Weather Radio (WX)

“One, two, three, four… Is it snowing where you are Mr. Thiessen? If it is, would you telegraph back to me?”

Weather reports have been an important part of radio usage since Day One. They now play a hand in guiding travel patterns, agriculture and global commerce. Nowadays there are all sorts of ways to get weather updates and alerts off of radio waves, including with a television and your cell phone. Even much of the weather data you read on the internet, only reaches it after first traversing through radio waves. Big Weather doesn't want you to know this, but with simple VHF technology, you can get this lucrative data anonymously & for free!

Since weather radio is a very broad category of radio, where to find weather reports on the spectrum varies from region-to-region. In most places, you can find it on the popular AM/FM and TV stations. However, more raw forms of the data can be found in other places.

In this part of the world, you have access to NOAA Weather Radio, which is a pool of seven VHF frequencies, where the United States, Mexico and Canada, have all agreed to centralize a bunch of their weather alerts. If you see a walkie-talkie, AM/FM radio or emergency radio anywhere in this part of the globe, and it says it has weather radio on it, that means it can receive these exact seven frequencies. Many programmable radios can be made to listen to these stations as well. Since so many types of radios can pick up these frequencies, we do not recommend buying a dedicated weather radio. Instead, put your money towards a more versatile radio, like a handheld dual-band or police scanner.

The seven frequencies, commonly referred to as WX1-WX7, do not actually go by those names. They are just labels that manufacturers use, and the frequencies they are assigned to vary between units (what some call “WX7” others will call “WX1”). The frequencies are as follows:

• 162.400 MHz
• 162.425 MHz
• 162.450 MHz
• 162.475 MHz
• 162.500 MHz
• 162.525 MHz
• 162.550 MHz

Each NOAA local broadcast station operates on one of these overlapping frequencies, so that no two neighboring stations share the same frequency. The way that this is set up, is a North American resident will be within range of at least one station operating on any of these seven frequencies at any given moment.

NOAA weather alerts on these channels are preceded by audible imposing tones. These are tones for Specific Area Message Encoding, or SAME. Some (not all) NOAA-compatible weather radios have the option for the listener to set the county and type of alert they want to hear alerts for, and squelch out the rest. These tones contain the metadata for the alert, such as the relevant county, which the SAME-equipped radio interprets. If you're using SDR on your computer, you can decode these strings yourself.

• SAME explanation at Weather.gov
• SAME event codes at Weather.gov

The Canadian Coast Guard runs a service known as the continuous marine broadcast, on five nearby frequencies overlapping five shore-broadcasting channels from the marine VHF band:

• 161.65 MHz (Marine VHF Channel 21B)
• 161.75 MHz (Marine VHF Channel 23B)
• 161.775 MHz (Marine VHF Channel 83B)
• 161.85 MHz (Marine VHF Channel 25B)
• 162 MHz (Marine VHF Channel 28B)

This is for marine weather on the coasts and lakes specifically, as well as other important notices for mariners and sea freighters. These same alerts also get played on some of the main seven frequencies above. Sometimes they are referred to as WX8-WX12, which like the other “WX” designations, is unofficial. Regardless, these five extra channels are sometimes included on weather radios.

• List of CMB stations by region

The US Coast Guard also broadcasts various marine weather alerts, occasionally on the nearby marine VHF channels, but also some HF frequencies as well. Some of the HF channels are also shared with SITOR and Radiofax National Weather Service broadcasts (text alerts and maps!!!) which you can also decode yourself with SDR.

• List of USCG Marine Weather Frequencies