Kenwood: Kenwood TH-D72 weather alerts

[ve2ihs]

Greetings,

I seem to have configurated my portable to get alerts from weather, is there any information as to how it function? I'm in Canada and not sure those alerts are still around, I havent heard one in a while and the gvt doesn't answer inquiring email about it?

Does B band has to be active?
Does B band need to be selected to weather
Does it alert if it's mute?
Does it need to be on A band?

Thanks!

 

[AK9R]

The Weather Alert feature sets up the radio to periodically check the weather radio channels to see if they are transmitting a 1050 Hz tone. You'll have to find out if Weather Canada's Weatheradio transmits this tone when they send a hazardous weather notice.

There's no mention in the CD-ROM manual for your radio about using A band or B band, so my assumption is that you can activate Weather Alert on either band. Menu 13A activates Weather Alert. The manual doesn't say, but I believe that when Weather Alert is activated, the radio periodically switches from whatever you are monitoring to a weather channel (manual doesn't say which one, maybe it scans all of them) to see if the tone is being sent.

Menu 13B activates Auto WX Scan which scans the 10 pre-programmed weather channels for the channel with the greatest signal strength.

In my opinion, Weather Alert is not a very useful feature, though many amateur radios have it. I'd rather have a dedicated weather radio that decodes the SAME codes so I only get the alerts for my county or area. Most amateur radios with "weather alert" features don't decode SAME codes. Also, when the radio switches to the weather channel to check for the 1050 Hz tone, it interrupts whatever you are monitoring.

When you go to Kenwood's website to download the owners manual, make sure to download the CD-ROM manual, too, as it has a more information about specialized functions of your radio.

 

[mrweather]

Weatheradio Canada does indeed transmit the 1050 Hz tone when it sends out alerts (as well as SAME data).

I too have amateur gear with the "Weather Alert" function but I've never found it useful. As pointed out above, if you listening on one frequency the alert will momentarily interrupt it to check for the alert tone. It got really annoying really fast.

I now just used a dedicated weather radio (well actually an old Uniden scanner that has SAME decoding).