Sangean CL-100 NOAA, S.A.M.E and Public Alert Certified Weather Alert Table-Top Radio with AM/FM-RBDS, and EEPROM Back Up for Preset Stations

North Carolina doesn't have tornado sirens on public buildings, and I always worry about being asleep in bed when a tornado strikes. I decided to look into buying a weather alert radio. I did a lot of price research and read a lot of reviews before I settled on this model. I didn't mind paying for quality, since a cheapie weather radio would let our family down when we need it most.I just got our Sangean CL-100 Table Top Public Alert Weather Radio yesterday and spend an hour or two reading the manual and setting it up. The features I like most on this unit are the ability to put in the county codes (available online from NOAA) for the areas that affect our home, and the ability to turn off alerts that don't apply to us. I turned off the iceburg and avalanche warnings and I wondered what the boiling water warning is. I was pleased to see an Amber Alert warning for missing children, and even a frost warning for those of us who garden. It takes a little time to punch in all the numbers, codes and notes, but it's not hard. I left the "thunderstorm watch" alert enabled so I could make sure the unit works. It worked last night - loud and clear! There's no way anyone could sleep through that siren, although there is a volume control if you don't want to be shocked awake.The unit itself is very sturdy and well made, with buttons that feel solid. It comes with an antenna booster, which is useful out in the boonies where we live. It also funtions as an alarm clock and FM radio, but I won't be using it for that. I have it set up in an inconspicuous place, just waiting to alert us if there is a fire, tornado or hail alert issued.One thing I noticed is that the price has nearly doubled since I bought mine on backorder six weeks ago. I probably wouldn't have purchased it at $140 - I paid $73.Overall, this is a really nice unit. Every home should have a weather alert radio, and I recommend this one.

The best marine radio for use on my sailboat that I have used out of five tried. Sturdy, good reception, clear sound, useful preprogramming options.

I took my time searching for a weather radio that fit my needs, not only for personal use, but as a sort of makeshift Emergency Alert System device for a future Internet radio station (look up the price of the actual EAS units and you'll see why). Whatever radio I bought had to have several features to make that work: alert localization by FIPS code (the S.A.M.E. functionality), external audio output, external alert voltage output to trigger a contact closure, and importantly, End-Of-Message support (to turn the radio and voltage off after the alert has aired).This radio does all of that.Reception on the weather band is about as good as one could hope for. I'm in something of a no-man's land (in terms of both commercial TV and radio AND weather radio broadcasts). My county is technically split between three different NWS forecasting offices by way of three different weather radio stations. I'm comfortably inside the far reach of my primary weather radio station to the southwest, I'm just inside the fringe of the secondary station to the north-northwest, and well outside the coverage of the tertiary station to the east (which operates at a lower power than the other two to begin with). I'm only using the attached antenna , and if this were a cheaper radio, I would probably only be receiving the primary station. That's what I half-expected anyway, just because I didn't want to get my hopes up. But I was pleasantly surprised to find that both the primary AND secondary stations come in quite clearly! The third station, I'm afraid, is hopeless from this distance unless I connected this radio to my rooftop antenna and aimed it east, but that's a bit overkill for my purposes, and most storm systems come in from the west, anyway, so it's not really worth it just to hear alerts AFTER the storm has passed.Commercial FM reception, however, is not quite up to the same level, though again, to be fair, I *am* in something of a no-man's land in that regard. Local stations come in perfectly well, but it's only picking up two or three of the regional stations that all of my other radios pick up just fine. Distant stations that my other radios receive with some effort are nowhere to be found. That *may* be remedied by connecting to an external antenna -- preferably a directional dipole or even a rooftop or tower Yagi if you rig up an RCA connection for it -- but I haven't attempted that, mostly because I simply have no reason to do so.One side note: this reception difficulty, at least for my purposes, practically renders the automatic RDBS clock synchronization function useless, because the local stations in my town either don't broadcast RDBS data or don't include clock time IN their RDBS data. One of the regional stations DOES, but either the data is being received incorrectly on my end, or they've failed to set the date and Daylight Saving settings on their RDBS encoder. So if you live in a rural area like I do, you're likely doing to have to set the date and time yourself. It's not really a problem by any measure, just an inconvenience when the functionality is present. It's not even necessarily a fault with the radio itself.All that said, if you live in a more populated region than I do, closer to a specific media market with more options available to you on the FM dial, none of that is going to be a problem for you.The AM side is... well, it exists. That's about all I can say for it. And, frankly, that's about all I can say for AM radio at all anymore. Between the terrible programming and the interference caused by modern electronic devices, AM radio is unlistenable at this point to begin with. But I did give the band a shot on this radio just to see how it performed, and while not at all surprised, I was definitely disappointed. AM receivers are, in general, an afterthought for manufacturers these days, but sometimes you come across one that's still halfway decent. This one doesn't even make it a *quarter* of the way to "decent." As free from interference as I could get it in a semi-urban setting, in the daytime hours, the internal AM antenna ONLY pulls in my local Class C graveyard channel (and not even full-power Class C, we're talking 500 watts day, 250 at night), which is almost exactly seven-tenths of a mile from me. Nighttime skywave reception isn't much better. The local graveyarder still comes in (I *would* actually be shocked if it didn't, as it resonates off the back of my refrigerator on humid summer nights), but even the regional flamethrowers barely show up. I'm 100 miles from WJR, which throws a lobe in my direction. They're barely audible. I'm 150 miles from WTAM. It's not even there. I'm 200 miles from WLW. Nada. WSM and WHAM showed up in my band scan, but only just. I connected my homemade AM loop and ground wire combo just to see if it improved anything. It did not. And this is a setup that I've used on several other radios for more than a decade with fantastic results, so I know it's not my shoddy workmanship that's the problem there. It's the radio.However, again, all that being said, are you even listening to AM radio anymore? Who IS? No one. You're not buying this radio for its AM reception, you're buying it to be a weather alert radio. The one star I docked this rating is for the FM mediocrity, not the AM misery. I only included my complaints about the AM side in this review because fellow geeks like me might want to be warned about it. Most of you won't care.Back to the weather functionality, then.The S.A.M.E. feature has worked flawlessly so far as best I can tell. I'm not hearing the alerts for the FIPS codes in my area that I haven't programmed in, so those are getting filtered out.There IS one concerning moment that I experienced: a flood warning was issued for a neighboring county one evening, which triggered an alert as it should. However, while that alert was still active on the radio, a severe thunderstorm warning for the southern portion of MY county was issued, but it did NOT trigger an alert. Now, it COULD be that the storm was breaking up the signal between my location and the transmitter (the storm was right smack-dab between us), and my radio simply didn't receive the data bursts that trigger the alert. But what worries me is the possibility that the radio DID receive the severe thunderstorm warning but simply didn't activate because there was a already another warning in effect, even if it was of another type. If the latter guess is true, that poses a safety issue. I haven't had the radio long enough to determine by experience if that's what happened or not, so don't take this to mean that it's a known problem, but it might be something to watch out for.One question I didn't have the answer to when I bought it was whether or not the auxiliary input would be interrupted by the weather alerts. I *presumed* that it would -- I can't think of any reason why it shouldn't and a whole lot of reasons why it should -- but nothing in the radio's manual or promotional information makes that clear. I can now confirm that yes, in fact, it does. So if you're planning on connecting, say, your phone or some other device to it (I use it for my laptop on my bedside table), you don't have to worry: you'll still get awakened in the middle of the night to learn that the world is ending.I *will* note that the auxiliary input is a TAD bit weak. My laptop's headphone jack automatically switches to line level based on resistance (as most do), so I keep it cranked up to 100% when plugged into the radio, but even then, with the radio at 50% volume itself, there's an airy bit of white noise that the radio adds. Prior to buying this radio, I was using a pair of (ancient) active desktop computer speakers to achieve the same volume level, and they did not add this level of noise. That says to me that the physical input on the radio is not feeding the amplifier at full power. It's not enough to keep me up at night, but then, I'm the type who could sleep right through the Nuclear Holocaust, so if your ears are sensitive to such things, it may be more noticeable. And from a broadcasting perspective, I had considered the possibility that I might not need the external contact closure relay for audio streaming purposes, simply running the mix into the auxiliary input, then out the headphone jack into the stream encoder, but with that noise being added, that's definitely a no-go. The contact closure setup WILL be necessary.I have only used the headphone jack as an external audio output -- I haven't plugged any actual headphones into it yet -- so I don't know how well it's going to power them, and that would vary by the resistance of the drivers, anyway, so I can't tell you how loud it will be. However, there is *definitely* amplification there. As with any headphone jack, it's not line-level audio, and using it for line-level purposes as I do, it should never be turned up full-blast. If you're using external speakers or connecting it to an amplifier, keep the radio at 50% volume, otherwise you're going to overmod by about 6dB, and the end result will not be fun for you. I learned from the experience of others, so take my advice and learn from their experience, yourself.Some others here in the reviews have mentioned the quick shutoff timing of the menu system, and yes, it can be a pain. I suggest writing out all of the FIPS codes you plan to enter in before doing so. That way you're not having to go back through the menu every time you have to look one up.The ability to switch alert types on and off is handy. I like hearing the required weekly and monthly tests, which are both turned off by default. Some of the others you might want to turn off, though I don't really see a reason to. For example, I seriously doubt I'm ever going to hear a hurricane warning alert here in Michigan, so there's no reason to have the radio listen for one, but since there's never going to be one issued, there's no real reason to turn it off, either. So the choice is nice to have, but it's not really all that necessary, at least in most cases that I can think of. Your mileage may vary.All in all, I'm very pleased with my purchase, and when I get my stream online, I *will* be buying another for it. If you're looking for a solid weather radio, look no further; you've found it. If you're looking for a solid all-around tabletop radio, there are others out there that might be better suited for your purposes. If you're looking for an AM radio, what's wrong with you?