Houston SKYWARN

[K5RYA]

Forgive me if I am wrong. But I was under the assumption that SKYWARN was meant for alerting people of severe weather conditions. If that is the case, why is our local SKYWARN frequencies nothing but people yapping all day about radio equipment and other nonsense? I have just completely locked out our local SKYWARN frequencies cause there is really no point in having them open.

 

[bwillcox]

The SKYWARN frequencies in their every day lives are just humble amateur radio repeaters.

As you have observed, when there is not severe weather in the area amateur radio operators like to talk about radios and otherwise shoot the breeze and enjoy their hobby.

When there IS severe weather in the area, the National Weather Service office will contact the organization responsible for the Skywarn net there (the Emergency Management office, the ARES group, RACES group, etc) and request that the SKYWARN net be activated.

This is when you will hear a Net control station come on and take checkins and reports for SKYWARN, sometimes changing the repeater into "net mode" where it acts differently.

The storm spotters for the most part are amateur radio operators that enjoy storm spotting or want to give back to their community and have taken spotter training classes (which are usually FREE and open to the public) given by the NWS. By and large they are volunteers.

You really should keep the frequencies handy (lock them out day-to-day if you must) because it is likely you will hear about severe weather there way before you will hear about it on NOAA weather radio or your broadcast media, and that extra time may just make the difference.

 

[sleebusjones]

If that is the case, why is our local SKYWARN frequencies nothing but people yapping all day about radio equipment and other nonsense?

That's because SKYWARN rides on existing repeaters, like bwillcox said. Furthermore, the 70cm repeater is part of the saltgrass network, which is a large group of linked repeaters, so yep, you're going to hear hams on there yip yapping about whatever crosses their mind. I'm one of them.

 

[jleverin]

Yes, I believe your skywarn frequencies are probably on the repeaters that the hams use. Here locally we have a skywarn group that I am a part of but it is made up of the local ham club and is on their repeater. We don't actually have frequencies here that are "dedicated " to skywarn alone.


Skywarn Spotter PB134
KDOHDH

 

[K5RYA]

That makes sense. I was not aware of that. Wish that was not the case though. Then I could leave SKYWARN freqs on and they would just come on when there was an emergency. Good info to know guys. Thanks for your input!

 

[ke5ldo]

Another reason SKYWARN frequencies are used on a regular, non-emergency basis, is to ensure that in the event of a weather emergency, that the repeaters WILL WORK FOR EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS! Our local one we test with a net each Tuesday night at 830 PM, and use it for non-emergency on a regular basis so we can ensure that it will be avaiable for emergency comms.

 

[loumaag]

Forgive me if I am wrong. But I was under the assumption that SKYWARN was meant for alerting people of severe weather conditions. If that is the case, why is our local SKYWARN frequencies nothing but people yapping all day about radio equipment and other nonsense? I have just completely locked out our local SKYWARN frequencies cause there is really no point in having them open.

&

That makes sense. I was not aware of that. Wish that was not the case though. Then I could leave SKYWARN freqs on and they would just come on when there was an emergency. Good info to know guys. Thanks for your input!

I think you are confusing NOAA's National Weather Service (NWS) and amateur radio. SKYWARN is not about warning anyone, it is about communicating to the NWS specific weather information, it is not intended to be (and should not be used as) a source of weather information for the public. That information, including alerts, watches, warnings, etc. are distributed only by the NWS and the SKYWARN system is not the method they use. NWS public information is available both on the Internet at their web page, the NOAA Weather Radio system, and of course local radio, TV and cable.

If you want to be only alerted when severe weather threatens, I suggest you either commit your scanner to SAME monitoring (which is a waste of a scanner IMHO) or you purchase and program a Weather Radio to your local area.