Hey folks,

I'm in the process of reevaluating the gear I carry in my day pack
which is usually with me in the office or near by in my car. After
reading about folks going through the big black out and with Isabelle
blowing through recently, I decided that a radio would be good to have
with me. I've read some of the relatively recent threads here on radios,
and I was looking at the Sony SRF-M37V last night. I like it. However,
I already have an aiwa digital tuning AM/FM/cassette player lying around
that I haven't used in years -- who uses cassette tapes anymore, right <img src="images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />
The cassette player doesn't work well anymore. I think I damaged it cleaning
the heads one day when I hit play to expose the heads to clean them better and
forgot I had batteries in it. I don't like the idea of carrying the useless
cassette part and adding more bulk to my pack. I'm trying to avoid needing a
dolly for my pack <img src="images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> Then it struck me that I could carry the ear buds in the
cassette compartment, so maybe it's not so bad.

Anyway, my real question is how important is it to have the TV/Weather
capabilies on a radio? I'm trying to decide if I should just keep what I've
got or shell out the bucks for the Sony. I figure if a situation happens to
the point where I need to use the radio to find out what's happening, the
FM stations would be broadcasting the information, right? Anybody had or know
of a situation where a TV or weather band was really useful and the regular
FM stations didn't cut it??

Thanks,
Mike