Features:

  • Public-alert certified monitor receives 7 NOAA channels with flood, tornado, thunderstorm, and other warnings
  • SAME alert programming sounds an alert only when specific counties are threatened
  • 25-county memory system; 90 dB siren, voice alert, and flashing LED warning systems
  • Uses three AA alkaline batteries for emergency power back-up in the event of power outage
  • Built-in clock with alarm and snooze; measures 6.0 x 1.5 x 5.0 inches (W x H x D); 1-year warranty
Nice simple product, Piece of mind

Love this weather radio, not too many features to make it complicated but enough to give you piece of mind. This is fully programable, capable of cloning settings, port for external antennae. Alerts can be programmed to be active or inactive. ( for instance I disabled the Avalanche warning since I live at the beach) The price was well worth it. It does not come with battery but does include AC adapter. I think it gets better reception on battery away from wall. It has gone off and alerted twice now right on time. One can choose between loud alert tone, voice, and silent text

Midland WR-120

I have been dreading purchasing a weather radio for some time because they all seem too expensive for just a radio that receives the weather band. But, I figured out that it is time to take this out of the "family" budget. I literally looked at every single weather radio on Amazon. I found out that I want a radio with SAME (Specific Area Message Encoding) so it will alert for inclement weather. (tornadoes at night are an issue where I live) Most other radios seem to have issues with reliability, reception, or construction--issues I want to avoid. So, I narrowed it down to the Midland radios: WR-100, WR-120, and WR-300. I was leery of purchasing this at first because of the limited review at the time. I found at that this is just the updated model of the WR-100, which seems to be one of the more popular weather radios. I went to Midland's website(to lookup the WR-120) and saw that the item was just released, hence the limited info. I would consider this a great standard/staple alert weather radio. The SAME technology lets you setup your county, or multiple counties. You can find your county codes online at NOAA (search: national weather service radio codes to be taken there directly). I really like the backlight on the display--a nice cool blue with easy to read lettering. The interface itself is great, it lets me flip through all current alerts with the up/down buttons, so I don't even have to listen to the radio to get the most up to date status. It is simple enough that my 4 year old could easily figure it out. The alarm has 3 settings-tone, voice, and display. -The tone alarm is loud! -- Which is great, not an annoying sound, just loud. It will wake you up. We can hear it all through our house. -The voice alarm plays the loud tone for about 5 seconds and then goes into the radio broadcast(at the volume you set). I wish that the voice setting played just the radio, as I am used to a clock-radio alarm clock. The loud alert startles me out of sleep! I want the alarm to wake me, not scare me. -The display just illuminates the backlight. Not useful for me at night, as I would not wake up to a soft blue, glowing light. I am sure this is plenty useful for some, and I will probably change the radio to this once we are out of tornado season. Personally, I have not seen the multiple alert lights (5 for each-alert, watch and warning) to be all that useful because every message that my local weather service puts out does not code to the varying degree levels. I am sure this is useful for some, but I live right next to the NOAA station and they do not take advantage of this feature.(more a complaint against my local NOAA than the radio) -- ps the reception is great....because I live right next to the NOAA station, so my review of that is biased. :) The radio runs on three AA batteries for backup. Not sure how long they last. There was no difference in reception, backlight, and radio functions when I unplugged it. This seems like this might be a great radio to do some light traveling. I could not justify spending the extra on the WR-300 to get any additional features. (Maybe Midland can include a tone volume option in the next release model that lets you choose between several volume levels for any alert? Then the radio would be perfect.) I would have rated this 4.5 stars because the voice alert is not pure voice, but half stars are not an option, so I rounded up. Midland's Research and Product Development team seems to listen to customer reviews, so maybe the voice alarm can be fixed. Definitely a must have family radio for safety, and the best value out there--I am glad I purchased it. Phew! What a lengthy review! :)

A big improvement

I had an old (analog) Ra*** Sh***k weather radio that I used in the morning in the bathroom (which is an inner room in my house, no outside walls or windows). Something changed a few months ago and the reception has been terrible - not usable at all. So I didn't know if the Midland would be any better, but decided to try it, since running an external antenna would have been quite difficult and I really wanted to hear the weather before getting dressed. The Midland is orders of magnitude better - I've had it a couple weeks (and compared it to the older one to make sure the original problem still existed) and I can listen with no problems. As a big bonus, I can set the alarm to be "display only" - no tones or voices to wake me in the middle of the night (unlike the old one, whose alarm could not be stopped.) Wish I bought this sooner.

Superb Weather Radio, Especially For This Price!

I was really skeptical about ordering this radio from amazon. The reason being is that the product page listed this as being the wr120ez model, but some people had stated that they had to order the clamshell version to actually get the wr120ez, or just did not get the ez version at all. I ended up ordering the boxed edition and was happy that I did in fact receive the ez edition of this radio. I made sure the one I ordered shipped directly from Amazon. I felt my chances of getting the ez version would be much better, and all worked out. The EZ edition has every feature I would be looking for in a weather radio. Those features are being 1:) S.A.M.E. compatible which allows you to choose which county, or counties you wish to receive alerts for. 2:) Being able to edit most of the alerts by turning them on or off depending on which alerts you want to have the siren activated for. Some such as a Tornado Warning cannot be disabled on this radio, but this is the same for any weather radio. 3:) EOM or End Of Message detection. I always use voice mode on any weather radio. This will activate a siren for approximately 7-8 seconds, and switch to the voice broadcast automatically. However at the end of a voice broadcast they always emit 3 EOM tones. What this does is tells the weather radio that the voice broadcast is finished with talking about the alert, and automatically puts the weather radio back into standby mode. Some weather radios do not detect the EOM tone, and does not put the radio back into standby mode at the end of the broadcast. Instead they usually continue to broadcast for a set amount of time which is usually 5 minutes. I find EOM detection much more convenient, but that may just be me, and my personal preference. 4:) Public Alert certified. I have had better luck with Public Alert Certified radios. 5:) Battery backup during power outages. This particular radio takes 3 AA batteries for battery backup. For a weather radio to have all of the above mentioned features at this price point is unheard of. I'm used to spending $69.99 or more to get a weather radio that does all of these things. Much to my amazement this weather radio does every single one of these things that I would want a weather radio to do, and does them very well! And it was less than $35.00! I am very satisfied with the Midland wr120ez. I highly recommend it! One word of caution. Do make sure that the switch on the right hand side of the unit is switched to the "ON" position. Otherwise no alerts will be activated.

Easy Setup and Programming

This radio was EXTREMELY easy to program as opposed to the Alert Works radio I had which failed and was a nightmare to program. I will have to see how the WR120 works out but I have hopes that it will be dependable. I like the fact that the beeping of the keys can be silenced. Only thing I wish it had an option to have a lower volume level for the siren. I do realize that it is loud for a reason though and the manufacturer wants it to be loud to do what it is supposed to do...Warn You.

Hurricane Irma tested and approved

Purchased this for Hurricane Irma and we were impressed. We live in a 101-year old, 2-story house, and when Irma decided she wanted to pay us a visit we did not hesitate looking for a NOAA radio that would keep us apprised and alerted as conditions worsened. The unit came in new condition, and the setup was easy to complete in 10 minutes--from unpacking to programming to operating. As Irma inched her way up the middle of Florida, the radio alerted us of degraded conditions. The radio is loud enough that we could clearly hear the tone and messaging upstairs--our house is 150 feet long! There are other models with more features, but this radio more than met our needs and provided timely information to prepare.

In Case of Emergency, Disturb Sleep

If you want to make sure you're woken up in the case of disaster, get this. What a feeling to be woken up in the early morning, and in a confused frenzy slamming your hand down in the hopes of turning off the siren emitting from this radio. Of course, it was providing a NOAA warning of a severe flooding which is a pretty good thing to know. You can customize MOST of the hazard warnings, though some of the most serious ones remain on by default. It seems to be sturdy, handled getting some water on it, but the battery life is questionable when it doesn't have a power source. It may very well have been the fault of the batteries, either not fully charged or what have you. 5/5 stars, I value my life over extra sleep

The Quintessential Weather Radio

This weather radio is the perfect addition to any home emergency preparation. With loud and clear alarm tones and decent reception of weather radio stations around my area along with SAME alert technology (allows the radio to only alert you when the warning or alert is in your area). A weather radio is a necessity in any area with the potential for severe weather and Midland has been a leader in consumer NOAA All Hazard Weather Radios for years. If you are looking for a way to add an additional layer of protection for your family in the event of severe weather you can't go wrong with this radio.

More configurable and reliable than earlier versions of Weather Alarms

Pretty easy to set up and is configurable for many different types and severity of warnings you want to be notified about. Plenty loud enough for even the heavy sleeper. Doesn't seem to be plagued by the false alarms our previous unit experienced (certain announcers had tones in their voice that would trigger the radio to sound the alarm). The periodic test tone sent out by the weather service doesn't trigger the alarm; likewise, the unit will warn you if it hasn't picked up an alarm (including the test tone) within the last 10 days, which lets you know the unit is still working (e.g. how do you know if your radio *isn't* picking up alarms? On our previous unit we didn't know the tuner had stopped working until we noticed it wasn't sounding alarms for warnings/watches being reported on TV). Much better than the first gen radios.

Clam Shell radio is the EZ version, great radio!

So far so good! I was a bit worried when ordering this product that the version I might receive would not have the ability to select what type of alerts you want to be woken up for. I ordered the Clam Shell package version of this radio and I am happy to report the following: The package had WR-120 written on it and a sticker that stated it was the WR-120C, this concerned me thinking that maybe this was NOT going to be the EZ version which has the alert select functionality. Once opened, I was happy to see that the model written on the back of the radio itself is in fact WR-120EZ. For those who don't know, the WR-120EZ is the latest version of this radio. It has additional functionality not found in previous versions which includes the ability to select what alerts you want to hear (you can tell the radio that you don't want to be alerted to flood watches for example) and also allows you to setup your location without having to lookup the SAME codes. Setup of the WR-120EZ is super simple and the radio is loud and sounds great. The radio functioned perfectly during our state-wide tornado drills yesterday and I am happy with this purchase. This is my first Midland weather radio, my previous radios have been Acu-Rite, and I think this radio is much easier to use than those, although I still like those hand held Acu-Rites as well. I am happy!

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