does not allow you to set any hieracrchy of alerts, or provide for different volume levels if NOAA created such a system for differentiating emergency level.

As for battery life, the "salesman" assured me that since it sits "essentially off" most of the time, the batteries would last a long time. Mine is obviously new, so I have been playing a lot with the settings and such, but the battery indicator has already lost one bar off of brand new batteries. I am going to see how long these last but I fear that you may be right about the AC adapter Scutter.