Product Code Database
home weather radio (model WR-100) to the right is often the most popular and known unit sold in the United States, while the orange Oregon Scientific model on the left is portable and water-resistant for outdoor use.|175px]]A weather radio is a specialized radio receiver that is designed to receive a public broadcast service, typically from government-owned , dedicated to broadcasting weather forecasts and reports on a continual basis, with the routine weather reports being interrupted by emergency weather reports whenever needed. Weather radios are typically equipped with a standby alerting function—if the radio is muted or tuned to another band and a severe weather news bulletin is transmitted, it can automatically sound an alarm and/or switch to a pre-tuned weather channel for emergency weather information. Weather radio services may also occasionally broadcast non-weather-related emergency information, such as in the event of a natural disaster, a child abduction alert, or a terrorist attack.
They generally broadcast in a pre-allocated very high frequency (VHF) range using FM broadcasting. Usually a radio scanner or a dedicated weather radio receiver is needed for listening, although in some locations a weather radio broadcast may be re-transmitted on an AM radio or FM radio broadcast station, on terrestrial television stations, or local public, educational, and government access (PEG) cable TV cable channel or during weather or other emergencies.
Smaller hand-held weather receivers generally do not support the Specific Area Message Encoding (SAME) alert type encoding (though there are some that do) but allow hikers and other explorers to listen to weather reports without packing a heavy and bulky base station radio. Some models have a built-in flashlight and can double as a cellphone charger. Some also serve as a more general emergency radio and may include multiband and two-way communication capability. "Scanner" radios designed to continuously monitor the VHF-FM public service band are already able to receive weather channels.
Besides SAME alerting capability, modern weather radio receivers, especially those that are compliant with CTA standard 2009-B, may include visual alerting elements (e.g., multicolored LED indicator lights) and allow for the use of external devices (e.g., pillow vibrators, bed shakers, , and loud sirens, which attach via an accessory port) to alert those who are deaf or hearing impaired.
NOAA Weather Radio, Weatheradio Canada and SARMEX all refer to the seven stations by their frequencies:
162.400, 162.425, 162.450, 162.475, 162.500, 162.525 and 162.550 MHz.
Other channel designations such as WX1 through WX7 "have no special significance but are often designated this way in consumer equipment" and "other channel numbering schemes are also prevalent/possible" according to NOAA and USCG. Ordering channels by when they were established (WX1, WX2…) is "becoming less 'popular' over time than a numerical ordering of channels." Weather radios may list stations in the order of their WX#, or by a "Preset Channel" number 1 through 7 in ascending frequency order.
The "WX#" format is continued from WX8 up to WX12 on some lists and radios to include 163.275 MHz and or one or more of the Canadian continuous marine broadcast (CMB) frequencies 161.650, 161.750, 161.775, 162.000. Unlike WX1-WX7 typically ordered by frequency adoption by NWS, there is no consistent frequency inclusion nor assignment for WX8-WX12. Effective January 1, 2019, channels 2027 (161.950 MHz, 27B) and 2028 (162.000 MHz, 28B) are designated as ASM 1 and ASM 2 respectively for application specific messages (ASM) as described in Recommendation ITU-R M.2092. 163.275 MHz was formerly used by the NWS for coordination during power outages.
All stations in the United States, Canada, and Bermuda transmit a 1,050 Hz attention tone immediately before issuing a watch or warning, (In Canada a 1050 Hz Tone is only used for a Severe Thunderstorm Warning, Tornado Warning and the Required Monthly Test) and this is used as both an attention tone and as a way to activate many radios that do not have SAME technology. All U.S. and Canadian stations transmit SAME codes a few seconds before the 1,050 Hz attention tone that allows more advanced receivers to respond only for certain warnings that carry a specific code for the local area. SAME codes are defined for County, parishes, territories, , or marine zones, and are set using preassigned six-digit FIPS county codes (in the U.S.) or Canadian Location Codes (in Canada). The SAME code protocol also includes an end-of-message (EOM) tone which is made up of three short data bursts of the binary 10101011 calibration then "NNNN", which some radios will use to mute the speaker after the alert broadcast has been completed.
Bermuda has only one station dedicated purely for weather, on 162.55 MHz from Hamilton, now operated by the Bermuda Weather Service with tropical weather forecasts from NOAA. It has a second station, however, for marine conditions and forecasts, Bermuda Radio (operated by the Bermuda Maritime Operations Centre), at 162.4 MHz.
Accuweather (through United Stations) and The Weather Channel (through Westwood One's NBC Radio Network) both operate large national weather radio networks through standard AM and FM stations. Brookstone licensed Accuweather's data service for their popular 5 Day Wireless Weather Watcher Cast Forecaster.
Microsoft's MSN Direct was a popular data service that included weather forecasting sent over US FM radio signals from 2004 to 2012. It was used by Microsoft Spot watches and Oregon Scientific clocks.
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