15 out of 15 people found this review helpful.
Good, but there are better.
Date of Review: Sep 23, 2007
The Bottom Line: This is a good unit! It's easy to use, has decent reception and battery life. It's size makes it easy to travel with.
I bought this because I am majoring in Meteorology and I do a fairly large amount of storm chasing.
The unit is pretty durable, it has a fairly tough case. It has a relatively nice LCD display. It comes with an AC adaptor, but also takes 3 AA batteries. The battery life is decent. I would say probably around 6 to 7 hours. It's about 5" high and around 3" wide, and 1 1/2" thick. It is great to take with you if your traveling or doing something outdoors. The unit comes with a belt clip, however in my experience I have found that its not real reliable, and I wouldn't feel comfortable running or walking with it clipped on.
This unit has the S.A.M.E technology which allows you to set which counties you want to get alerts for. The S.A.M.E technology also lets you receive alerts wherever you have your radio with you. Let's say you live in Houston, but are traveling to Des Moines for a business trip. If you bring your weather radio with you, you will automatically receive alerts for the Des Moines area without any programming needed. With this unit you get any alert that is put out by NOAA. Which includes, weather, terror alerts, local and national emergencies.
The booklet also claims that this unit is water resistant. I have found this to be somewhat true. I've been caught in downpours before and the unit is still working, however I wouldn't suggest taking a bath with it.
I like this unit, but as the title says there are better. The reception on this unit is pretty decent, but having it for a while now, and dropping it here and there, the reception seems to be getting a little fuzzy now. It is also a bit fuzzy in cars too. Also, I have to turn the sound all the way up to be able to hear it while watching TV, driving, laundry and other stuff. I emailed Oregon Scientific because I had a question about the unit because when I purchased it I was having a slight problem trying to figure out how to program it. I got an email back from them about a week later, and they went over the same information that was in the booklet. Pretty useless, huh?
Overall, this unit isn't bad if you are using it for weather alerts in your home, on vacation or on the road. It's sort of confusing to program, but easy to use after that. I would call this unit average. There's nothing really that makes this product outstanding or terrible. If you are in the market for something similar I would suggest looking at radio shack. They put out radio exactly like this one, that is easier to use, better reception and much much cheaper. I usually prefer to use that one over this one.
