Midland WR-120 Emergency Weather Alert Radio with Alarm Clock, S.A.M.E. Digital Technology, 25 Programmable Counties, Receives Over 60 Alerts, Box

2017-04-19T12:14:04

I live in a tornado high risk area and for years I've been saying I should get a weather alert radio because the storms here mostly strike in the middle of the night and we don't have tornado sirens. Well, I finally got around to ordering one and 2 days after I ordered the radio, before it even got here, I discovered that my cell phone carrier has started pushing WEA (wireless emegency alerts) to my cell phone. No app needed, the carrier pushes them right to the phone. I had received a couple for flash flood warnings. Because I leave my phone on 24/7, I don't really NEED a weather alert radio anymore but I had already bought it so what the hey. I set it up. One day later, the first alert came through. Thankfully it was not in the middle of the night. It was so loud that I honestly thought a firetruck crashed through the house with the siren blaring. I didn't even know where the heck that racket was coming from because it was in another room but it was LOUD. This thing can wake the dead. Anyway, the alert was for a thunderstorm warning. The problem with these for people living in large counties like mine, is that the SAME codes generally cover at least one county. So do you want to be shaken out of bed because there's a thunderstorm warning 50 miles away? I sure don't. It's not focused on a more localized area. That's more of an issue with the SAME codes system and not with the radio. The radio itself is fine. Fairly easy to set up it's loud enough to give you a heart attack but the audio quality and signal reception of NOAA weather radio isn't that great compared to other portable radios with indoor antennas. It's made out of that plastic that starts to turn yellow-brownish when exposed to sun for a long time. There is battery backup. Considering the only time I'm without cellphone coverage is when I'm camping, in which case, I would be monitoring NOAA weather radio anyway in case of storms, if I could do it again, I would just stick with the cell phone WEA alerts. Those are plenty loud and I think they might even be more localized. Timing is everything.

Todd S.