About Noaa, Nws, & S.a.m.e. County Codes - Midland WR-100 Owner's Manual

WR-100 Owner's Manual
About NOAA, NWS, & S.A.M.E. County Codes:
About NOAA, NWS, & S.A.M.E. County Codes:
In 1994, NOAA began broadcasting coded emergency signals that identify
the specific geographic area (such as the county within a state) that is affected by
an emergency. Until that time such specific emergency weather information was
not available directly to the public. NOAA transmits the coded emergency signals
using a technique called Specific Area Message Encoding (S.A.M.E.) The WR-
100 weather radio is designed to receive these S.A.M.E. county code transmis-
sions.
The National Weather service divides the United States by state and county
(or parish) and assigns a six digit code number called a FIPS (Federal Information
Processing System) code, also known as a S.A.M.E. county code.
You can program the weather radio with up to 25 S.A.M.E. county codes. The
weather radio allows you to receive broadcast alerts for either your own county, or
for up to 25 counties. This will eliminate any alerts that are not within your area
of interest.
When you program your S.A.M.E. county code(s) into the WR-100 weather
radio, you eliminate any alerts that are not within those counties. Warnings,
watches and statements of weather and other area emergencies, about 50 differ-
ent types, will activate the weather radio for only your programmed specific area.
The S.A.M.E. message the NWS sends contains information pertaining to the
period for which the alert is valid. NWS can set the active time of the alert from
15 minutes up to 6 hours. When the designated time has passed, the weather
radio display message and light will automatically reset to their normal appear-
ance.
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