in the last 2 weeks of may KDSX radio had to go off the air many times due to Sherman’s Air Raid Sirens going off for tornado warnings that had been issued then. As a rule i have for me ” When the Sirens Wail, Sign Off and Take My/Your Family To Cover.” that my rule for my station in Sherman and on May 23, when the sirens wail at about 8-8:15, i signed off the air and when i went to the front porch to see anything and i saw a severely rotating wall cloud with a funnel half way to the ground just northwest of the studios and northeast of the hospital, the tornado cloud was having a hard time deciding to touch down or not and then KTEN-TV KXII-TV showed the cameras live to the twister which was highly dangerous! but thankfully it never touched down in grayson county Texas, the reason why i am making this post is that all the the EAS Manufacturers, can create an EAS Decoder Affordable for Part 15 AM/FM Radio Stations so when were not home the decoder can still tell listeners what is going on in your county.
Dangerous Times
Many thanks ABMedia 1 for sharing this serious weather report from Texas.
Your suggestion is correct, the smaller stations need a reliable way of being automatically switched to warning messages.
But when we are home and have the choice, I agree with your policy of turning it all off and taking cover.
NWS SAME
I’m sure most of you are handy enough with a soldering iron, to modify or adapt a NWS receiver, that can receive SAME/EAS messages for use on a Part 15 radio station…cheap, quick, and dirty.
Tornado
This isn’t about my Part 15 station, but it
was really something.
My wife has a 130 mile commute every day,
(total milage) to and from work.
She makes the 65 mile drive from our house in
West Hartford,
Connecticut to a Massachusetts town that
is way up in that state. (The lower New England
states aren’t very big.) Then, of course, she
comes back the same 65 miles at the end of
the day.
She travels for part of the trip on an interstate
which is known as I-91, and it’s in Mass.
Recently, coming back on her return trip in the late afternoon,
she drove through there at a time of bad weather,
that is, heavy rain, strong wind, very dark sky, that sort of thing.
Just fifteen minutes later a tornado blasted through that
area of Mass. It went right across I-91 where she
had traveled, and left a large path of destruction.
Although it wasn’t as bad as what happened in some
other parts of the U.S., it was bad, and 4 people were
killed. The tornado was on the ground for an hour
and 15 minutes.
So we were very lucky. It missed her (or she missed it), by
just 15 minutes.
Best Wishes,
Bruce, MICRO1690/1700
The Odds
That is a dramatic and frightening weather story and I’m so glad Mrs. MICRO1700 is o.k.
The situation reminds me of a book/movie where a guy is out looking at houses with his real estate agent. As they look at one house a small plane comes along and crashes into the roof of the house. The guy says, “I’ll take this house. The odds of another plane hitting it are extremely small.”
By that same rule the odds of your wife again being in near-miss weather situation while driving is very unlikely.
The Storms
I remember that weather quite well.
That was an interesting radio day.
My Policy is, and always has been,
When Severe Weather Strikes and warnings are issued for my county, dump all
programming and immediately flip the
switch to relay NOAA Weather Radio.
I Think it is my duty to anyone that may be listening to continue to provide immediate and accurate weather information.
When the storms aren’t exactly on me, but near me I will simply relay the EAS alerts I hear.
On that particular day I had 5 EAS alerts back to back. Of course I had no idea of the other coming so I’d switch back to music, only to switch back to the EAS 2 seconds later.
Shortly After is when the Alert came for My County, and thats when I went wall to wall for 3 or 4 hours.