Severe weather radios to be provided to public schools

Do You Own A Weatheradio Alert Type Reciever?

  • Yes

    Votes: 51 83.6%
  • No

    Votes: 10 16.4%

  • Total voters
    61
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IdleMonitor

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Personally I think this is a great idea. Too bad Canada wouldn't do the same thing.

Either that or it's that classic "It doesn't happen here" syndrom.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/EDUCATION/09/25/schools.warnings.ap/index.html

Would love to hear everyone's thoughts on weatheradio and how they've helped your communities or places that you think should have a weatheradio.
 

daleduke17

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Technically my answer should be "No", but, both of my scanners can be set up as a weather radio.

Now that the agency I work for has switched to a trunked system, I will put the WX frequency back as my priority channel.

I agree with you that those radios need to be in all schools, nursing homes and day care centers. If a facility such as those cannot afford a $20.00 WX radio, then they are in deep trouble. $20.00 divided by 200 students (appx size of my HS when I graduated) = $.10/student. If I was a parent, or a student, I would gladly give a dime for some kind of weather warning radio in the adminstrative offices of my (or my kid's) school building.
 
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KG4ZPD

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I agree as well. The weather alert radios would come in handy. Be nice if they could equip all schools with some type of weather radio
 

rdale

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KG4 - that's exactly what this thread is about. DHS is providing all public schools with a NOAA Weather Radio.
 

MaxMan1986

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I'm a student at Binghamton University. Endicott is right down the road from here. We actually discussed this a few weeks ago in an Education class I'm taking. We all thought it was a great idea.
 

IdleMonitor

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I also think that the weatheradio's should also be in more places such as public safety communications centres.

I don't know how many times I've heard OPP broadcast a severe storm warning or winter weather warning, like about an hour after I got it on the radio or in an email.
 

trace1

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In the area that I live we have a Warning Systems, Inc Tone Alert Radio System (TARS) that was specifically designed for the Chemical Stockpile Emergency Preparedness Program (CSEPP). These radios were placed, free of charge, in all homes, businesses, factories, stores, churches, and most other facilities to notify all residents in case of an incident/accident at the Anniston Army Depot but it also includes the NOAA Weather broadcast and alerts.

The system is tested once a month and the emitted tone should get the attention of most anyone, those late night tornado warnings that have happened have been great and thankfully we’ve never been directly effected by one. There is an outside siren that is also in close proximity that we usually hear also, the only thing I don’t really like about that is that it is set off for a severe thunderstorm warning too. So for a brief few seconds you may not be sure what kind of warning is being issued but unless the TARS goes off you can pretty much be assured that it’s only that severe thunderstorm warning.
 

IdleMonitor

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Being that it is now considered an "all hazards" type of radio system, besides the regular weather warnings, has anyone ever heard any other types of warnings on there wx receivers, such as Amber Alerts etc.....
 

mlevin

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I personally own one and often sleep with it on when severe weather is expected overnight. I think it is a good idea to have one in schools just as long as someone actually knows how to use it, knows the difference between a ,watch, warning, advisory, and knows what to do in these situations. All to often people are ignorant to what should be common knowledge.
 

K5MAR

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I've owned them for several years, currently have two in the house. The one next to my bed is set for my county only, the other is the RS computer-interface model (discontinued) and I have it set for wide-area coverage. I also have a couple of the handheld models, one of which I refitted with a BNC connector for use in my vehicle.

I gave them as gifts to the entire family a couple of years ago, seemed like a good idea and still does.

They're just too cheap and too handy not to have.

Mark S.
 

icom1020

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I heard an Amber Alert being cancelled once on my FT60. I don't usually have it activated as it needs to be in a scan mode with the WX Alert fuction on and it acts like a priority scan I did have it activated once in Portland when the sky turned 'green' and a tornado was observed nearby, it was cool to have the alert 2-3 mins before the tv did. The only thing wx wise here is not really weather but geological like earthquakes and volcanoes.
 

DCHarris

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I work in a rural county hospital ER. I bought a weather radio for the ER; I already had one at home. The hospital actually re-imbursed me for it, even though I did not ask them to. Administration found out we had one; now the big wheels come looking for me when the sky turns ominous to see if anything is brewing. I then bring up the NWS radar site to show them what is happening where; I often have my Ham WT to monitor Skywarn with me when they come. My co-workers started calling me "the Weatherman" and I have had people from the corporate office, sales people, and others who were flying out come to the ER and ask for "the Weatherman". Once a tornado warning was issued for the county; I called the local 9-1-1 dispatch to notify them since, after about 10-15 minutes, they had not broadcast the info to all the public service agencies as they usually did. I was told that they had not been notified of any warning, and never did a broadcast.

I have heard several Amber alerts issued via weather radio.
 

kb2vxa

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Hi Idle and all,

WX radios are reccomended but not mandatory in all public schools, hospitals, municipal buildings, etc. in New Jersey. Quite often when it's threatening police dispatchers will alert the patrols particularly when flash flooding is expected.

"Being that it is now considered an "all hazards" type of radio system, besides the regular weather warnings, has anyone ever heard any other types of warnings on there wx receivers, such as Amber Alerts etc?"

NWS does not broadcast Amber Alerts, that's handled by a talk group on the NJSP trunked radio system.

One thing I have noticed is the sharp upswing in the use of low power AM and FM broadcast band transmitters to disseminate local information. In addition to the airports that led the way quickly followed by the NWS, local municipalities now are using them.
 
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rescuecomm

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I thought that one of the Homeland Security items was to make use of the WX radio alerting system for any major broadcasts of an emergency nature. The weather alert radios are in many more hands than the EBS receivers and since the system is already in place, why not use it.

Bob
 

scanfan03

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IdleMonitor said:
I also think that the weatheradio's should also be in more places such as public safety communications centres.

I don't know how many times I've heard OPP broadcast a severe storm warning or winter weather warning, like about an hour after I got it on the radio or in an email.

That's because they probably recieve a teletype report (i guess it's called that) that prints out on a fax machine i guess. Here in Texas, DPS gets these faxes and they come about 5-10 minutes after the initial warning or watch comes out on the radio. HCSO doesn't bother with any NOAA stuff.
 

car2back

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CVPI4Ever said:
My High School office had a scanner, which also had the WX on there.

I got my scanner taken away while I was in High School for listening to the Skywarn during a severe TStorm warning in the lunch room :roll:
 
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