Weather Radio Review

What's a weather radio, and why do you need one?

"Weather radio" is a broad term used to describe devices that are capable of receiving one or more of the seven National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Weather Radio (NWR) service frequencies. The NWR service uses more than 1,000 transmitters to cover all 50 states as well as coastal waters, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and the U.S. Pacific territories.

Weather radio has actually become a bit of a misnomer, as NWR has morphed into an all-hazards system. Working in conjunction with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the Emergency Alert System (EAS), as well as with state and local government agencies, NWR also issues alerts about natural disasters such as earthquakes and avalanches, environmental events such as oil spills, and public safety issues, including Amber Alerts and 911 service outages.

Given the spate of weather-related disasters in recent years, there's been an uptick in consumer interest in emergency and weather alert radios. Weather alert radios -- especially those that meet the Public Alert Standard endorsed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) -- can give users enough warning to get themselves and their families to safety in advance of threatening weather and other emergency situations.

Being informed about emergencies beforehand is just part of the equation, however. Keeping abreast of the situation while in the midst of an emergency -- natural or otherwise -- is equally important. That realization has led to a small explosion of emergency crank radios in the marketplace. These radios include built-in, crank-driven generators that can power radios when electrical power is not available and batteries have run dry. Most -- though not all -- emergency crank radios also cover the weather bands as well as more traditional radio. Some emergency radios have auxiliary features such as emergency lights and even cell-phone chargers.

Relatively few professional reviewers have spent much time reporting on weather and emergency radios. Instead, the best reviews of weather radios can be found at enthusiast websites, including Home-Weather-Stations-Guide.com and a site operated by Richard Rhodes. There's been more professional coverage of emergency crank radios, such as a good comparison article by Walter S. Mossberg in The Wall Street Journal. Although Mossberg's comparison is a few years old, both models discussed are currently available, so the review is still relevant.

ConsumerReports.org last covered emergency radios in June 2006, but all three models included in its review have since been discontinued. User reviews of both types of radios are more plentiful, with the best being found at radio-buff sites such as eHam.net and at large retailers such as Amazon.com and RadioShack.com.