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Weather Alert
Traditional weather radios receive weather broadcasts (usually within a
50-mile radius) then sound an alarm when any emergency code is
transmitted along with the broadcast. This means that people who live
outside an affected area are often alerted even when their area is not
affected, causing many of them to ignore potentially real
emergency/weather warnings that can save lives.
Your radio’s Weather Alert feature lets it monitor the local weather
channel for NOAA weather alert broadcasts, while allowing you to listen
to other channels.
About S.A.M.E. Weather Alert
In 1994, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
began broadcasting coded signals called FIPS (Federal Information
Processing System) codes along with their standard weather broadcasts
from stations in your area. These codes identify an emergency and the
specific geographic area (such as a county) affected by the emergency.
Your radio’s SAME (Specific Area Message Encoding) technology lets it
receive, interpret, and display information about the codes it receives so
you can determine if an emergency might affect your area.
Each FIPS code identifies a specific geographic area (defined by the
National Weather Service), so your radio sounds an alert only when an
emergency/weather emergency is declared in those locations. This
helps you more efficiently track the emergency/weather conditions in
and around your area.
When the
VHF600
receives a weather alert:
•
It sounds an alert siren.
•
A description of the alert appears.
The alert descriptions your radio can display are based on a list of
specific weather alert types published by the NWS (National Weather
Service). For a list of all the alert descriptions that your radio can
display, see “NWR-SAME Event Codes” on page 70.
Caution:
The NWS uses sophisticated weather models to determine an
alert’s effective time. However, the end of an alert does not
necessarily mean that the related weather emergency is over.
VHF600_UT921ZH 5/28/04 4:24 PM Page 18
