SAME WX Alerts

[Voyager]

I remember when I set mine for weather alert on my 996xt,and one night I forgot it was on I woke up I thought there was an air raid!LOL!Man that thing scared the crap out of me.

There are federal standards for the alert volume. That's why it's so loud. But, ya gotta admit it did what it was supposed to do!

 

[PJH]

I skimmed a few posts but I'll try to explain if you are still having trouble...

The SAME/FIPS code is a data packet that takes about 1/2 sec or so to transmit. This is the datapacket that tell the advanced weather receivers and scanners what kind of warning it is to show on the radio display...

This is the code that can only be decoded by the scanner if it is left on the weather only alert feature. This is why it must remain on the local weather station.

The alert tone that is broadcasted after the data packet is the traditional long tone (think the emergency broadcast system). As explained above, this is what the scanner looks for on the other alert setting. The scanner does not know what type of weather event is being sent, it just knows that a weather alert has been transmitted. It knows there is an alert in the same way that a fire pager hears the its tone.

This is an audio sample of the data followed by the alert tone. Again, one option will be the data packet, the other option is the tone. You cannot scan to alert on the data stuff, just the alert tone.

http://www.weathereagle.com/wav audio files/test.10.3.wav

To be able to be on that frequency 100% of the time to hear the SAME alerts, which setting would that be?

In my scanner, I have a couple of different weather modes: Weather Scan and Weather Alert. Under Weather Alert, I have Alert Only, the SAME Group Name I programmed in with 6 digit SAME numbers, the other SAME Group names I didn't program (SAME 2, SAME 3, SAME 4, SAME 5) and All FIPS.

Voyager said that when I have Weather Alert Priority on, it will only trigger on the 1050 Hz alert tone. Does that mean that while the scanner is scanning the regular Sites/Groups/Channels that I have programmed in, the scanner will just beep, and then display something on the screen that says there is a weather alert for a certain county and I should manually switch over to Weather Scan or Weather Alert mode to hear the alerts?

 

[rob995]

Thanks everyone for explaining the different modes for weather alerts. I think I get it now. I may do what phask and kc2kth suggested and get a separate weather radio.

BTW, any chance someone can confirm that I configured the SAME settings correctly from my original post?

I'm trying to program in SAME groups, and I think I have it, but need to confirm it.

In FreeScan, there are several columns:
SAME Group Name, FIPS 1, FIPS 2, FIPS 3, FIPS 4, FIPS 5, FIPS 6, FIPS 7, FIPS 8

On row 1, column 1 under SAME Group Name, I entered "Home"
On row 1, column 2, under FIPS 1, I entered the 6 digit SAME code for my county.
On row 1, column 3, under FIPS 2, I entered the 6 digit SAME code for the next county over.

So it looks like this:
Home 006085 006075
I left the remaining 4 rows empty.

Is this correct?

 

[Voyager]

Thanks everyone for explaining the different modes for weather alerts. I think I get it now. I may do what phask and kc2kth suggested and get a separate weather radio.

BTW, any chance someone can confirm that I configured the SAME settings correctly from my original post?

Yes that looks correct.

 

[rob995]

Muches squeegie, Voyager!

 

[Voyager]

Muches squeegie, Voyager!

Uhhh... you're welcome?

 

[kc2kth]

Ok, I'm not too proud to admit when I am hijacking a thread. On a similar topic though I always thought the Realistic Weather Cubes were "cool" but never had one. I am thinking of the 12-181 models specifically. How did these work? I couldn't find a manual online anywhere to refer to but I'm sure at least a few of my fellow old timers here had one. My impressions was these were able to do some automatic alerting and weren't just a radio you would turn on when you wanted to listen to the weather.