Programming NOAA Weather Radio

During 2016, after the wildfire disasters, the Lake County Sheriff’s Office distributed what they called NOAA Weather Radios (NOAA=National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration). These Midland weather radios provide “all hazards” alerts (aka SAME) and can be invaluable in storm and fire season as they add another important layer of information regarding potential natural disasters. The WR-120EZ model* was given to many Valley Fire survivors and came with an instruction pamphlet, BUT how many of us have programmed ours?
The CAC Communications Sub-Committee has provided the information below to help make it easier to program the NOAA radios you got from the Sheriff’s Department after the wildfires:
First, here’s a quick video tutorial.
Second, below are some recommendations from the Sub-Committee on the settings to use, and why. After changing the button beeps, the sequence is the same as the video.
1.   You may first want to set the default to OFF for the BUTTON BEEPS, because the tones can be more annoying than helpful.
2.  SET CHANNEL:  6    162.525
This is Ukiah/Laughlin Ridge station, the closest and clearest for most if not all of Lake County.(You can scroll to hear other Nor Cal stations; 6 should be strongest.)
3.  SET LOCATION (for 120ez model) either SINGLE>CALIFORNIA>LAKE
or
MULTIPLE>CALIFORNIA>LAKE + MENDOCINO.
(Note: If you have set you Channel to 6, you will not hear the NAPA/SONOMA and YOLO alerts, because these play on San Francisco or Sacramento stations.)
If you have a plain EZ model (not the 120), Lake County is the SAME Code 006033
4.  ALERT TYPE : VOICE
5.  ALERT TEST (don’t select this unless you want to scare yourself!)
6.  SET EVENTS : ALL DEFAULT (includes Fire and weather events)
Then go back and SET EVENTS>EDIT EVENTS>REQUIRED WEEKLY TEST : ON
The weekly frequency is so that you can practice hearing the test alerts. You can always change the frequency to monthly if it gets tedious.
Questions? Email Mel, kk6tmn@gmail.com
*If you want to get the same weather radio, these are available on Amazon.