
I was at sporting goods picking up some things when I noticed they had these little battery powered radios that pick up Weather alerts with Same Area Message Encoding (S.A.M.E) and they were on clearance for $19 a piece.
I have more WX radios in my home than most folks have light switches ;)
One in my bedroom picks up only alerts for my county. One in my Kitchen picks up the county I live in and those I work in. The one in my ham shack picks up ALL alerts for my area since I am a SKYWARN spotter (www.skywarn.org) I like to know what is going on when I am on a net in the surrounding areas. I also have one setup in my garage with an external speaker and flashing light setup to go off when there are Wx alerts for my county and I am outside in the yard...
I work outside and have always wanted one of these battery powered for use in the work truck. I carry a ham HT in my work bag that can get the NWS freq, but it doesn't go off when there is a WX alert. So to me this thing is really gonna be nice. I don't expect a storm to sneak up on my as I consider myself an amateur meteorologist but I do like to know when a band storm might be heading my way.
Works off of 2 AA's batteries and the radio picks up 2 of the stations I use very clearly. Can wait for it to go off tomorrow @ lucnhtime when they do the weekly test!
I can sure see one of these things coming along on the camping trip :)
So if your wally world has these in stock and on Clearance for $19 jump ALL over it.
You should also have a WX radio for your home with S.A.M.E alerts cause they are handy to have so you got time to get to safety if 'something wicked this way comes!'