I am looking for a good emergency radio. Not so much for an ultra light to go into a BOB (although light and portable are desirable features) but more to add to a shelter-in-place kit or 72 hr kit.

I am entertaining this model with NOAA and VHF (VHF not really important) and this model with Shortwave.

Both have the requisite hand crank charger and both have an LED light and a cell phone charger - a feature I find highly desirable!

I know many here detest their cell phones but I consider them as essential as a homing beacon and really like the charging feature! If there are other radios that are significantly better then I will go with a separate cell phone charger like the one
here .

The question I am asking is should I go with the NOAA, the Shortwave or a different radio altogether?

Thoughts?

For SIP and trying to find out what is going on, I'd vote for a digital-trunk capable scanner, like the Uniden BCD396T .

-john

Just keep in mind that Uniden has NO customer service. NONE. They have a number, but no one ever answers, but they will pick it up and set it down again to quickly disconnect. Will *I* pay them $500+ for one of their products? Never again!

Sue

Hmmm... maybe I should mention... Why I am not on a strict budget $500 is more than I am willing to spend on something I will probably never use.

I would not depend upon the GPS feature in your cell phone in providing an actuate coordinates for potential rescue. We had a rescue early this year and were planning on hoisting the patient out using the Maryland State Police Trooper 3 helicopter for the operation.

Before heading out up the trail, we planned on taking our two GPS units, unfortunately someone had left alkaline batteries in both units, in addition to units being dead, the batteries had leak, making them unusable. We hiked to the patient, planning on providing landmark details to the TRP3, since there was considerable canopy coverage and we knew it would be hard for them to see us on the trail or even in a nearby clearing.

One of our members had his cell phone and called the Emergency Communication Center (ECC) to relay GPS coordinates to the helicopter. Despite plugging the indicated coordinates into their navigation system, they were at least 5 miles from our location. After numerous attempts to guide them into us over the radio, they were able to locate us and performed the hoist operation successfully.

We debriefed with them later and they said there was considerable difference between the cell phone GPS coordinates and their navigational GPS coordinates, determined once they visibly located us.

Just FYI.
Pete

Hmmm.. Interesting question. The NOAA feature would allow you to receive weather broadcasts. I do not know what info you could expect to find on the weather broadcast during an emergency except for the weather. Of course, everybody should have a good weather radio, because the weather might BE the emergency. The VHF TV reception might be useful if you live near some VHF TV stations. Analog TV is supposed to be going away by 2009.

On the other hand, shortwave will be with us for a long time (or at least until BPL takes off). But you would likely not find much local information on these bands, but it would be quite useful for world news and entertainment.

So, this is one of those cases where there is not clear-cut winner. If you aready have a weather radio, I would go for shortwave.

NOAA Weather Radio

The NOAA Weather Radio is an "All Hazards" system that is integrated with the FCC's Emergency Alert System. You can be sure that in a nationwide activation of th e EAS, that every single NOAA transmitter will be transmitting the same information.

Using the SAME (Specific Area Message Encoding), you can receive messages for your specific area.

It should be noted, at least in Florida, there is a dual-path redundant system for activating the EAS system at all levels (2 incoming paths for nationwide alerts, two paths for statewide alerts, and two paths for county-wide alerts).

If you want to know what is "officially" going on in your area, with possibly censored information, panic avoiding and possibly confirmed information, go with NOAA.

If you want to know what is "unofficially" going on in your area, with the possibility of uncensored, panic inducing, unconfirmed information, go with HF.

In fact, it's better to get both. Then you get to make the decision on what you are going to do.

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All good info! Thank you much.
Is there one radio that supplies both? During an Eastern seaboard blackout would NOAA be available?

It should be. Each NOAA transmitter tower should be backed up by generator. In the event the transmitter goes offline (for example, the antennae gets ripped off the tower during a hurricane) nearby towers on one of the other 6 frequencies (there are 7 frequencies available) will go to full power. Any SAME id's for the area covered by the damaged tower will be redistributed to the surrounding towers. This increases the likelyhood of a receiver within the range of the damaged tower can receive an emergency broadcast.

If too many go down in an area at once, you probably already know that something is very wrong.

This may not be quite what you are looking for, but this item might fit the bill.
Yaesu VR-120D
It should pick up almost all broadcast that you can imaging, including TV (VHF and UHF), AM, FM, Shortwave, Weather, Marine, FRS/GMRS, CB, etc. However, for CB and shortwave use, you will have to rig up a long-wire antenna. The included antenna will likely be deaf below 50MHz.