For major weather events AM radio is fine, Wx radio probably handles the day-day normal weather much better since it's always on weather. Peeps in tornado country will probably have a different view. I have a pretty good weather radio and I never use the weather band.

Now this portable radio looks the business, a digital high precision Software Defined Radio but is $600

CommRadio CR-1a

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYKYNCLIbqU

Wow, awesome review Chaos, I'd missed that one. I'll be picking up a GP-5 tonight!

I stock 2 solar/crank/ battery radios.

Not just for information, but entertainment as well

Thanks! I hope you enjoy it.

for the more mundane use like tornado warning, I have both a Midland W300 and Reecom weather alert (SAME) radio... I really like the Reecom, but I did not choose the more expensive model with the AM/FM capability, but would do so if had been my only radio... it runs on AAs as well as a wall plug... I like the Reecom as the alert is received as voice in addition to the alert tone

Not a direct reply to you, Les, but your comment reminded me of something.

The Emergency Alert System is supposed to provide information about disasters and other major events, but except for weather alerts, I can't recall ever hearing any stories of people getting useful info through the EAS system. I mean, it would great if your SAME-encoded weather radio, which is always "listening", would perk up and say, "Hey, here's an important message from the mayor regarding incident X! Listen up!"

I know that I haven't heard anything myself over the years, even when I was in Manhattan on 9/11 or through earthquakes in California. Actually, maybe the more major and chaotic a situation is, the less likely officials will be broadcasting official EAS messages.

In any case, seems like most useful info flows through news bureaus and are disseminated through commercial sources, hence the usefulness of a battery powered AM/FM radio.

Scanners can be useful but as many agencies go to more sophisticated digital systems, and even encrypted systems, scanners seem less useful in many areas without spending a lot of money.

That's true, especially at night when AM propagates farther. And when tuning a high power, clear channel AM station.

When I lived in Irvine, California, the city had its own low power FM broadcast capability. I heard it put to use one time, when a wildfire was headed towards the edge of the city. That's the only city I have heard of with its own broadcast capability (as opposed to going through commercial stations through the EAS). I'm not sure if the transmitter was at city hall or perhaps up on the nearby hills, but I thought that was a great resource for residents.

I've got something like this in both car trunks and the home kit.

I store this one from Radio Shack. It's about as simple as you can possibly get and works fine. It's an inexpensive "better than nothing" radio.

http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=3705831