What You Need to Know About Emergency Radios

Following is the COPE-USA explanation about emergency radios. If you need some help in sorting out the acronyms, come back to this table.

Acronym	Stands for

NOAA	National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, part of the Department of Commerce
NWS	National Weather Service, which is part of NOAA
NWR	NOAA Weather Radio, operated by the NWS. Known as "The Voice of the National Weather Service," NWR provides continuous, frequently updated broadcasts of the latest weather from local NWS offices.
EAS	Emergency Alert System, the system that is used to transmit warning messages (alerts) and information about events such as national emergencies. EAS replaced the old Emergency Broadcast System in 1996. EAS messages are transmitted by NWR.
SAME	Specific Area Message Encoding is a system that enables warnings and information that are specifically for areas like a county. SAME technology eliminates messages that are not applicable to your area by not transmitting the message on your local area frequency.

Under a January 1975 policy statement, NOAA Weather Radio was designated the sole Government-operated radio system to provide direct warnings into private homes for both natural disasters and nuclear attack. This concept...expanded to include warnings for all hazardous conditions that pose a threat to life and safety, both at a local and national level. --NOAA/PA 94061

NOAA Weather Radio (NWR) is our single source for comprehensive, "all hazards" emergency information 24 hours a day. In addition to providing continuous, updated broadcasts of the latest weather information for the local area, and warnings and information about severe weather and natural disasters, NWR is the network that transmits Emergency Alert System (EAS) warnings and post-event emergency information directly to your home in the event of a national emergency.

Although some household and auto radios are able to pick up NWR broadcasts, NWR requires a special radio receiver or scanner that is capable of picking up the encoded signal. Why is it encoded? In part, to maintain the integrity and security of the national warning system, and ensure that only NWR is broadcasting authentic National Weather Service and EAS warnings.

The emergency information you hear on your regular AM/FM radio and TV stations was first transmitted by NWR, then picked up by the local stations (they monitor the NWR network), and then relayed to you by the local station announcers. These local radio and TV announcements are usually preceded by the announcer saying something like "This just in from the National Weather Service."

Although regular AM/FM radio and TV will broadcast this relayed emergency information, they may or may not relay it the instant it is transmitted by NWR. And, you will not know if there is an emergency announcement unless your radio or TV is ON and you are listening to it when an emergency broadcast is aired. If the emergency occurs at night, when you are asleep, you will not know anything is happening unless your city has some sort of fire horn to wake you up (note, almost all of the old air raid sirens have been dismantled).

After 1994, NOAA began transmitting using Specific Area Message Encoding (SAME). Prior to SAME, the alerts and transmissions contained information for large areas because it was not feasible to make separate transmissions with information that was specific to each area. Before SAME, large areas would receive warnings of emergencies like tornadoes and chemical spills across the state; it was not always useful to know that a tornado was spotted 150 miles away, or wake people up at night because of some distant situation. SAME basically transmits warnings for a specific county or a metropolitan area like Baltimore / Washington DC.

For this reason SAME messages are broadcast over different frequencies for specific counties and metropolitan or geographic areas of the country. This way, one city, 5 counties or a tri-state area will receive information specific to those locations. This is important to know because only radios with SAME capabilities will receive broadcasts with information specific to your local area. Older emergency radios, to include older NOAA Weather Radios like the Midland WR-10, will broadcast warnings for large sections of the state and the country that may or may not have anything to do with your area (e.g., a severe weather warning for a county at the other end of your state).

Also, broadcasts of national emergencies will be made over NWR. This is important to know because radio and TV stations may not be able to broadcast in some emergencies.

Most Importantly, the new SAME-capable radios have a standby mode that enable the radio to activate automatically whenever there is a warning for your area, day or night. In other words, if you set a new SAME-capable radio on standby mode, it makes no sound but if there is a tornado, chemical spill, or other emergency in your area while you are eating dinner or sleeping the SAME radio will immediately come on with an alert tone and the emergency information for your area. These radios are like the smoke detectors in your home: they come on when there is an emergency you need to know about.

If you never have an emergency or a severe weather warning in your area, you can still use a SAME-capable radio to get the latest weather information and forecast for your specific area from the NWS.

We have examined other products and recommend two SAME-capable radios from Midland Radio. They are the 74-200 and the 74-250 models. Please note, these units do not pick up AM or FM stations; they pick up the NWS weather broadcasts and EAS transmissions. Oregon Scientific makes a NWR / SAME radio for the home that also picks up AM/FM , but we prefer these two radios from Midland. A list of other SAME-capable radios can be found here.