S.A.M.E. Technology and Weather Radios

Most All Hazard radios receive and pass along any National Weather Service warnings within signal range even though the emergency could be well away from the listener. In order to reduce the number of alerts received, many newer weather radios feature Specific Area Message Encoding (S.A.M.E.). As the name implies, S.A.M.E. allows the user to program specific areas into their radio. Once programmed, alerts will only be detected if there is a warning for the pre-programmed location.

A digital S.A.M.E. code is broadcast at the beginning and end of all National Weather Service urgent radio messages. This S.A.M.E. code contains the type of message or alert, the county or counties affected, and expiration of the message. S.A.M.E. weather radios will only alert if the message affects the pre-programmed counties.

To select a specific county, a six-digit S.A.M.E. code needs to be programmed into the radio. Instructions for programming are located in manuals acoompanying the radios, and codes can be found online or by calling the National Weather Service.