Weather Radios Reviews

Given the spate of weather-related disasters in recent years, there's been an uptick in consumer interest in weather alert and emergency radios. Weather alert radios -- especially those that are NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association) Public Alert certified -- can give users enough warning to get themselves and their families to safety in advance of threatening weather. The system has also been expanded to cover other natural emergencies, such as earthquakes and avalanches, as well as non-natural emergencies including child abductions (Amber alerts), 911 service outages, civil emergencies and other situations.

Being informed about emergencies beforehand is just part of the equation, however. Keeping in touch with 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. These radios include built-in crank-driven generators that can power radios when AC 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 and even analog TV bands. Some emergency radios also have auxiliary features such as emergency lights and even a cell-phone charger.

Despite the rising importance of weather and emergency radios, relatively few professional reviewers have spent much time reporting on them. Instead, the best reviews of weather radios can be found at enthusiast websites, including Home Weather Stations Guide and the Richard C. Rhodes personal web page. There has been more professional coverage of emergency crank radios, such as a good comparison article by Walter Mossberg in The Wall Street Journal. Consumer Reports also has reports on emergency radios, but its coverage is both dated and disappointing. 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 the Radio Shack website.

SAME-compliant radios are designed to listen for a specially coded signal that lets it know that an emergency message is appropriate for a user-selected county, parish, city or marine area. When the code is received, the radio turns on, issues an alarm tone, and then delivers the broadcast message.

Since NOAA weather radio (NWR) broadcasts often cover large geographic areas, one of the biggest advantages of SAME is that it minimizes the number of "false" alarms for events that are too far away to be of concern. Even so, there will still be cases where certain types of alerts will be of far less concern than others -- especially at 2 a.m. Most people living on high ground won't appreciate being blasted out of bed by an alarm for a flood watch. Likewise, city folk would probably like a few extra hours of shut-eye rather than being awakened by a freeze watch.

Some weather and emergency radios, like the top-rated Midland WR-300 (*est. $50) , overcome that issue by letting users program their radio to not respond to certain types of emergency alerts. Other radios, however, pass along all alerts regardless of type. For example, the inability to select specific emergencies is one of the biggest knocks against the Midland-WR100B (*est. $30) weather radio. Enthusiast Richard C. Rhodes levies some significant criticism of that radio on his website. He finds it only a small step up from a radio without SAME capabilities. "Personally, I would find the WR-100B to be nearly useless, and it would be turned off most of the time," he concludes. User reviews of this model are mixed, with some pointing to that same issue as a chief disappointment.  ... Continued

Our Consensus Report shows how many times products are top-ranked by reviewers included in our
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When it comes to weather alert radios, the Midland WR-300 stands well above the pack in the eyes of users and reviewers. The Reecom 1630 and 1650 also seem to be solid choices based on the limited feedback we've seen. For portable use, the Radio Shack 12-259 (*est. $50) is the best bet, but battery life is an issue. All four are Public Alert certified. For emergency use, the Eton FR300 (*est. $50) gets the most positive recognition. It is not Public Alert certified and lacks SAME technology, but it does include weather band coverage with an alert function. Its hand crank works well, and it can be powered from three other sources as well. The Eton FR300 is also sold under the Grundig and American Red Cross brands.