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You might receive more than one weather station in your area. When you press WX, your
scanner finds the first active transmission. If a transmission seems weak or distant, press
WX again to find a clearer station.
Notes:
• Weather scan does not resume automatically. You must press WX again to start the
weather scan again. In some parts of the country, you might not be able to monitor
weather transmissions, such as in low-lying areas. Normally a higher location will
improve the reception.
• NOAA broadcasts are continuous broadcasts. You will only lose reception if you move
out of a coverage area. If the signal is lost, the scanner resumes searching for a
weather transmission.
Programming a FIPS Code
SAME (Specific Area Message Encoding) was adopted late in the last century to replace
the wide-area alerts previously used. Weather alerts today are preceded by a digital
packet that identifies not only the type of alert, but also the geographic location for the
alert. Thus, it is possible for a weather broadcast that can be received across many
counties to be targeted to a single county. To specify a county, SAME uses a standard
established by the US Census bureau, called FIPS.
The format of a FIPS code is:
DSSCCC
Where
D = area subdivision (0=entire area)
SS = State code (00=all states)
CCC = County code (000=all counties)
For example, the FIPS code for Tarrant County, Texas is: 048439
(48=Texas; 439=Tarrant County).
Some counties are further subdivided, in which cases, the first digit will be 0 for all
subdivisions in the county and each subdivision will be labeled 1-9.
To program your scanner to alert you when the weather service issues an alert, you must set
the scanner to the alert mode, and then leave the scanner monitoring the weather service.
You cannot scan and monitor for weather alerts at the same time. To limit alerts to a specific
area, you must also program in the FIPS code(s) for the area(s) you want to receive alerts for.
The scanner can be set to either alert for all areas, or only the areas you have programmed.
You can get FIPS codes for your area by calling the National Weather Service at
1-888-NWR-SAME or visit their web site at http://www.nws.noaa.gov/nwr/indexnw.htm.