I was just listening to TWRS-13 on emergency & weather radios, so started looking at the various S.A.M.E. weather radios. It occurred to me that the Garmin GPS/GMRS radios that include S.A.M.E. weather radio could be capable of self-updating their S.A.M.E. location code on the fly, when traveling with them. Can they? If not, is this something that seems like it might work or is it a dumb idea?
BTW, I’m enjoying catching up on the shows. Thank you for making them available.
I’ll take the extended silence as a “no” answer to the question.
Sorry for the delayed response.
The manual doesn’t specify. It does state that you can receive county weather alerts by choosing a weather channel and that you can receive the alerts only on that channel. It also states that when you receive a S.A.M.E. alert the the Rino displays your county map with color-coded watches and warnings.
I have used the radio but have not used the weather alerts so I cannot say for sure, but there is no information in the manual about programming the S.A.M.E. codes into the radio, so it may be possible that it uses GPS to determine your position and base the S.A.M.E. alerts on your current location. Don’t quote me on that, though.
Also, the SAME weather alerts are only available on the Rino 650 and 655t and in the US.
The 650s are the ones I’ve been considering. It would be interesting if they did do that, but it’s not a deal-breaker for me if they don’t. They’ve got a pretty great set of features either way.
Thanks!
No problem. We did review the Garmin Rino 655t in the latest episode of The Two Way Radio Show released this morning.
The Two Way Radio Show Episdoe 29 - Camping With Radios
The review starts at 23:57 in the show.
You do not manually set the s.a.m.e. county code with the Garmin Rino 650,655,750, or 755. The radio GPS detects your location and adjusts the s.a.m.e. county code one the fly.