Best sever weather radio for Indiana?

[Chase515]

After opting into the group buy for the ham radios earlier today, I went and visited my sister and got to thinking they need a sever weather radio for their house. The season of storms is upon us and they go with out power a couple times a year, sometimes for days. A hand crank radio would be good but I have no idea on what brands work well in central Indiana, vermilion county? I have googled and the reviews are mixed on what radios work well which is why I am asking here.

 

[K_W]

Any know brand with...

1. Battery back-up operation
2. A long antenna or external antenna jack
3. S.A.M.E. technology to select only the counties you need
4. The ability to silence unwanted alerts

3 & 4 are VERY IMPORTANT because, for example, if you live in a house in Valparaiso, you don't get woke up at 2am on a work night for a flash flood watch for Kosciusko county or a navigation warning for small craft on Lake Michigan. If this happens more than once, they will turn the radio off and then it won't work when needed.

MOST radios have this S.A.M.E. technology and hush features now, but make sure before you buy.

We have an older RadioShack 12-258

 

[Trigger Time]

Eton is the brand I would recommend you.
For as cheap as the ham radios are I'd just get one for them too.
you will be able to recieve the weather alerts on your new Ham radio.

 

[tocaman]

^^ what K_W said

I picked up this one about a year and half ago as a combo clock radio alarm/weather alert radio. I'm satisfied with the operation of the severe weather alerts the few times it went off in Indiana... the alarm is good and loud. I like the visual advisory/watch/warning lights on it and the EOM (end of message) feature that mutes the voice alert at the end of the message.

[ame="http://www.amazon.com/Sangean-CL-100-Table-Top-Weather-FM-RBDS/dp/B003QHXZM4"]Amazon.com: Sangean CL-100 Table-Top Weather Hazard Alert with AM/FM-RBDS Alarm Clock Radio: Electronics[/ame]


There are others out there that would be better/smaller as a stand alone weather radio, I needed one with a dual-alarm feature.

 

[Brandon]

Just bought this one:
[ame=http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00009V2YV/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1]Amazon.com: MIDLAND WR300 Weather Radio: Electronics[/ame]

So far so good, but we haven't had any weather.

 

[Blackhawk2001]

I don't know if Radio Shack still sells them, but I bought one of their S.A.M.E. AC/ 9V battery backup models in 1994. It has been in continuous service in the Blackhawk household ever since. Because we live on a corner of the county (and because in a previous career, I was concerned with the entire county) our radio is programmed to alert us to weather alerts for the surrounding counties, so we have some warning reaction time before the severe weather gets to us.

 

[BigMoose]

I would not ever consider a consumer radio for this purpose.

The central indiana skywarn uses 147.97 for their state net, for the severe weather net ONLY they transmit a 77hz PL tone. So all you have to do is have a radio with tone squelch set for 77hz and you will only ever hear traffic when they bring up the severe weather net, and that is only when they are having severe weather, or the situation is bad and they know it's going to get severe.

 

[Sailor]

Just bought this one:
Amazon.com: MIDLAND WR300 Weather Radio: Electronics

So far so good, but we haven't had any weather.

This unit is gtg. Also sign up for text casting with your local news. Text alerts for incoming weather. This will cover you while mobile.

 

[6mm Shoot]

I have one I picked up from Radio Shack two years ago and it works great. You pick the area and miles you want alerts for and you are good to go. The only thing I don't like about it is hard on batteries because of the alert. I have mine plugged in the wall. We only use batteries in it when we are on the road. As I said it has worked great.

 

[bb37]

The central indiana skywarn uses 147.97 for their state net, for the severe weather net ONLY they transmit a 77hz PL tone. So all you have to do is have a radio with tone squelch set for 77hz and you will only ever hear traffic when they bring up the severe weather net, and that is only when they are having severe weather, or the situation is bad and they know it's going to get severe.

The problem there is that the Central Indiana Skywarn net covers the entire Indianapolis NWS county warning area. That's 39 counties stretching from Lafayette to Vincennes to Greensburg to Muncie. If the severe weather is at the far reaches of the CWA and not likely to come to your area, do you want to be awakened in the middle of the night?

I think a dedicated weather radio with the SAME alerting feature is the way to go. The Midland WR-120 is a good choice and readily available. Program the SAME codes for your county and the counties immediately to the west, south, and north of you. Also, with the WR-120, you can deselect the alerts for various types of warnings. You need to know about Tornado Warnings and Severe Thunderstorm Warnings because those have the greatest chance of doing damage and are "short fuse" warnings in that something is going to happen quickly. If you live in a low-lying or flood-prone area, you also need to know about Flash Flood Warnings. The rest of the alerts, such as Winter Storm Warnings, are not so life-threatening.

 

[silverspoon]

Anyone know of a radio that will retain the S.A.M.E memory settings if the power goes off and batteries should go dead? We have a radio shack model that seems to suck the life out of batteries in very short order. To be honest I've got sick and tired of having to reprogram the silly thing after what seemed to be every storm.

 

[indyjohn]

Anyone know of a radio that will retain the S.A.M.E memory settings if the power goes off and batteries should go dead? We have a radio shack model that seems to suck the life out of batteries in very short order. To be honest I've got sick and tired of having to reprogram the silly thing after what seemed to be every storm.

I don't think you'll find what you're asking for because of the type of chip required to retain settings after power loss. Maybe I'm wrong.

That being said, I've had an older version of this Eton for 3 years and it has done very well for me. I programmed it for Owen, Johnson and Marion counties so the alerts are pertinent to the typical storm path my house is in.

FRX3 | Eton

 

[Chase515]

Thanks for the input everyone!

After reading and checking up on the options mentioned I chose the cheaper Midland 120 because of ordering 3 of them. One for my sister , mom, and my home. Now i am looking at getting external antennas for the radios because I know 2 of the houses I bought for are Faraday cages.

 

[bigus_D]

I would not ever consider a consumer radio for this purpose.

The central indiana skywarn uses 147.97 for their state net, for the severe weather net ONLY they transmit a 77hz PL tone. So all you have to do is have a radio with tone squelch set for 77hz and you will only ever hear traffic when they bring up the severe weather net, and that is only when they are having severe weather, or the situation is bad and they know it's going to get severe.

I live in the country well outside the range of any weather alert siren. Ive got weather alert radio with SAME tech. I am a ham and have reported severe weather via my county WX net and through the skywarn net on 147.97.

The ham weather nets are activated based on national weather service alerts. The same alerts that will activate a weather radio. I usually turn on my ham rig after the alerts go off and hear the ham net start up. Point is, first alert will come up with a SAME radio. This is not to discount the additional info one can learn by listening.

 

[Caleb]

When we lived in IL, we used to have a scanner handy and listen to emergency/storm chasers to keep up on severe weather such as tornado touching down and such. We would often get tornadoes within 5 miles of the town and needed as much of a heads up as we could muster.