In my area, when they broadcast the Robo-voice messages on the TV stations, they are amplified to the point that it's barely understandable.
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NOAA weather stations available online
- Thread starter SnottyNose799
- Start date
Was it on cable? Cable company headend "engineers" are notorious for setting things to 11.
During the 1980s, my hometown cable system had cheap leveling/compression boxes on the outputs of every channel's satellite IRD. Probably cheap Behringers, or maybe even Aphex units. Whatever they were, for some reason, the compression setting for WGN's processor always had to be set at approximately 999:1 with a -30 dB threshold and 30 dB of makeup gain. No other channels, just WGN. Consequently, I could never tell the difference between the lightning and thunder Tom Skilling was forecasting and the news set's air conditioners.
During the 1980s, my hometown cable system had cheap leveling/compression boxes on the outputs of every channel's satellite IRD. Probably cheap Behringers, or maybe even Aphex units. Whatever they were, for some reason, the compression setting for WGN's processor always had to be set at approximately 999:1 with a -30 dB threshold and 30 dB of makeup gain. No other channels, just WGN. Consequently, I could never tell the difference between the lightning and thunder Tom Skilling was forecasting and the news set's air conditioners.
SnottyNose799
Banned
The NOAA signal in Palestine TX's stream doesn't pronounce the name of the town correctly, has a loud humming, and is repeating the same message every 30 seconds as if they forgot to set the schedule.
The fidelity of the Emergency Alerts in San Diego is atrocious. One would think that this problem/nuisance would be easy fixable.
Can you please explain why that would fix the problem and do you know why the NWS doesn't embrace it?
I'll try not to get too political. It will take a total failure with dead bodies before any improvements are funded.
The main problem is that existing NOAA radios work using the SAME protocol, which usually alerts areas the size of whole zip codes or counties. To implement a superior protocol that could address smaller areas, new receivers compatible with a new protocol would be required. But it would be impossible to flush all the existing NOAA radios out of the public's hands, meaning the wide-area SAME alerts would have to continue indefinitely for safety reasons, causing both protocols to end up sharing the same voice pathway. That means gobs of verbal redundancy as two different protocols take their turns triggering different receiver generations.
Another problem is in certain areas, there can be many localized emergencies simultaneously. Imagine ten funnel clouds showing up on radar. If the localized alerts for all ten tornadoes have to be played back to back in a serial fashion on one voice frequency, then only the people who hear their alerts first benefit. The last ones to hear it could be dead before they do.
I see only one practical way an improved addressing protocol could be implemented. It would be by taking advantage of the fact that there are 12 different 162 MHz frequencies designated nationwide for NOAA broadcasts. For every existing NOAA transmitter, install another transmitter alongside it, and set that second transmitter to transmit on one of the other 11 NOAA frequencies that happens to be empty in its area. These secondary transmitters wouldn't broadcast audio. Instead, they would operate like pager towers used to -- going on-air for one or two seconds at a time (when necessary) to briefly transmit a burst of modulated data. Those bursts would get decoded by the new generation of weather radios, which would look inside each burst and find two things: a GPS geofence's coordinates, and a text script. If the GPS fence coordinates happened to enclose the receiver's own GPS coordinates (as determined by that receiver's separate internal GPS receiver or its manually keyed-in GPS coordinates), then its speaker would come on and an internal text-to-speech chipset would read the text script aloud. Meanwhile, all the existing NOAA voice transmitters nationwide would remain on-air in perpetuity, in their current states, their formats unchanged, and their wider-area SAME alerts (for older generation receivers) continuing as usual.
The new generation of receivers, incidentally, would simultaneously monitor the old analog FM voice frequencies for SAME alerts as a backup to guard against cases where the nearest data-only transmitter was down. The new radios would, of course, also let their owners manually listen in to the analog FM voice broadcasts from the classic NOAA transmitters whenever that was desired, just like all existing SAME-triggered alert radios do.
The beauty of the old VHF pagers that doctors and other professionals once carried around was that their transmitters' signals could penetrate every building type and even go down into sub-basements, parking garages, and so forth. They operated in the 152 and 158 MHz ranges, and 162 MHz is right next door to that.
Another problem is in certain areas, there can be many localized emergencies simultaneously. Imagine ten funnel clouds showing up on radar. If the localized alerts for all ten tornadoes have to be played back to back in a serial fashion on one voice frequency, then only the people who hear their alerts first benefit. The last ones to hear it could be dead before they do.
I see only one practical way an improved addressing protocol could be implemented. It would be by taking advantage of the fact that there are 12 different 162 MHz frequencies designated nationwide for NOAA broadcasts. For every existing NOAA transmitter, install another transmitter alongside it, and set that second transmitter to transmit on one of the other 11 NOAA frequencies that happens to be empty in its area. These secondary transmitters wouldn't broadcast audio. Instead, they would operate like pager towers used to -- going on-air for one or two seconds at a time (when necessary) to briefly transmit a burst of modulated data. Those bursts would get decoded by the new generation of weather radios, which would look inside each burst and find two things: a GPS geofence's coordinates, and a text script. If the GPS fence coordinates happened to enclose the receiver's own GPS coordinates (as determined by that receiver's separate internal GPS receiver or its manually keyed-in GPS coordinates), then its speaker would come on and an internal text-to-speech chipset would read the text script aloud. Meanwhile, all the existing NOAA voice transmitters nationwide would remain on-air in perpetuity, in their current states, their formats unchanged, and their wider-area SAME alerts (for older generation receivers) continuing as usual.
The new generation of receivers, incidentally, would simultaneously monitor the old analog FM voice frequencies for SAME alerts as a backup to guard against cases where the nearest data-only transmitter was down. The new radios would, of course, also let their owners manually listen in to the analog FM voice broadcasts from the classic NOAA transmitters whenever that was desired, just like all existing SAME-triggered alert radios do.
The beauty of the old VHF pagers that doctors and other professionals once carried around was that their transmitters' signals could penetrate every building type and even go down into sub-basements, parking garages, and so forth. They operated in the 152 and 158 MHz ranges, and 162 MHz is right next door to that.
I have an old RS branded weather radio in my bedroom. It will activate and read the warning for my area at night when I turn off my cellphone. If I come in to the bedroom and see the light on top of the radio and press play, even if perfect Paul is talking about other tornado warnings I know if the little red light on my county is in a warning. My wife will turn on the TV and check out what is happening. We are lucky to live in a competitive TV market and if there is a chance of severe weather Atlanta's 2 & 46 will have someone there.
The "part of town" warning the TV folks give is really assuming the tornado doesn't "veer" off course. Even one of the Weather Channel on air folks (Mike Bettis?) got hit by a funnel cloud that "wiggled".
IMHO if there is a funnel cloud within 10 or 20 miles of you and you don't take shelter you are taking an unnecessary risk.
The "part of town" warning the TV folks give is really assuming the tornado doesn't "veer" off course. Even one of the Weather Channel on air folks (Mike Bettis?) got hit by a funnel cloud that "wiggled".
IMHO if there is a funnel cloud within 10 or 20 miles of you and you don't take shelter you are taking an unnecessary risk.
From a meteorologist, and someone who worked to get a NOAA Weather Radio station in town, and who interacts with our office almost daily...
Their meteorological display and product creation system, known as AWIPS, is undergoing a major upgrade at every office. When this happens at your local office, they go to the NOAA Weather Radio computer and instruct it to play the "off-air" message. Forecasters sit in the office and watch their chat rooms and use their phones to get at least a little data in. This should be done around the end of the summer of 2025. It takes 3-5 days per office for the AWIPS upgrade to complete. That's why you're hearing the "off-air" messages.
Second, the NWS is having a major problem with NOAA Weather Radio audio acquisition, as the broadcast towers are losing their copper wire connections. And, in quite a few cases, any Internet to the tower is microwaved in, such as on a cell tower where some transmitters are. In that case, they use an AT&T cellular receiver/device to get audio to the transmitter. This is great because if the local tower goes down with Internet, say, for maintenance or damage due to a storm...the mounted cellular receive antenna can get a cell signal from the next closest tower. The audio sounds very good on a high quality speaker system. The goal is to get ALL of their stations on cellular ASAP, as the budget allows, because it is much cheaper than a copper hookup. This spring, their contract with AT&T ran out, and when they renewed, they charged a HUGE amount of $$$$ to them or anyone for any copper-based service. Going the cellular route is much cheaper to the NWS, and the audio sounds much better. Bringing radio into this, Crawford Broadcasting's "The Local Oscillator" (if you don't read it, you should if you're a radio geek!), published an article by Chicago radio cluster chief engineer Rick Sewell last year that WYRB-FM 106.3 in Kirkland, IL, had faced a 3 times increase in cost to their copper STL, as well as some other stations in the media group. They also switched to a cellular solution, and the audio now sounds considerably better, and lets them have 3 subchannels that sound excellent! Not to mentiion, it saved them a considerable amount of $$$$.
Next, I found out last week that they are striving to get NOAA Weather Radio stations online, when the budget allows. No ETA was given.
Finally, why NOAA Weather Radio when your smartphones are better? Simple. They won't wake you up for severe thunderstorm warnings with hail less than baseball size, or winds less than 80 MPH, that can still cause serious damage, or flash flood warnings that are for marginal events that could still harm you. And, sometimes cell towers do go down, and their system can handle that. And smart phone loudness for alerts isn't very good, as we know, and it's easy to sleep through them. A good NOAA Weather Radio, however, takes an awful lot to sleep through that alarm! And, all stations are required to be on generators, with a backup transmitter (but no backup antenna).
Their meteorological display and product creation system, known as AWIPS, is undergoing a major upgrade at every office. When this happens at your local office, they go to the NOAA Weather Radio computer and instruct it to play the "off-air" message. Forecasters sit in the office and watch their chat rooms and use their phones to get at least a little data in. This should be done around the end of the summer of 2025. It takes 3-5 days per office for the AWIPS upgrade to complete. That's why you're hearing the "off-air" messages.
Second, the NWS is having a major problem with NOAA Weather Radio audio acquisition, as the broadcast towers are losing their copper wire connections. And, in quite a few cases, any Internet to the tower is microwaved in, such as on a cell tower where some transmitters are. In that case, they use an AT&T cellular receiver/device to get audio to the transmitter. This is great because if the local tower goes down with Internet, say, for maintenance or damage due to a storm...the mounted cellular receive antenna can get a cell signal from the next closest tower. The audio sounds very good on a high quality speaker system. The goal is to get ALL of their stations on cellular ASAP, as the budget allows, because it is much cheaper than a copper hookup. This spring, their contract with AT&T ran out, and when they renewed, they charged a HUGE amount of $$$$ to them or anyone for any copper-based service. Going the cellular route is much cheaper to the NWS, and the audio sounds much better. Bringing radio into this, Crawford Broadcasting's "The Local Oscillator" (if you don't read it, you should if you're a radio geek!), published an article by Chicago radio cluster chief engineer Rick Sewell last year that WYRB-FM 106.3 in Kirkland, IL, had faced a 3 times increase in cost to their copper STL, as well as some other stations in the media group. They also switched to a cellular solution, and the audio now sounds considerably better, and lets them have 3 subchannels that sound excellent! Not to mentiion, it saved them a considerable amount of $$$$.
Next, I found out last week that they are striving to get NOAA Weather Radio stations online, when the budget allows. No ETA was given.
Finally, why NOAA Weather Radio when your smartphones are better? Simple. They won't wake you up for severe thunderstorm warnings with hail less than baseball size, or winds less than 80 MPH, that can still cause serious damage, or flash flood warnings that are for marginal events that could still harm you. And, sometimes cell towers do go down, and their system can handle that. And smart phone loudness for alerts isn't very good, as we know, and it's easy to sleep through them. A good NOAA Weather Radio, however, takes an awful lot to sleep through that alarm! And, all stations are required to be on generators, with a backup transmitter (but no backup antenna).
Actually, that would be three generations. 1050hz tone for old radios, SAME for newer radios, and another chirp for what you propose. It can be done on the same channel. The system would need an update to handle it.
It sounds like that is a subset of the main broadcast.
As for pronouncing names correctly...they try. And they can try to substitute a phonetic spelling for a town name to get it right...but sometimes even that is impossible (our local office has that issue, they said they did the best they could with a town that is hard to pronounce.
As for the humming...the Rockford, IL station has the same issue....old copper lines, and AT&T flat out told the NWS that they won't lay a new line to fix it. They will switch it over to a cellular receive of the broadcast as the budget allows. About half of the NOAA Weather Radio stations have now been switched over to cellular in the U.S. as of May, 2025.
The one antenna shouldn't be an issue. Lightning rarely damages a properly installed FM antenna unless there is a radome that catches on fire like WNNX. The transmitter and the actual steel tower are better "targets" for lightning. I am sure someone has an example where lighting damaged the antenna but not the transmitter but I have never heard of it.
Sure - that calculated risk of where some of those improvements are funded - and directed to initially.
MIght it be to those areas that largely put the current administration in power (a.k.a. red areas on the map)?
SnottyNose799
Banned
I have hooked up live sound for events before, and adjusting different volume controls on the audio mixer/board can reduce the electrical ground loop buzzing/humming coming out of speakers. Lightning could have partially fried the NOAA stations' audio gear, it might just need adjustment/replacement.
SnottyNose799
Banned
Also turning the broadcast computer's volume control up and board's volume control down can help with the unwanted noise, but I'm sure many engineers have thought of that by now.
If you have a ground "hum" on an analog audio circuit, most likely there is a ground conductivity issue on a cable or plug. Another issue could be a nasty impedance imbalance which an audio transformer can fix. Just to be sure, check the AC receptical for polarization.
I spend about a half an hour at a county fair once chasing a hum till I checked the AC power receptacle which was wired backwards (black and white) and the ground wasn't hooked up to anything. I got out the voltohm meter and discovered there was 40 volts between neutral and ground. I don't know if that would kill you but I didn't want to find out. Got an extension cord are ran it to another outlet the on the the next pole (they used RV hookups) which I tested and was good and all the issues went away.
I spend about a half an hour at a county fair once chasing a hum till I checked the AC power receptacle which was wired backwards (black and white) and the ground wasn't hooked up to anything. I got out the voltohm meter and discovered there was 40 volts between neutral and ground. I don't know if that would kill you but I didn't want to find out. Got an extension cord are ran it to another outlet the on the the next pole (they used RV hookups) which I tested and was good and all the issues went away.
SnottyNose799
Banned
The one in Galesburg, IL and the one in Cape Coral, FL both have *only* humming now. No voice. Been humming for a long time in Cape Coral's case.
Cape Coral: https://wxradio.org/FL-FortMyers-WXK83
Galesburg: https://wxradio.org/IL-Galesburg-KZZ66
Do they still hire engineers?
Thanks for the fantastically informative response. By chance, do you know whatever happened to all the 400 MHz UHF band uplinks that used to feed many of NOAA's 162 MHz transmitters? For example, in the Los Angeles area decades ago, I used to be able to hear the Oxnard forecast office's uplink audio for 162.55 (KWO37) on a frequency in the federal government's UHF band -- somewhere around 406-408 MHz if memory serves. Are those analog voice UHF links still in service, or were they all eliminated long ago?
Me, I would think that in any situation where line-of-sight access to a 162 MHz transmitter was possible for its forecast office, having a direct RF uplink, circumventing any dependency on telecom middlemen, would be the most desirable option even today, at least as a fallback if not as the primary.