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Weather Station Hardware => Weather Radios => Topic started by: PaulKTF on February 18, 2019, 07:03:58 AM

Title: Question about old weather radios before SAME technology / targeted alerts
Post by: PaulKTF on February 18, 2019, 07:03:58 AM

I have a question for anyone who had a weather radio in the days before SAME codes and targeted alert technology was in place.

Did you just get all the alerts for your whole multi-county broadcast area since you couldn't use SAME codes to only get alerts for (for example) the county you live in?

That is how it worked, right? That would have been really annoying to have the radio go off 6 or 7 times in a few hours as Watches and Warnings are issued for surrounding counties!

I'm really glad I can filter out counties that I don't want alerts for.

Title: Re: Question about old weather radios before SAME technology / targeted alerts
Post by: galfert on February 18, 2019, 08:22:18 AM

Well before my time as I was just a kid.... But Wikipedia offers some history.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specific_Area_Message_Encoding

Title: Re: Question about old weather radios before SAME technology / targeted alerts
Post by: miraculon on February 18, 2019, 08:24:11 AM

In the old days, there was only the 1050 Hz tone that would un-mute the radio and make it wake up. SAME was added later.
With the tone, if the radio could receive it, the tone would make it come on. Since the radio plays everything, you would get all alerts for any county in the reception area.

Greg H.