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NOAA Weather Radio

Topics of general interest that just don't fit anywhere else.
Deleted User 14888

NOAA Weather Radio

Post by Deleted User 14888 » Sat Jan 05, 2019 5:47 pm

Anyone really use Weather Radio anymore, every receiver that I have purchased in the past are either no good or just useless is there a real reason this is even necessary anymore.



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MWmetalhead
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Re: NOAA Weather Radio

Post by MWmetalhead » Sat Jan 05, 2019 7:40 pm

It's useful as an emergency alert device in the middle of the night for households and in some commercial/institutional settings around the clock. Also good for mariners and residents of remote locations that might not be well served by cellular. That's about the extent of its usefulness these days.

For daily listening, the programming is awful.

The robotic voices in & of themselves are almost unbearable. Then, on top of that, I have to listen to the robot voice tediously read four different 7-day forecasts for various sections of SE Michigan, then sit through a shit load of marine forecasts, and a boring read-through of current conditions when I can pull up a forecast & current observations for my exact location on my smartphone in a matter of seconds.

Some of the NOAA transmitters seem to incur signal issues or outright outages for no good reason.



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SolarMax
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Re: NOAA Weather Radio

Post by SolarMax » Sat Jan 05, 2019 10:05 pm

Every spring, local big-box retailers and TV stations have discount days on NOAA weather radios, and apparently sell out of them every year. So at least they seem to be getting out into public use,
Of course it's not meant for lengthy listening. It's as repetitive and boring as the news cycle on WWJ. The WX radios of course are generally muted, only to be awakened by The Tones for an Actual Emergency, weather event, or the Required Weekly Test.



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MWmetalhead
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Re: NOAA Weather Radio

Post by MWmetalhead » Sun Jan 06, 2019 8:16 am

I find the programming on WWJ 1000x more interesting than NOAA weather radio.

Selilng out of stock at those event days isn't difficult when you have high profile personalities doing live remotes and plugging the event on evening newscasts. My guess - and it's only a guess - is most of the people who show up do so because they want to meet a local celebrity.



sfpcc
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Re: NOAA Weather Radio

Post by sfpcc » Sun Jan 06, 2019 3:28 pm

I had a car that had a NOAA weather radio. I can't get the way the robotic voice said "cloudy" out of my head.



tigerwings
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Location: NW Ohio

Re: NOAA Weather Radio

Post by tigerwings » Sun Jan 06, 2019 8:07 pm

Haven't taken my out the box in NoCal.

Weather Radio as always on in Colorado, seeing we lived at the on ramp to Tornado Alley. Didn't always to the alerts on the phones.



Deleted User 14888

Re: NOAA Weather Radio

Post by Deleted User 14888 » Sun Jan 06, 2019 9:10 pm

I have a friend in Nome Alaska that works at KICY Radio 100.3, She claims NOAA Weather Radio is big in Alaska because of all the fishing business that’s in Alaska and the people depend on the forecast reports constantly due to the rough conditions. She also said that your more likely to find a radio that has great AM reception as opposed to FM due to the Alaskan Outback areas, The FM stations in Nome only travel about 17 miles and there are only two full power FM’s but the two AM Stations go for a hundred miles or so daytime and over 500 hundred at night and DX’ing is not to great at night due to many reasons.



Nelson
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Re: NOAA Weather Radio

Post by Nelson » Mon Jan 07, 2019 9:56 am

I use it. I have a weather alert radio by my bed. I figure if a storm comes up during the day, I'll notice it, but I wouldn't necessarily wake up at night if something severe occurred.

I also carry a portable weather radio when I'm out hiking/camping, etc, since I don't have a smartphone. Sometimes I even use it in the car if I want to hear the weather forecast and don't want to wait for it to come up on a local AM/FM station.



bugzapper
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Location: Hopkins, MI

Re: NOAA Weather Radio

Post by bugzapper » Sat Jan 12, 2019 10:03 pm

MWmetalhead wrote:
Sat Jan 05, 2019 7:40 pm
It's useful as an emergency alert device in the middle of the night for households
Exactly! Weather radios are to storms as smoke detectors are to fires.



FET-500
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Re: NOAA Weather Radio

Post by FET-500 » Tue Jan 15, 2019 7:44 am

Hasn't all of this archaic stuff been replaced in most localities by a push notification system such as "CivicReady" that Obamadollars paid for?



WC8KCY
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Re: NOAA Weather Radio

Post by WC8KCY » Sat Jan 19, 2019 5:33 am

FET-500 wrote:
Tue Jan 15, 2019 7:44 am
Hasn't all of this archaic stuff been replaced in most localities by a push notification system such as "CivicReady" that Obamadollars paid for?
Archaic? Hardly. Drive through the Rockies out West and NOAA Weather radio works practically everywhere, while cellular coverage is still spotty and unreliable--and likely will remain as such for the foreseeable future.

Cellular networks also fail routinely in areas affected by wildfires.

I always travel out West and through Tornado Alley with my handheld ham radio and an 18-inch magnetic mount antenna handy. In most places, I can get two or three different NOAA stations. I'd never entrust my safety to a cell phone that only becomes more and more unreliable as emergencies unfold.
Last edited by WC8KCY on Sat Jan 19, 2019 5:39 am, edited 1 time in total.



WC8KCY
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Re: NOAA Weather Radio

Post by WC8KCY » Sat Jan 19, 2019 5:33 am

[double post...deleted]



FET-500
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Re: NOAA Weather Radio

Post by FET-500 » Sat Jan 19, 2019 9:17 am

WC8KCY wrote:
Sat Jan 19, 2019 5:33 am
FET-500 wrote:
Tue Jan 15, 2019 7:44 am
Hasn't all of this archaic stuff been replaced in most localities by a push notification system such as "CivicReady" that Obamadollars paid for?
Archaic? Hardly. Drive through the Rockies out West and NOAA Weather radio works practically everywhere, while cellular coverage is still spotty and unreliable--and likely will remain as such for the foreseeable future.

Cellular networks also fail routinely in areas affected by wildfires.

I always travel out West and through Tornado Alley with my handheld ham radio and an 18-inch magnetic mount antenna handy. In most places, I can get two or three different NOAA stations. I'd never entrust my safety to a cell phone that only becomes more and more unreliable as emergencies unfold.
Archaic? Yes, pretty much the literal definition of archaic. No offence but do you believe that your behavior is typical? Everyone pretty much has a phone but in a Nation of 320 Million, there are only 3 Million hams

I know exactly one person who uses a weather radio. My child, a 24 year old magna cum laude WMU grad, hasn't a clue what a weather radio even is.

Within my group of friends and family, I'm the only one who uses "radio"; everyone else is on a stream, or is bluetooth connecting phones.



WC8KCY
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Re: NOAA Weather Radio

Post by WC8KCY » Sun Jan 20, 2019 3:14 am

Archaic? Yes, pretty much the literal definition of archaic. No offence but do you believe that your behavior is typical? Everyone pretty much has a phone but in a Nation of 320 Million, there are only 3 Million hams

I know exactly one person who uses a weather radio. My child, a 24 year old magna cum laude WMU grad, hasn't a clue what a weather radio even is.

Within my group of friends and family, I'm the only one who uses "radio"; everyone else is on a stream, or is bluetooth connecting phones.
No offence taken.

Kindly consider this: Pew Research shows that as of 2018, 5 percent of Americans don't own a cellular phone, and of the 95 percent who do, 23 percent aren't using smart phones. That's a lot of people who rely on other means of delivery for information in the event of an emergency.

Monitoring the local fire service transmissions and NOAA radio with a scanner or Ham radio receiver is a dependable way to stay on top of things in an emergency. Many of my friends and relatives in the Upper Peninsula, northern Wisconsin, northern Minnesota and on Indian reservations out West have receivers for these services in operation at their homes.

Commercial AM radio turns 100 years old in 2020. Despite all its technical shortcomings, broadcasters are still serving the public interest and generating revenue with this system. It can still do things (especially at night) that FM cannot do. Likewise, VHF-based NOAA radio offers coverage and logistical advantages over UHF-based cellular.

Anecdotally, I think it's worth mentioning that travelling through Colorado Springs this past June--a very wealthy area with excellent cellular coverage--alerts for wildfires in the immediate vicinity were being pushed through the AT&T-network phone we had in the car, but not the two Verizon phones. A failure like that, while anecdotal, certainly creates serious concerns on my part that these systems cannot be trusted to function as intended in areas and at times where they're needed most.

You're not doing anybody any favors by dismissing legacy radio systems out-of-hand as "archaic". They all serve the public interest.



k8jd
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Re: NOAA Weather Radio

Post by k8jd » Sun Jan 20, 2019 3:42 pm

How I check for bad WX !
Love the ability to get a WX forecast and current conditions at the press of a button/ SURE it is not something to listen for any long period of time, But it is nice to have.
I Have 3 scanners two desk top and one portable, I keep one chan programmed for wx, usually locked out but one scanner can be set up for the alert function.
The portable one has a one touch "WX" button with all the possible WX channels. That's nice to have when travelling it gets the closest one.
We have a ski boat with one button for WX on the AM/FM radio onboard. Nice to know if a storm is near and we can head for the dock !
At night, any distance from a big city in Northern MI is impossible to get a WX forecast for the area because of the hundreds of signals all mixing together on the State's AM channels ! FM is just a canned music box at night with no local programming or WX reports ! Not driving around with a UHF DTV receiver and no internet access when travelling in the car. Wife has a smart fone but all she knows how to do is make phone calls and play games with it.



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