TRX-1 Weather, SAME & SKYWARN

Summary: The TRX-1’s NOAA weather radio, SAME alert, weather priority and SKYWARN functions, which are North American features.

These features are for the United States and Canada. NOAA weather channels, SAME/FIPS codes and SKYWARN don’t apply in the UK.

Weather Radio

The WX key gives instant access to NOAA weather radio. The scanner covers the seven weather channels 162.400, 162.425, 162.450, 162.475, 162.500, 162.525 and 162.550 MHz. Press the key and use the up/down keys to select the strongest channel for your location.

SAME Alerts and FIPS Codes

A weather alert tone includes a digitally encoded SAME (Specific Area Message Encoding) signal, a FIPS (Federal Information Processing Standard) code and an event code. Before using SAME Standby Mode you must program at least one FIPS code. Unless you are near a county border, enter only your own county’s code, to avoid alerts for nearby counties. Look up codes on the National Weather Service website.

1. Press the WX key to activate Weather mode, then press MENU.
2. Scroll to SAME1 Tag and name the entry using the text entry method.
3. Scroll to SAME 1 FIPS and enter the code.
4. Scroll to SAME1 Enable and press SEL or right.
5. Repeat for more codes (up to 10), then choose Save Changes.

Each SAME entry also has an Event field (default * = all alerts, recommended), a Tag, an Alarm sound and a Lockout** (off by default; a special-purpose setting for locking out individual event or area codes).

SAME Standby Mode

1. Press WX and use up/down to choose a NOAA channel.
2. Press SKIP to enter Standby. The speaker is silent and SKIP = Normal appears. Press SKIP again to return to normal weather mode.

The scanner stays silent until it receives a SAME message with a code matching one you stored. Then it sounds a siren, flashes the LED (red warnings, yellow watches, blue tests and administrative messages), plays the 1050 Hz Warning Alert Tone and the voice message. It resumes standby 90 seconds after the SAME warning starts, and you can reset standby by pressing the STBY soft key twice.

The guide is not consistent here: it says elsewhere to press WX once for Weather mode (and twice for SKYWARN) but also says to press WX twice to enter Weather mode when entering SAME entries, and it gives both SKIP and SEL as the way out of Standby. If the keys don’t behave as described, try the other option.

Weather Priority

1. Start scanning for weather frequencies; when the scanner stops on the strongest NOAA channel press MENU.
2. Choose Priority, select the channel and choose Save Changes.

With Weather Priority on, normal scanner audio is regularly interrupted while it checks for an alert.

SKYWARN

SKYWARN repeaters relay severe weather reports from amateur radio operators to local National Weather Service offices, and are used for routine amateur traffic otherwise. To use it:

1. Import SKYWARN frequencies from the library into the SKYWARN scanlist (or ask a local amateur radio club).
2. Enable the SKYWARN scanlist.
3. Press WX once for Weather mode, and again to activate SKYWARN. SKYWARN temporarily disables all other scanlists.

Local emergency operations centre talkgroups can also be added to the SKYWARN scanlist. SKYWARN and its logo are registered trademarks of NOAA, used with permission.