MIDLAND WR300 Weather Radio
by Midland
|
List Price: Our Price: $39.99 You Save: $40.00 (50%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $39.98 (click here) Category: CE See more product details |
|---|
Customers in the UK,
Buy this product at amazon.co.uk
for British Pounds
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of MIDLAND WR300 Weather Radio
Customer Review: stopped working after 2 years
Summary: 2 Stars
After two years, the weather audio failed. Failures "after a year or two" have also been reported by a few other Amazon reviewers who owned either the WR300 or the Midland 100-series radios. My radio beeps when you push the Weather/Hazard alert button, but . . . no sound. All other functions, including all the menus, time, & the AM/FM radio, work fine.
I live in a hilly, rural area, where tornado sirens cannot be heard. This radio has good reception in my fringe area, using only the attached antenna.
The Midland WR300 is sophisticated and flexible, but it's very counter-intuitive to set up. You should plan on keeping the owner's manual handy, for repeated reference. I assume that many of the negative reviews are by people who didn't carefully read the manual. Midland also has videos on their Web site with setup instructions.
My wife prefers to sleep through everything but tornadoes, so I programmed it for my county, and the two counties to my southwest (where bad weather usually comes from), and to trigger the audible alarm only for tornadoes. A warning lamp still illuminates for the other bad weather, without sounding an alarm.
The radio, once programmed, worked great for two years. The warranty is for one year. Out-of-warranty repair by Midland is $45, plus $7.50 S/H, so repair is not a reasonable option.
Customer Review: Very cool!
Summary: 4 Stars
My new neighbors in Texas laughed at me when I told them I got a weather radio. A couple nights later we had 7 or 8 tornadoes pass through our area. One neighbor lost a turbine from her roof, and a ton of shingles, the other lost half her tree in the front yard. Just a few blocks from our neighborhood, people had roofs, windows and fences blown away. The next day, we compared notes about heading for our "safe place", closet, etc. Their stories were of panic and fear. One said, "When that tree went, it sounded like a bomb exploded!! I was scrambling for the downstairs closet!" I said, "Well, the weather radio went off when the tornado warning started and the tornadoes were still several miles away...I got up, went to the bathroom, gathered the flashlight, the cat and the radio...then woke up my husband and we headed for the closet..."
THEN they wanted to know where I got mine...
I gave it 4 stars because it would be better if it were actually charging while it was plugged in, instead of just conserving the batteries...one less thing to have to worry about in the emergency kit. But really, it was pretty easy to program, and I weeded out all the alerts we didn't need, like marine warnings, since we don't live near a lake or ocean. So, it truly only goes off when you need to know about it. If you live in a weather impacted area, you need this radio.
Customer Review: Best purchase I've ever made
Summary: 5 Stars
I purchased this weather radio last year after having so much flooding in Texas. We did not realize we live in a flood zone until we've had all the rain/flooding the past 2 yrs. Our house backs up to a greenbelt that has a small creek running through it. We are up a hill and sit about 25 feet higher than the creek. There were many times last year (in the middle of the night) we ended up having lake front property with the water rising with in about 1-2 feet of flowing into our back yard. The first time it happened we did not have a weather radio and our neighbor who has better eye-line from inside their house called to tell us (as she was watching beavers float by). Our green belt was just ravaged by the raging water, and just a mile down the creek a child drown in it.
It seems the tornado and floor warning always happen late at night when your not watching TV (and in most cases alseep in bed). So myself (and my neighbor) purchased the Midland WR-300 weather radio and I put it on my night stand. I love that I can program the areas and the kind of warnings I want to get. It has given us piece of mind and is worth the occassional jolt out of bed. :)
On a side note, I do not use this as my alarm clock, since I already had one. I simply us it for weather alerts and to check the local weather anytime. I think this is a must have purchase for every home!
Customer Review: Read before you buy!
Summary: 1 Stars
The NWS sends what is called an EOM (end of message) command after each of their broadcasts. This will "silence" a radio after a message, if the radio supports it. If you are spoiled like me, and expect the WR-300 to silence itself after a alert, you are going to be disappointed. I am shocked, as most "modern radios" have it. Midland needs to get into the year 2000....wow....
The WR-300 was tested against my old, obsolete Radio Shack radio, which DOES support EOM :)
The WR-300 was programmed as single county, with only tornado watch and tornado warning as the alerts. Things were going smooth with alerts all week, until one night, when it alerted ALL the tornado warnings in the listening area. My old radio never falsed, proving that NWS didn't have a problem. Midland's tech support confirmed my programming was correct. He said he never "heard of this problem", and believes it was NWS fault. No one else I talked to in my area had that problem. Sure Midland...never your fault...
So, I returned it. It's bad enough not supporting EOM, but to false alarm too???
As a side note, I have worked for a couple two-way communication firms in my time. Midland has never been on my top 10 list. This incident proves why. Poor tech support, and an overall poor product. I had hoped they had changed that...
Let the buyer beware.
Customer Review: Horrible user manual - had the wrong channel selected for months.
Summary: 2 Stars
I bought this radio to be a WEATHER RADIO and for months I had it setup wrong because the user manual says NOTHING about selecting the weather channel for your area. It kept flashing "Check reception", but the only solution the manual gives is to move it closer to a window or chosing to use ALL county codes. THIS IS MISLEADING BECAUSE IT SUGGESTS THAT THE S.A.M.E CODE HAS SOMETHING TO DO WITH POOR RECEPTION - IT DOES NOT! Perhaps obvious to some, but it wasn't to me.
If you have this radio, you should realize that putting in the S.A.M.E. code does NOT mean you will get warnings because it is NOT the same thing as tuning to the weather channel frequency for your area.
Bottom line, if when you press the center "weather/hazard" button all you get is static, its likey NOT because the signal isn't been broadcast at that momement (which is suggested by where the manual addresses once weekly test signals), but because you have not selected the weather channel for your specific area. There are 7 different channels. Use the MENU button and then the DOWN button to get to the Weather Channel option then press SELECT and use the arrows to move throught the channels.
Other than this utter stupidity, I'd say this is a good product. But, come on, not addressing this in the manual is inexcuseable and borderline negligant IMHO.