Traveling with a Weather ALert Radio

[Boudreaux]

Reaching out to those with traveling experience.

Looking toward spending about 8/10 weeks on the road this summer, covering an extensive percentage part of the southwest, west, and northwest.

Wondering if those that travel extensive, do so with a weather alert radio.

Is there one weather alert radio that stands out from the rest....???

[RoyBraddy]

I have been using the el-cheapo Radio Shack 12-260 model that looks for the WX channels as soon as you power it up. This one picks up only the WX Infomation transmitted from the picked up channels where you are located. You get all of the alerts and sort of have to know what county you are in to know where the alerts are for.

The newer WX RADIOs all have the SAME feature where you can only listen to selected counties and other type of National Alerts...

This feature doesn't work well when you are on-road always changing where you are located at. You have to be able to switch this type of mode OFF.

I have my Radio wired into my OFF-ROAD POPUP trailer and had to adapted down the 12VDC power cord to 6V using a radio shack multi-tap power plug... Being in a POPUP trailer high winds are the things you would worry about... I turn my WX RADIO off when we pack to leave and then when we setup the power gets turned back on and the WX RADIO comes up on the right channel for that area automatically.

Its nice and loud and goes off with all the local weather alerts for me...





Roy ken

[Cdash]

I have a cheap one in the trailer and a CB in the truck with weather channels. Any of them will work, the harder part is finding out if I'm in the country that has the alert when it goes off. Surprisingly hard to find the county your in when on the road.

[3'senough]

I used my phones weather app with the alarms set to go off in the event of a warning. That set with your GPS function will go off in the event a warning is posted for your area by the NWS.

Usually I keep and eye on the weather daily and if something severe is forecast I prepare.

If you want a dedicated radio I would get one with built in alarming functions for the extra few bucks.

[micron]

I have a cheap battery operated emergency weather radio that also has a hand crank. I leave it in the camper just in case. I also use a couple of smart phone apps to keep up on weather predictions for the area I am in.

[need-a-vacation]

I have a Midland handheld weather radio that I take with us when camping and snowmobiling. Even take it out on the trail when on the sled in case weather looks like it's changing. Runs on 3 (AAA) batteries.

Seems to work pretty good. Biggest challenge is when in the bush in Canada at my in-laws cabin. Most of the time need to be outside to get a signal. Second biggest challenge: converting the C* to F* when up there at the cabin!!! Lol

I have seen this model Midland for $15 or $20 I think at Meijer's (similar to Walmart) if I remember right. Got mine from work as part of our yearly safety kick off a couple years ago. Also got a Rayovac led lantern, a duffle bag, and a safety whistle attached to the bag.

Good luck deciding, and have a great trip!!!

[Bassdogs]

Plenty of ways to keep up with basic weather info. We live in rural KY where folks are scared to death of Tornados and many have basement storm cellars. Yet I am amused when driving the country roads and see all the delaped barns and out buildings still standing after 75+ years. I know that RV's are more likely to be damaged by heavy storms, but other than keeping up with basic weather we don't keep that close of a tab on things. A basic weather radio available at any W mart will tell you all you need.