Weather Radios in the T@b?

VictoriaP

Interesting…the Jensen in my 2019 doesn’t appear to have a Weather mode, at least not that I can find.

I have a Kaito weather radio at home for emergencies, I guess I probably should carry it with me in the Tab. https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B007VTVDZY/

N7SHG_Ham

I am a Ham (N7SHG) and have a radio that I programmed in the NOAA weather frequencies. My CB also has them built in. Those are generally shorter range transmissions, so I would say at the outside you need to be within 100 miles of a broadcast, less in non flat terrian.

I think any radio really works, they are just a reciever, but an external antenna up high will help any receiver be more useful. These weather radios recieve broadcasts that are a product of NOAA NWS and is about best weather you can get, but if course no maps OTA. they do NOT depend on some third party app to push alerts out.

I also carry a Zoleo which has weather on it from a satellite, so works anyplace where you have sky visibility to the satellite.

Odd that no weather apps worked at ucamp.

JeffroNC

@N7SHG_Ham for some reason I had spotty cell signal at my site toward the back of Winkleplek. It might have been the hills. When the storm hit, I had zero signal. Others said their phone apps worked. I am not confident now. We actually should have left the camper doe to the strength of the storm.

Denny16

Jeff, you and your TaB did survive the storm without any damage, speaks well of the TaB’s build quality…  Glad you both are OK.  
cheers 

GigHarborTom

Long hauled cross country for few months 30 + years ago. Had NOA on the  CB and would check national news paper at every morning stop for fuel. Would not help much  boondocking.

JeffroNC

@Denny16 thanks for the good wishes. We still had a blast!

Marceline

N7SHG_Ham said:

I think any radio really works, they are just a reciever, but an external antenna up high will help any receiver be more useful. These weather radios recieve broadcasts that are a product of NOAA NWS and is about best weather you can get, but if course no maps OTA. they do NOT depend on some third party app to push alerts out.

WX is broadcast on 162.400 – 162.550 MHz and most conventional tuners don't go up to that frequency. I just checked my home stereo and it only tunes up to around 108. I just checked the Jensen website and it looks like WX has indeed been dropped from the new RV head units. It's still available in their marine stereo units, though. WX is very useful (lifesaving?!?) and I just don't understand why Jensen has dropped it. When I'm camping somewhere remote (no cell service for web-based weather) I make it a habit to turn on WX and listen when I'm having my morning coffee. If my T@B didn't have WX I would probably buy a cheap weather radio and keep it in the trailer. As someone else mentioned, if you have a marine VHF it has WX.

Denny16

Yes, I get the WX channels on my marine handheld radio, which intake on camping trips.
 Cheers 

N7SHG_Ham

@Marceline I should of been clearer, any radio that receives in the weather band as someone up above was asking which was best, my mistake for not being clearer.

Marceline

N7SHG_Ham said:

@Marceline I should of been clearer, any radio that receives in the weather band as someone up above was asking which was best, my mistake for not being clearer.

Sorry, I missed that. My apologies.

BrianZ

Thanks, @VictoriaP for this tip.  We brought both of ours on this trip, and so far they have ensured we have gorgeous weather!  One is my old Radio Shack battery powered handheld that I normally keep next to the bed at home, and the other is crank model that uses no batteries, which we got after one of the multi-day power outages from a hurricane.  I tested the first one here at our relatively remote campground & pulled in the broadcast clearly.

pthomas745

I have a Bearcat 125AT scanner, mostly for aviation scanning. It has a weather band included.

There are National Weather Radio Coverage maps. Click the state to see what areas are covered. Pretty extensive network.

https://www.weather.gov/nwr/Maps

Another page with information.  Seems the old comics character, "Mark Trail" is the official spokesperson for NWR.

https://www.weather.gov/nwr&ln_desc=NOAA+Weather+Radio/allhazard_logo_info/

And, a page with weather radio reviews. 

https://www.weatherstationadvisor.com/best-weather-radio-reviews/

mjwaldner

We have been searching for a good weather radio for a little bit now. We are looking for one that will alert us when the weather is coming without us constantly listing to the radio for updates. We want to keep it on all the time in passive monitoring mode. But we don't want to get warnings for systems that will not affect us. So we are looking for one that we can put in (SAME) county codes. And not getting all the alerts for the radio coverage area. It also needs to have the ability to plug into 12v DC power so that we are not constantly changing batteries.

We purchased the Midland - WR120EZ . Our experience with this one has not been good. I had it sitting on the desk next to me in my office for 3 months and not one time has it ever gone off. And we have been through multiple severe weather events. Many times during severe weather the station went down or the signal became very weak.

So at uCamp last week we had severe weather and it did not go off. At one point we were sitting near another person who had a handheld weather radio. Sure enough, their radio was getting alerts and ours was not. So just returned the one we had and I'm on the hunt again.

They had the Midland Pocket Weather Alert Radio. But I don't see any way to put in SAME codes so I guess it gets alerts for anything in the coverage area. Also, I don't think it has a way to plug into 12v power, and reviews say it burns through batteries very quickly. I'm sure I could rig up a DC-DC converter to solve this problem if needed.

I'm surprised there are so few good options for this.

Maple_Geek

Lee Valley (a popular Canadian store) seems to sell a few models of the Eton brand.
I have no personal experience with any of them BTW so can't make any recommendation:
https://www.leevalley.com/en-ca/search#q=eton&t=product-search-tab&sort=relevancy&layout=card&numberOfResults=25