Mine works so far

I have read a lot of bad reviews on the WR108 weather radio. But I have also read bad reviews on other weather radios. The common theme seems to be with all is that some do not activate an alarm when an alert is sent out by NOAA or that it only alerts when set at "all counties" (unit ignores same codes). Well, I have had my WR108 since March 2007. I think this radio deserves at least one good review.

The radio can do two things: (1) You can listen to the continuous, repetitive weather forecast 24/7 transmitted from the closest NOAA tower; and (2) you can set the thing in standby mode to only turn on when an alert is issued for severe weather. When an alert (watch or warning) is issued, the radio will wake up from quiet standby mode and sound a 100 decibel siren loud enough to wake the dead, and NOAA radio tells you what is going on. It goes back to standby mode after the audio alert is finished. But it will continuously flash “watch” or “warning” and a text event message below this will scroll across the screen. It will do this until the watch or warning expires. This may be minutes or hours. There is a pilot light at the top right corner that blinks the color green. When a “watch” or “warning” is issued it turns red. You can not see it during the day, but it can be seen at night. This helps if you have it in mute standby mode. One night I had the radio in mute standby mode (no audio alert), and I looked over and saw the red light blinking. I picked it up and turned the backlight on to see the event message and the flashing “warning.” The other good thing is that the backlight automatically comes on for 5 seconds when an alert is issued. It is a nice visual alert at night in mute standby mode.

You can receive alerts for all counties (large area) served by the closest tower or specific counties (smaller area) entered in as SAME codes. There are several towers within each state, and a certain number of counties are assigned to each tower. You do not have to look up the same codes--they are built into the radio. You just scroll through the menu--select state and then county. You should only select counties served by the local tower. You may have to go to the NOAA web-site to see which counties are served by each tower. My local tower is Channel 3. This tower covers 9 counties. I have entered in 3 of these counties as SAME codes so that I only receive alerts for them.

Anyway, I am still testing it. Using SAME codes programmed in, I have received alerts for t-storm watches, t-storm warnings, tornado watches, and tornado warnings. I also get the weekly test. The owner’s manual has about 4 pages of event text codes that the radio supposedly alerts you to. My theory is that while the radio may be programmed with all these events, you probably will not get alerted to some of them. For example, our local NOAA office does not send out a tone alert for a Freeze Warning or a High Wind Watch— even though the owner’s manual lists these as programmed in the radio. Some Flood Watches may not activate the radio. If a flood watch is issued effective immediately, it may. But some flood watches here are issued hours in advance of their effective time. For example, a flood watch is issued at 11 AM to be in effect from 6PM to 10 PM. The radio is not designed for these, and our local office does not send a tone alert for these types of watches. We did have a High Wind Warning here, and the radio did not sound an alert. I contacted the local NOAA office, and they said they do sound a tone alert for these. Maybe they did, maybe they did not. A friend with another brand radio also did not alert. We have had 2 amber alerts, and the radio never went off. The friend’s radio also did not go off. My guess is that the local office or state decides what events classify as a full-blown alert. So at this point, it is hard to say if the WR108 is an “all hazards radio” or a “some hazards radio.” Time will tell, and there is no way to test it except to wait for something bad to happen.

The portability aspect of it is great. It comes with a cheap belt clip. The radio can fall out of the clip easy so I got a small digital camera case with a belt loop. The rechargeable battery dock works great. A charge lasts for about 2-3 days in standby mode. In the box, the battery comes inside the radio but it is not plugged in. You have to manually plug the battery into the outlet inside the cover.

My biggest complaint is that you can not set the alarm volume. So when it goes off it’s loud, and you have to grab it and start pressing the down arrow to turn the volume down. This is not a good thing when out in public. If you are not carrying it around, there is a jack where you can disable the radio speaker to only go through an external speaker or headphones. With external speakers, you can control the volume of the alarms.

Anyway, I am pleased with the radio. I am not sure why so many folks are having problems.

UPDATE 7/24/07--It's important to hit the reset button near the battery when you start up otherwise you may experience problems (no alerts).