Using A NWR SAME Weather Radio

With all the violent tornadoes that have recently ripped through entire towns, more people than ever are taking weather patterns more seriously. Weather radios that use NWR SAME are becoming very popular gadgets. But what is SAME and how to program a SAME weather radio? Where does one get the SAME codes for a particular state, with county by county coverage? For more information visit the National Weather Service website.

From NOAA Weather
After buying an NWR SAME receiver, you must program your county, parish or independent city or marine area into the radio. Do NOT program your radio for louder or clearer station not designated as a SAME channel. You will not receive alert. Your NWR will then alert you only of 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.

  • When an NWS office broadcasts a warning, watch or non-weather emergency, it also broadcasts a digital SAME code that may be heard as a very brief static burst, depending on the characteristics of the receiver. This SAME code contains the type of message, county(s) affected, and message expiration time.
  • A programmed NWR SAME receiver will turn on for that message, with the listener hearing the 1050 Hz warning alarm tone as an attention signal, followed by the broadcast message.
  • At the end of the broadcast message, listeners will hear a brief digital end-of-message static burst followed by a resumption of the NWR broadcast cycle.

    • Programming Your Receiver
    To program NWR SAME receivers with the proper county(s) and marine area(s) of choice, you need to know the 6-digit SAME code number(s) for that county(s). Once you have the number, follow the directions supplied the manufacturer of your NWR SAME receiver for programming. The number is available two ways:

    1. Online at the United States and Territories Table.
    2. By telephone at 1-888-NWR-SAME (1-888-697-7263) for a voice menu.

    Other Options
    There are other options in addition to a weather radio of course. Many of today’s police scanners do have NOAA weather radio automatically programmed within the unit. The added advantage here is to install an outside antenna that will give better quality reception. And today’s police scanners are readily usable in vehicles as well, since they use a cigarette lighter.

    Here’s a quick link to Weather Underground, which gives you access to active NOAA Weather Radio stations for many locations.