Oregon Scientific WR602

The Oregon Scientific WR602 receives the best reviews among portable handheld weather radios. This unit is a reissue of the previously recalled WR108; the company changed the model number to avoid confusion and fixed the alert issue that prompted the recall in the first place. The WR602 offers Specific Area Message Encoding (SAME) capability, so users can program up to nine locations for which they prefer to receive alerts. The radio is preprogrammed with updated alert codes from the National Weather Service -- users can simply look up their state and county in the unit itself, without searching the Internet for the appropriate codes. However, specific types of alerts can't be disabled.

Other Oregon Scientific WR602 features include a mute mode to disable audible alerts, meaning no sound is heard but a red light flashes and the warning appears on the screen. The most common complaint from owners is that the rechargeable batteries don't last long when the radio's not plugged in (the unit can also run on three AA batteries). A few are disappointed by the reception range. If you don't need portability, the Midland WR-300 gets great reviews and its SAME features include the ability to block out types of alerts you are not interested in. There's a battery backup, however, the WR-300 is strictly a desktop weather radio.

The best review of the Oregon Scientific WR602 is found at Home-Weather-Stations-Guide.com, a website run by geologist and amateur weather enthusiast Graham McClung. McClung specifically discusses the Oregon Scientific WR108, the recalled version of the updated WR602. The units are identical, other than that the alert issue is fixed in the WR602. User reviews for the WR602, including more recent and sometimes well detailed reports, can be found at Amazon.com.