On 4 Jan 2007 15:02:42 -0800, dpb wrote:

But, it's an idea others who are more interested in programming and
less interested in the one item of near local weather and storm weather
that is my primary interest would probably find the way to go.

If local weather and storm info is your primary concern, I'd suggest that you
purchase a weather radio that you can program for your local area. Just got
one from Radio Shack for about $60 and it's much better than the old one it
replaced - no codes to enter, you just choose your state and county from
menus and it'll provide you with a list of surrounding counties to choose
from. You can, of course, manually enter the county codes if you like. The
radio I have in the storm shelter is not as old as the one I just replaced
and it has a USB port to program the codes (similar menu choices but on the
computer) - I like that option just as much as the new radio.

The radio is nice since it will provide warning without you having to turn it
on - a signal from the NWS activates it. Since the NWS activates the radio, I
highly recommend the programmable ones as opposed to those that come on
whenever they receive the activation signal - programmable means that they
only activate when the code for the particular county(ies) in the list you
set up is received.

If reception is not good, you can tap into the antenna wire for the TV and
rig it to the radio - takes a RCA jack on mine, which I rigged from coax to
an old piece of speaker wire that has a jack on it. Of course, that means
that if the weather's bad and the antenna is torn down, you may not be able
to get a good signal, but you'll have been warned of the bad weather.

Although reception on the new radio is good, I have both it and the one in
the storm cellar (which gets very poor reception in there) hooked into my TV
antenna (which has an amplifier) and they get excellent reception. Just make
a point to pay attention from time to time on Wednesdays at about 11:30AM for
the test to insure that you're getting proper reception - the radio should
activate and, if you have the voice option turned on, you'll hear the test
message.

I don't know how good NWS coverage is in KS (I'm in GA and coverage is very
good), but considering how common severe weather is in that part of the
country, I'd think it would be good.

Anyway, you have another option to look at...

Later, Mike
(substitute strickland in the obvious location to reply directly)
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