One to rule them all?

[Greenwtch]

Is there a radio that will let me hear if there is a nationwide emergency happening? I enjoy listening to my little shortwave radio at night, its an old Realistic DX-350, but I also want to study for a ham radio license, and I loved my parents scanner when I was a child (60yrs.old now). I’ve been reading this site for a little and while I’ve learned quite a bit its difficult for my old brain to gather enough to know the answer to my question. Please forgive me if I’m committing a faux pas, I am posting this here in the Florida forum - I live in Hernando County. Thank you for being kind, and sharing any information that you think I need in regards to my question. Have a lovely day!

 

[Bote]

I'm afraid those days are behind us. These days alerts of every kind rely on a robust Internet infrastructure, so you will find alerts variously on Twitter and other platforms that have wide usage. Some jurisdictions set up their own notification systems for the city or county, but that's up to each one to undertake.

It aint just 3 TV networks any more.

 

[a417]

now it's a cellphone.

internet connectivity for streaming sites, web access, and pushed alerts have made it the new norm.

 

[belvdr]

For a nationwide emergency, a standard AM/FM radio and/or TV would keep you informed as well.

 

[wtp]

it would have been great if 155.475 was used for something like this...

 

[nd5y]

it would have been great if 155.475 was used for something like this.

What would be great about that? Used how?

 

[nd5y]

I guess nobody has ever heard of EAS.

Emergency Alert System

The Emergency Alert System (EAS) is a national public warning system that requires radio and TV broadcasters, cable TV, wireless cable systems, satellite and wireline operators to provide the President with capability to address the American people within 10 minutes during a national emergency.

www.fema.gov

The Emergency Alert System (EAS)

The Emergency Alert System (EAS) is a national public warning system commonly used by state and local authorities to deliver important emergency information, such as weather and AMBER alerts, to affected communities. EAS Participants – radio and television broadcasters, cable systems, satellite...

www.fcc.gov

 

[nd5y]

All EAS does is feed "information" to your local broadcast outlets from your federal/state/local governments. Do you trust those people?

 

[JimD56]

You get these all on your phone.
Broadcastify www.broadcastify.com and Your phones App Store
Incident Page.Net www.incidentpage.net
Pulse Point - Your phones App Store
NYC Firewire - Your phones App Store
AND sign up for Alerts from places like FoxNews and your local media.

 

[Greenwtch]

I thank you all for your replies. I very carefully worded my question so that there would be no confusion, but apparently that was not enough so let me clarify. I am not interested in the hand-fed EMS alerts sent by whomever to the masses. I specified that I enjoy listening to shortwave and HF frequencies, and I am looking for the advice of those who know far more than I about these radios what the best short wave/high frequency radios are right now for listening to air/sea/ airlines that sort of thing to get the jump on info they won’t tell us about.

 

[N4DES]

Is there a radio that will let me hear if there is a nationwide emergency happening? I enjoy listening to my little shortwave radio at night, its an old Realistic DX-350, but I also want to study for a ham radio license, and I loved my parents scanner when I was a child (60yrs.old now). I’ve been reading this site for a little and while I’ve learned quite a bit its difficult for my old brain to gather enough to know the answer to my question. Please forgive me if I’m committing a faux pas, I am posting this here in the Florida forum - I live in Hernando County. Thank you for being kind, and sharing any information that you think I need in regards to my question. Have a lovely day!

For a nationwide emergency, you can pretty much bet that any critical Federal government communications are occurring with AES, or better, encryption across multiple systems such as satellite and closed wired networks.

Mass public notifications, like ND5Y mentioned, is supposed to be broadcasted across multiple platforms using the EAS system. But you will probably get a faster initial notification from a phone app, even if it's edited, from a national news source. At that point you can start your local listening to see if it will affect you.

 

[dimab]

The short answer is NO.

The long answer - Maybe
It all depends on your expectations and how National comms will work. Today - not much is done in the way of comms over short wave during an emergency in US (not including AM news). Feds are not using HF type frequencies to communicate.
Lots of fancy radio systems now exist that allow agencies to communicate with interoperability.
There are simply too many systems, with varying configurations, some with encryption, and varied coverage to monitor all of them in case of emergency.

fun thought experiment - consider listening to HF amateur radio frequencies and during an emergency I think lots of folks (hams) Would jump on to discuss the topic and emergency response and volunteer opportunities for races/ares. This prob won’t be the bleeding edge news, but seems to answer your question beyond saying to use an app.

 

[dimab]

I thank you all for your replies. I very carefully worded my question so that there would be no confusion, but apparently that was not enough so let me clarify. I am not interested in the hand-fed EMS alerts sent by whomever to the masses. I specified that I enjoy listening to shortwave and HF frequencies, and I am looking for the advice of those who know far more than I about these radios what the best short wave/high frequency radios are right now for listening to air/sea/ airlines that sort of thing to get the jump on info they won’t tell us about.

If you want a specific radio - wide band receiver is the answer, like IC-R8600. This will cover any reasonable freq you might want to hear.
Otherwise a good HF amateur radio will work great as well. You could go with an HF + VHF/UHF to get even more coverage. But now you have to consider antennas for the varios bands.

There are far smarter people on here than me, but maybe this is the spirit of your question and others will chime in with recommendations.

 

[ChrisABQ]

I guess nobody has ever heard of EAS.

Emergency Alert System

The Emergency Alert System (EAS) is a national public warning system that requires radio and TV broadcasters, cable TV, wireless cable systems, satellite and wireline operators to provide the President with capability to address the American people within 10 minutes during a national emergency.

www.fema.gov

The Emergency Alert System (EAS)

The Emergency Alert System (EAS) is a national public warning system commonly used by state and local authorities to deliver important emergency information, such as weather and AMBER alerts, to affected communities. EAS Participants – radio and television broadcasters, cable systems, satellite...

www.fcc.gov

I have to agree with nd5y, FEMA is the best solution. I have it on my phone and receive all sorts of weather alerts, no doubt in my mind that is the best notification system to date.

 

[Hit_Factor]

For a nationwide emergency, a standard AM/FM radio and/or TV would keep you informed as well.

Not sure I have any of those anymore.

On second thought, my truck has a am/fm radio. I don't recall using it.

Definitely no TV.

 

[Hit_Factor]

I work at a nuclear power plant. We use an app called everbridge on our phones for notifications.

Everbridge also sends SMS, email, and recorded messages via phone.

The County uses the same software.

 

[maus92]

NOAA weather specific radios has SAME / FIPS codes that can be programmed for alerting to local weather events and other major regional / national emergencies. Some scanners also have this functionality.

NWR Alerting Information