SAME Emergency Weather Radios

This page offers information and links to buy weather radios with SAME alert technology.

These inexpensive life saving devices can receive alerts from NOAA Weather Radio stations broadcast in the VHF Public Service band, including tornado, hurricane, lightning, flood and other severe weather emergency warnings.

In the USA, NOAA Weather Radio stations broadcast on one of eight frequencies in the VHF Public Service band: 162.400 megahertz (MHz), 162.425 MHz, 162.450 MHz, 162.475 MHz, 162.500 MHz, 162.525 MHz, and 162.550 MHz. Practically all new weather radio receivers will receive all of these channels.

After buying an SAME weather radio receiver, program your county, parish or independent city or marine area into the unit. Make sure you have your radio set to the station designated as a SAME channel.

Once programmed correctly, a SAME radio will alert only for weather and other emergencies for the county(s)/ area(s) programmed. NWR receivers without the SAME capability alert for emergencies anywhere within the coverage area of the NWR transmitter, typically several counties, even though the emergency could be well away from the listener.

This is a description of columns found in state tables from the United States and territories table found here: http://www.nws.noaa.gov/nwr/indexnw.htm

Clicking on a state or territory will bring up a table of eight columns.

1. State identification Column: Identifies the state for the county listed in column two.

2. Counties Column: Counties ins a specific state listed alphabetically. If a county is covered by more than one NWR transmitter, the county will be listed on multiple rows. If a county is not covered, it will be listed with a remark of

"--No NWR Coverage--" in the Transmitter Column (4).

3. NWR SAME Code Column: This 6-digit sequence uniquely describes each county. For coding of a whole county, the first digit is zero. For coding of a part of a county, the first digit is a non-zero number. The 2nd through 6th digits use the Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS). The 2nd and 3rd digits are the 2-digit state/equivalent territory identifier; the last three digits are the county or equivalent area identifier.

4. Transmitter Location Column: City and state of the NWR transmitter covering the county. Some counties are covered by a transmitter in an adjacent state.

5. Transmitter Frequency Column: Frequency the transmitter broadcasts on. There are seven frequencies (in MHz) used throughout the NWR network: 162.400, 162.425, 162.450, 162.475, 162.500, 162.525, 162.550.

6. Transmitter Call Sign Column: Station call sign of the transmitter.

7. Transmitter Power Column: Peak power of the transmitter in watts.

8. Remarks Column: Used when a transmitter covers only part of a county.

NOAA recommends that residents of flood-risk areas purchase a NOAA Weather Radio receiver with battery power option to stay apprised of quickly changing weather information.

The public can determine whether a community is in a flood-risk area at http://water.weather.gov.

Homeowners can also visit http://www.floodsmart.gov to learn about FEMA’s National Flood Insurance Program. The site offers an extensive collection of flood preparedness advice to safeguard family, home and possessions.