Austin area residents with weather radios are used to the static or lack of reception when it comes to receiving severe weather alerts.

Monday, March 27, 2000

Austin area residents with weather radios are used to the static or lack of reception when it comes to receiving severe weather alerts.

That will change soon.

The National Weather Service is looking at enhancing its weather radio network so that a better signal is received in Austin and Mower County, according to Todd Shea, warning coordination meteorologist at the service’s LaCrosse, Wis., office.

"We are working with the state of Iowa to put a transmitter near St. Ansgar, Iowa, on the KIMT-TV (Channel 3) tower, which will cover north central Iowa and much of Mower County as it turns out," Shea said. "This is based on predicted broadcast coverage, but we won’t know for sure until the transmitters are online. We can’t make any promises or know for sure who will get covered."

Area residents currently have to fiddle with the antennas on their weather radios or alerting devices to adequately receive broadcasts from the weather service’s Rochester transmitter on 162.475 megahertz.

Weather radios receive weather broadcasts on seven designated VHF radio frequencies. Specially equipped receivers can be set up to remain silent until an alert signal is transmitted by the weather service, which unmutes receivers and allows weather radio owners to hear severe weather information instantaneously. Persons with scanner radios and specially equipped citizens band radios as well as amateur radio operators can receive the continuous weather broadcasts.

It’s unknown how soon the Mitchell County, Iowa, transmitter will go on the air, however, the state of Iowa has been instrumental in getting several transmitters on the air recently to better cover the state’s entire population. In addition to weather emergencies, the weather radio system can be used to alert residents of other emergencies deemed necessary by emergency managers.

"We are, of course, excited that Austin will get better weather radio coverage, even if it comes from an Iowa state project," Shea said. We don’t know when the transmitter would be installed though – it could be six to 18 months."