Radio Shack Weatheradio Owner's Manual

Also see for 12-251: Owner's manual

8HOW YOUR RADIO WORKSTraditional weather radios simply receive NOAA’sweather broadcast (usually within a 50-mile radius)then sound an alarm if any emergency code wastransmitted along with the broadcast. This meansthat people who live outside an affected area are of-ten alerted even when their area is not affected,causing many of them to ignore potentially realweather warnings that can save lives.In 1994, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Ad-ministration (NOAA) began broadcasting coded sig-nals called FIPS (Federal Information ProcessingSystem) codes along with their standard weatherbroadcasts from stations in your area. These codesidentify the type of emergency and the specific geo-graphic area (such as a county) affected by theemergency. Your Weatheradio receives, interprets,and displays information about the codes so youcan determine if the emergency might affect your ar-ea. Only SAME-compatible weather radios (suchas this Weatheradio) are able to take advantageof this new technology.Each FIPS code identifies a specific geographicarea (defined by the National Weather Service), soyour Weatheradio sounds an alert only when aweather emergency is declared in that area. Thishelps you more efficiently track the weather condi-tions in and around your area.