Thanks moe, I bought a WR 102 about a month ago, so far so good but the warnings for 100 miles away are a pain. I didnt research enough before jumping in to buy so now looking for a good radio with SAME and maybe sell the 102 cheap.....or maybe I should save the 102 for a backup since it seems most radios are throwaways
Owned a 100 for several years...and they are a basic radio. Good for entry level. The one I bought I believe still works, but I no longer own it, so I cannot be sure. I bought it at Wally World over a winter when they couldn't sell them, so I got two on clearance for $20 for both of them and gave one to my brother.
Just got done spending right at 60 for a Sangean CL100 and in the few days I've had it I've been impressed. Now, a caveat to that is I've not seen it in action as far as dispatching warnings/watches yet since it's so new. The quality of the unit itself however is par to the price, since it doubles as an AM/FM radio with a dual alarm and RBDS on FM. It also has RBDS-CT (which means you give it the frequency of an RBDS FM station..in this instance, it uses up to three to rotate amongst...and it will set the time automatically on the unit every two hours).
Great sound from this unit though. I also have a Reecom 1650 that I've relocated to another room in the house that works well also. But can't say that I'd spend the 60 I spent on it again. Especially after seeing how Reecom treats it's commenters in the Amazon forums who do not like the unit. The kickers for both however is that they honor the SAME EOM (end of message) signal. In other words, when the watch/warning/whatever is finished, it stops the voice part of the alarm. All the Midlands I've owned don't do that, and you get to listen to NOAA weather radio for 10 minutes after the initial transmission.
The Reecom 1650 (they also have a 1630 which is just the weather radio with no AM/FM): http://www.reecominc.com/r1650.htm
The Sangean CL100: http://www.sangean.com/products/product.asp?mid=84