Customer Reviews

WeatherX RWB8817DT Hand Crank Emergency Weatherband and AM/FM Radio

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I live in an area where severe weather and power outages are extremely common. I purchased this radio after doing extensive research on all the weather/emergency radios on the market. I chose this one because of the rugged appearance, small size and extra features. So far, everything works great. The weather stations are a bit static filled, but you can still understand what is being said. The flashlight and nightlight are great features if you need to grab it and go, as is the emergency siren. The hand crank is a nice addition if you don't have batteries on hand and the internal battery is charged while you've got the radio plugged in. As long as you enter in the correct county codes, the alarm and warning light works great. The only downside is every time a warning is issued, the alarm will go off (you can turn it off, but that sort of defeats the purpose). It gets a little bothersome to have an alarm go off a couple times an hour when you're trying to sleep. So far, this has exeeded my expectations and has kept us alert of all weather conditions (before it even looks stormy out!). I would reccomend this product to anyone who wants a portable unit. Before you buy a weather radio, make sure you check NOAA's website to make sure your area picks up one of the seven weather bands. We're in a "strong signal" area and we get a lot of static, so I imagine, if you're in a weak signal area you'll have a tough time receiving the signal.

Nice radio that worked well for over a year, though the weather alerts became a monster, no way to turn them off. After about a year it start going off every hour, on the hour, saying that it hadn't received an alert in 10 days. Since it has internal batteries and can't be turned off, the only way we could "fix" it was to bury it in a drawer until the batteries ran down.

After six month in the drawer I pulled it out today, 2/20/2010, and put some batteries in it. Configured it and it looks like it's working correctly again.

Configuring this thing is very cumbersome.

If it does the every hour thing again, I'll probably put a hammer through it.

Don't waste your money.

For the money this is a nice radio. Box says you can pick Zipcode for area, tho I dont see that anywhere.

Handy weather informer. automatically notifies you of oncoming storms. with an alert signal. First time the alarm went off I couldn't figure what it was then the alert voice came on and notified us of an upcoming storm warning. crank works and the batteries recharge okay. programmming the outfit leaves something to be desired. Not user friendly there. could use some better information. Thats why I didn't rate it a full five stars.

I returned this item to Amazon today. I had several issues with it:

1. The reception inside my home was not very good at all.
2. There is no way to completely turn the unit off.
3. Each increase in volume is much higher than the previous step, and most are too loud.
4. Possibly as a result of issue 1, it start going off every hour, on the hour, starting at 1:00AM, saying that it hadn't received an alert in 10 days. Since it has internal batteries and can't be turned off, the only way we could "fix" it was to bury it in blankets in a closet until the batteries ran down.
5. Configuring the SAME codes, time and date, weather channel etc. is a cumbersome, non-intuitive process.
6. The printed instructions are spartan and offer no troubleshooting tips.

This is apparently a discontinued item (according to the Weather-X website), and perhaps for good reason.

Having said the above, this was my first Amazon return, and the process was VERY easy and free to boot. Kudos to Amazon for their return procedure!

This radio works great. I got it programmed by Noon and by 3PM it was going off with an alert. This only thing I don't like is the volume. It could have a softer setting at the lowest point. I highly recommend getting one.