About Noaa, Nws, & S.a.m.e. County Codes - Midland WR300 Owner's Manual

WR300 Owner's Manual
About NOAA, NWS, & S.A.M.E. County Codes:
In 1994, NOAA began broadcasting coded emergency signals that identify the specific geograph-
ic 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 trans-
mits the coded emergency signals using a technique called Specific Area Message Encoding
(S.A.M.E.) The WR300 weather radio is designed to receive these S.A.M.E. county code trans-
missions.
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 23 S.A.M.E. county codes. The weather radio
allows you to receive broadcast alerts for all counties within your area, or for up to 23 individual
selectable 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 WR300 weather radio, you eliminate
any alerts that are not within those counties. Warnings, watches and advisories of weather and
other area emergencies, about 50 different types, will activate the weather radio for only your pro-
grammed 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 appearance.
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