Do you want to ensure that your home and family are safe? Need a weather radio but can’t make up your mind? Read our Reecom R-1630C review.
About NOAA weather radios
You must have heard of NOAA in the news in times of a hurricane or other weather disasters? National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration tell about the upcoming or current weather conditions. The administration has about a thousand radio stations across our country. So, weather radios are the radios that specialize in collecting signals from those NOAA radio stations. Even though their specialization is weather emergencies, they feature many more things such as AM/FM radio, flashlights or USB outlets, and so on. I would say a weather radio is always of good use.
Why do you need one?
People who like adventures such as camping, trekking or hiking see it as a must. If you want to go fishing, you had better know if there is a storm coming. So, it is safe to say that your weather radio is like a fellow traveler who can work as a guardian angel.
Indeed, it is not only for outdoor use. In fact, the majority of weather radios are sold for home uses. If you live in a region vulnerable to tornados, flash floods or hurricanes, a weather radio is a must for you.
Have you decided to buy an NOAA weather radio but cannot choose which? So, move on to read our review of Reecom R-1630C.
The Reecom R-1630C weather radio
The Reecom R-1630C model is a simple, small, and useful weather radio which does what it does the best: Alerting you to what is coming.
On its display LCD screen, it reads what type of warning it is and there are the alert levels categorized into three main levels. These are advisory/statement, watch, and warning. With its simple buttons and manual, it is very easy to program the radio. It lets you ignore some of the alerts so, you can choose which alerts are more important than others.
One other thing about the LCD screen is that it is visible from different angles.
When it comes to alerts, the R-1630C has more than 70 emergency alerts in its book. This ranges from thunderstorms to child abductions, from earthquakes to terrorist attacks, from hurricanes to civil unrest. You can totally ignore these alerts or you can simply turn down the volume for specific alerts.
If you are going to keep it in your bedroom, I definitely recommend you turn down the volume as it is very loud by the nature of weather radios.
The only thing I can mention as a downside is that there are too many settings. The radio itself is simple but settings could be simpler.
Pros
- It alerts more than 70 emergencies which is a great surplus.
- I set it on my nightstand and I can even see it from sides, I do not need to move at all. Great visibility.
Cons
- The settings part could be simpler. Not hard to learn but still a bit of disappointment.
Features
Just like many other weather radios, Reecom R-1630C utilizes S.A.M.E. Alert technology. S.A.M.E. stands for Specific Area Message Encoding. It receives signals from all seven NOAA weather radios. As we mentioned, there are over 70 alerts that this radio can notify. However, you can enable or disable up to 48 of them.
One of the functions that I like the most is that it employs a unique End of Message Detection function. So, it ensures that the radio will automatically return to its previous state right after the end of the alert with this feature. So, it continues with its previous operation.
Moreover, if you are living in a different county than your best friends, family or other relatives, this radio is a great tool to have. You can register as many as 26 counties to its memory by programming it with Specific Area Message Encoding. It can also keep up to 25 event memories with their dates and times in its memory history function.
You can keep 26 counties in its memory; however, it does not mean that you will be notified whenever there is an alert in all those counties. You can suppress the other alerts.
Even when you snooze some alerts or counties, it will still notify you with its LED flashlights. It shows you how severe the alert is so that you will be prewarned about taking action.
Pros
- The end of the Message function is a great relief. The alert will end immediately after the message ends instead of 5 minutes of sirens.
- Being able to register 26 counties is awesome.
Cons
- County codes in their manuals are bad. You should use the NOAA website for that.
Additional Functions
Apart from being a consistent and accurate weather radio, you can set an alarm with it and snooze the alarm. If you want, you can turn on the continuous background light of the LCD display.
Technical Details and How to Care
The Reecom R-1630 comes with an A/C adapter to be plugged at all times. However, we all know that there will be power outages when there are severe weather conditions. So, there is a battery department in order to solve this problem. The battery department requires you to place 4 AA Alkaline batteries. The batteries will last more than two hundred hours when it is on standby mode operation. So, this is great durability if you compare it with other weather radios.
The R-1630, as we said before, has an adjustable volume function. It could be a knob that would give better control over volume but there are 16 different volume levels on the radio. The highest is 90 dB.
Conclusion
To sum up, the Reecom R-1630C is a state of an art weather radio. I used many other weather radios but the R-1630C model is definitely the one I will use for a long time. If you need a recommendation, this surely gets our endorsement.