you are just interested in occasionally listening to the routine NWR broadcast... your local forecast (out to 7 days!), a climatological summary, current conditions from around the region, near-shore and off-shore waters forecasts (if you are near the coast), etc... then all you need to do is plug in, turn on and tune in!  However, if you are interested in being notified of weather hazards for your area (we highly recommend this option!), then you will need to program your receiver.

First, you need some general information... your county code and just what weather products are you interested in receiving.

Your county code is just made up of a state number (001 through 055) and a county number (001 to 099, odd only!).  Now, Maine, alphabetically speaking, is the 23rd state... so the state code is 023!  (Louisiana is 022 and Maryland is 024, by-the-way).  The 16 counties within Maine, when listed alphabetically, are assigned consecutive odd numbers (don't ask me why, maybe they left some room in case a State wanted to divide into more counties?).  In other words, Androscoggin County is number 001, Aroostook County is number 003, Cumberland County is number 005 and so on.  If you put this all together then the code for:

Aroostook County is:    023002
Hancock County is:       023009
Penobscot County is:     023019
Piscataquis County is:   023021
Somerset County is:       023025
Washington County is:  023029

Simple, Eh?  So, now you have your county programmed into the receiver. Next, you have to decide which warning, watch or advisory

By: Mark Turner

For years, NOAA Weather Radio (NWR) has been known at "The Voice of the National Weather Service", and for good reason.  Long before the wide-spread use of cable television and the Internet, up-to-date weather information was broadcast 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, from NWR Transmitters.  Once "hi-tech", this now "low-tech" data dissemination method is the only source of un-filtered weather data... directly from your National Weather Service Office, to you, with no outside interference. 

NWR has been, and still is, the primary avenue for the National Weather Service to transmit weather information, including warnings, watches and advisories, to the public and to state officials.  In fact, in conjunction with almost every warning, watch or advisory, there was also a special "tone" or "code" broadcast that served to activate NWR receivers.

Of course, if you were not among those lucky enough to live in the "footprint" of one of the 4 NWR transmitters in the state of Maine, you had to rely on other media sources for your weather information.

With the planned expansion of NWR across Northern and Downeast Maine, our weather broadcast will now be more available than

not!  Unfortunately, this broadcast can only be accessed by specially built receivers or scanners.  Many low cost receivers are available however, from a variety of sources. Some makers of auto radios include the NWR, and many portable radios are now including a weather band in their new products!

Information on many of these consumer products can be found at; 

http://tgsv5.nws.noaa.gov/nwr/nwrrcvr.htm

or at your local electronics store. 

Once you have your receiver in your hands, the next question is "How do I program this thing?"  The short answer is, you don't!  If