Weather Alert Radios? - Montana Owners Club

Joyce H · 12-29-2006, 01:52 PM

After the tornado watches here in FL on Christmas day and anticipation of a possible repeat this coming weekend we have decided it is time to purchase a weather alert radio. We would like something small with an alert alarm that would wake us during the night if there was a severe weather warning in our area. (wherever we are at the time)...

So now for the questions.

What brand and type of weather alert radio do you have in your RV or home?

What are the positive and negative things , likes and dislikes,about your radio?

Would you recommend?

Where did you purchase?

Thanks for your help.

bigmurf · 12-29-2006, 02:20 PM

Radio Shack

HamRad · 12-29-2006, 08:44 PM

Joyce H,
I agree with the Radio Shack recommendation. We had a couple of these years ago and they worked well even back then. Now a days I suspect they are much more sophisticated. Just make sure you get a model that will do what you want it to do. In my part of the world we do not get a lot of weather warnings because we are in a rather mild climate. But I know they work. A friend of mine bought a couple at the same time I did and then he moved to Topeka, KS. Back there his was always going off warning him of impending tornadoes. So I know they work.

Good luck.

HamRad

BillE · 12-30-2006, 01:39 AM

Joyce,

The only hard part of WX radios is when you are on the road and 'they' say this county or that county and ya don't have a clue of what county you are in.

Other than not knowing where I am at times, they are GREAT.

Bill

Mrs. CountryGuy · 12-30-2006, 02:05 AM

Bill,

Streets and Trips will show you county names. You need to get the Zoom tool working, when you blow the view up to about 20 miles on the scale at the top left of the map screen you can see the surrounding county names as well.

But you make a important point, you need to know WHERE you are, including the county names!

jrgwdenner · 12-30-2006, 02:21 AM

We bought our weather radio from Radio Shack, too. As we move around we like to use Weatherbug to follow weather conditions. It's a free download for your computer and by changing the zip code or the name of the town, we can get local weather forecasts. Or it will give us the national weather. Pretty neat.

OntMont · 12-30-2006, 02:09 PM

We have a Midland WR300. Bought it on line for about $30. Works well, but can keep you up all night if you don't set it to only respond to local alerts. I like it because it will work on 12v , thus it will not be affected by power failures, and you can use it in your truck if you wish. Also has provision for an external antenna that can be hooked up to the TV antanna to increase range if needed. Incidently The Canadian Meterological Service runs an almost identical service, so they will work on both sides of the border.

We think it is well worth having, if only for the convenience of being able to get instant weather reports for wherever you happen to be.

rvfirefighter · 12-30-2006, 03:20 PM

Joyce H, we have a radio shack also, have had it for years. You can program it for surrounding counties or you can program it to receive the best signal and it will alert you with all alerts within 50 miles of your area. You can program it for all watches, warnings, messages, etc. It has been well worth the money we spent. It gives you a little more peace of mind.
You still need to have a plan or place to seek shelter in case of an emergency.

Hemlockusa · 12-30-2006, 03:55 PM

We have a midland and radio shack, The most important thing is to be able to program the radio to just respond to the county you are currently staying in. Otherwise you will be awaken every five minutes... It that is the case, the folk's that have a radio they can't program just for local weather alerts. finally get tired of hearing the alarm all the time and just turn the radio OFF.... Both brands are great just make sure you get the local feature.... safe travels see you in BRANSON MAY 07 John

Joyce H · 12-31-2006, 10:18 AM

We went to Radio Shack in Haines City, FL and they siad they were out of weather radios although they had about four models on display. Was not real impressed with this sales person. Said we could but the demo off the shelf but had no instructions??? with no reduction in price!!! So we decided to search a little further. We found a Midland WR100 at WalMart and have programed it for the four counties surrounding us as we are in what they call the "four corners" area of FL. We are where the corners of Orange, Polk, Lake, and Oceola counties all come together. So far we have had no alerts or alarms go off. Not sure how you can check to see if it is working. LOL Guess we will just have to wait until there is an alert and see what happens. Thanks to all for your responses.

OntMont · 12-31-2006, 11:22 AM

They broadcast a test alert every week, Wednesday morning I think, (as long as the weather is stable).

dsprik · 12-31-2006, 04:42 PM

I just went past a Radio Shack on 192 in Kissimmee today, Joyce. I know I need to pick one of these up. Or else I could just have you give us a call when yours goes off...

Joyce H · 01-01-2007, 01:08 AM

Dave & Cheryl, Check the PM I sent to you...LOL

dsprik · 01-01-2007, 03:54 AM

Got your PM, Joyce. Just getting some caffeine and watching the Making of the Rose Parade on HGTV. I send one in a minute.

G McCall · 01-03-2007, 03:29 AM

We bought one from Bass Pro Shop years ago that still works great.
You can set it to only sound an alert when a bad weather is approaching. It gets its signal from a local gov. station where ever you are.

One thing though, it can scare the heck out of you when an alert is broadcast while you are sound a sleep.

Ishler · 01-04-2007, 06:31 AM

We have a Midland WR-300 which I like very much, easy to use and a lot of nice features. I also have a Midland 74-250 which is a portable. It has a lot of nice features but isn't very intuitive to set up. Whatever you get be sure is has the S.A.M.E. cabability.

jsmitfl · 01-08-2007, 12:11 PM

Thats funny G McCall. Not really, I just had to laugh a bit. I been living with that loud horn every night at work for 20 some years. Now they want to put in a light system so it don't stress us to much. But in reality I need to get one also.

OntMont · 01-10-2007, 02:04 PM

The Bruno's Supermarket in Gulf Shores has a whole stack of Midland WR100 weather radios for 39.00. I would suppose that they would be available chain wide, if you live in an area served by Bruno's (South east I think).

David and Jo-Anna · 01-10-2007, 04:16 PM

I just bought a pair of Motorola walkie talkies 9model 6530) from COSTCO for use when we are backing into CG sites. Key selling point was the hands free operation--my DW can talk to me while signaling me with both hands. A bonus feature is that they are supposed to pickup several weather channels as well being capable of being tuned to a weather alert channel. Will have to test it out to see if it really works for weather alerts or whether I need to get something else for that function.

Anyone with any experience with these Motorola walkie talkies with the weather alert channel?

dsprik · 01-11-2007, 04:18 AM

I lost rack of this thread yeaterday, so I posted in another area.

Weather Underground and NOAA are starting a new program. An online WX setup.

Check out:

http://www.wunderground.com/
(*On Edit~ Type in your City, ST to see if your area has an online WX link yet)

and

http://www.nws.noaa.gov/nwr/streamaudio.htm

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