CL-100 NOAA, S.A.M.E and Public Alert Certified Weather Alert Table-Top Radio with AM/FM-RBDS, and EEPROM Back Up for Preset Stations

I just received my Sangean CL-100 in the mail. I'll update this review in the future with comments about it's durability and battery life. Keep in mind that I bought this primarily as 1) a kitchen radio, 2) an emergency radio when the power goes out, and 3) a weather alert when I know big storms with potential hazards (like tornadoes) are coming through the area. On these fronts, it's about perfect. Although it has alarm clock functions, I did not purchase it for these purposes. Before purchasing the Sangean, I had a similar weather alert radio made by Radio Shack [Catalog #12-519], but I returned it a few weeks ago. It worked fine, but the Sangean cost less and potentially had better sound and reception (which it turns out it did). Throughout the review, I'll compare the Sangean to it's Radio Shack competitor even though it appears that Radio Shack has discontinued the radio I bought from them, replacing it with a new one that has a completely different design [Catalog #12-996]. PROS: --Well Made: It feels and looks like a high quality product, much more so than the radio I had purchased from Radio Shack, which felt fine for something that cost $20 to $30, but I had purchased it on sale for $60. --Great Sound: The speaker produces great sound for it's small size. It works well in our kitchen. The default mix is just right for classical music, NPR, and talk radio, and you can adjust the bass and treble if needed. The sound is better than the competition from Radio Shack. I don't think the comparable Midland or Reecom products have an equalizer either. --Great Reception: It picks up stations very clearly, including the closest weather station. Again, it does this better than the radio from Radio Shack, which only picked up one weather station while the Sangean picks up 2. The Radio Shack radio struggled to pick up the local NPR station while the Sangean does not (although I have to extend the antenna for it to come in at full volume). --Weather Alerts: It has the same weather alert capabilities as its competitors. However, you do have to know your county FIPS code, which isn't hard to look up online, while some of the competitors have all of the counties listed in the radio by state. --Stereo Headphone Out: You can use this as your radio receiver and plug in bigger speakers if you need more volume (assuming the external speakers have their own amp). This is a nice plus over some of the competition, including the Radio Shack unit I previously owned. --Small Size: I was surprised how small it is and how much sound it's able to produce for being so small. This is a plus if you don't want your whole night stand or kitchen counter taken up by a radio. --Ease of Use: It was pretty easy to figure out how to set everything up. I only had to look up a couple of things in the manual. There are some quirks, which I discuss below. MIXED BAG (could be Pro or Con depending on your views): --Siren Volume: Even the quietest volume setting for the weather alert siren is quite loud. Of course, the purpose of a weather alert is to alert you of an emergency. CONS (though these are quibbles): --Screen: The screen is fine if you're just using it as a radio. I like all of the information it shows, but as an alarm clock, it wouldn't work well. The angle is bad. It should be on the front of the unit like the screens of most alarms instead of on the top at an angle. The text is small for an alarm clock and would be hard to read even if the angle weren't bad. As far as screen location and size, the Radio Shack competitor was much better, but it had a bright blue background that lit up the whole room and made it difficult to read the time from an angle. The Reecom and Midland competitors also have screens on the top. So in the end, this con does not put it at a disadvantage to the competition. Plus, I don't use it as an alarm, so it doesn't matter to me. --Location of LED Warning Lights: The Sangean has LED warning lights for the different weather alerts: red for warning, orange for watch, etc. However, they're on the top of the unit, so if you have it on your night stand, it would be hard to see the lights without sitting up a bit. This is one area where the Radio Shack competitor wins out. --Automatic Menu Exit: If you're in the menu and don't push a button after 5 seconds, it will automatically exit you out of the menu. That's annoying, but once you have the alert codes set up, this isn't an issue. --Lack of Handle, Non-Upright Position: It would be more portable if the unit had a handle and was made to sit up-right. You can sit it up right to save space, but it can be hard to read the screen when it's in this position.

North Carolina doesn't have tornado sirens on public buildings, and I always worry about being asleep in bed when a tornado strikes. I decided to look into buying a weather alert radio. I did a lot of price research and read a lot of reviews before I settled on this model. I didn't mind paying for quality, since a cheapie weather radio would let our family down when we need it most. I just got our Sangean CL-100 Table Top Public Alert Weather Radio yesterday and spend an hour or two reading the manual and setting it up. The features I like most on this unit are the ability to put in the county codes (available online from NOAA) for the areas that affect our home, and the ability to turn off alerts that don't apply to us. I turned off the iceburg and avalanche warnings and I wondered what the boiling water warning is. I was pleased to see an Amber Alert warning for missing children, and even a frost warning for those of us who garden. It takes a little time to punch in all the numbers, codes and notes, but it's not hard. I left the "thunderstorm watch" alert enabled so I could make sure the unit works. It worked last night - loud and clear! There's no way anyone could sleep through that siren, although there is a volume control if you don't want to be shocked awake. The unit itself is very sturdy and well made, with buttons that feel solid. It comes with an antenna booster, which is useful out in the boonies where we live. It also funtions as an alarm clock and FM radio, but I won't be using it for that. I have it set up in an inconspicuous place, just waiting to alert us if there is a fire, tornado or hail alert issued. One thing I noticed is that the price has nearly doubled since I bought mine on backorder six weeks ago. I probably wouldn't have purchased it at $140 - I paid $73. Overall, this is a really nice unit. Every home should have a weather alert radio, and I recommend this one.

This radio is quite versatile by offering NOAA Weather alerts in addition to being an AM/FM alarm clock in a small footprint. You will need to search for the NOAA weather codes for the particular counties you want included in the alarms, but other than that, it is relatively easy to program. The radio program station presets and other controls are easy to access, even in the dark. The radio reception with the attached antenna is adequate in our area and the sound is quality is acceptable for such a small speaker. I rated this four rather than five stars due to the physical design of the display. The display is not directly readable when used on a bed night stand due to the fixed angle of the screen. Although the display illumination levels can be adjusted, the lowest setting (other than "Off") is quite bright for use during sleeping. I resolved this problem by simply covering the display with a small pad of paper overnight and removing it in the morning.

I live in Florida and bought a weather radio in 2004 after Hurricane Charley, and while that radio did it's job, it ONLY had the NOAA stations and I wanted to upgrade to a radio that has the NOAA channels, as well as AM/FM, and could still be powered if the juice went out. I initially was looking for a hand crank radio, but after reading some reviews, it seemed like most of them were garbage, so I spent a few hours reading reviews and trying to decide which radio seemed like the best choice, and finally settled on the CL-100. It does everything I want and then some, and don't regret the purchase. The nice thing about the CL-100 is that you can program it to pick up alerts from select counties (it's easy enough to look up the county codes online), and you can also pick and choose which alerts you want to receive and which you don't. For example, I don't really want to be notified every time a Severe Thunderstorm Watch is issued. I just want to know when something HAPPENS. It looks like you cannot disable the alerts for more serious events, like Tornado Warnings, Hurricane Warnings, etc. but that is probably a good thing. So far so good as far as being alerted to weather events, as I found out recently with Tropical Storm Andrea. My radio went off saying that a Tropical Storm Warning had been issued, so I went out to the NHC's site, and sure enough, there was Andrea with newly initiated advisories. The radio was also going off like crazy when Andrea rolled through and there were Tornado Warnings left and right in my area. So the CL-100, so far, is doing it's job, and doing it well. I've had it for almost a year by the way, and still seems to work great. Regarding the volume of the siren - yes, I concede that it is pretty loud. But when the radio first goes off, it starts at a low volume so that it doesn't scare the bejeezus out of you, and steadily increases to its full volume in about 5 seconds or so, rather than blowing you away at max volume the moment it goes off. When it reaches peak volume, yeah, it's loud, but just hit the "weather" button and you will be switched over to the NOAA radio giving you the details and you're good to go. I guess I'm fine with it being loud, though - I'm a heavy sleeper and might sleep through it if it wasn't so loud. This is a great little weather radio for a reasonable price. I highly suggest picking up a CL-100 if you're in the market for a weather radio.

See update at the bottom of the review. While this started out as a decent radio with only a couple of minor quirks, it quickly became a useless paperweight. . . . This is a good weather radio. I was in need of one, because my old and trusted Radioshack radio finally died. It has nice and clear sound, and it is easy to understand the robotic weather radio voice. It has individual sirens for warning, watch, and advisory. The only disadvantage is that when the radio comes on, it starts out very quiet and then builds in volume. This process takes a few seconds and usually results in my missing what the watch or warning is. For instance, when a warning starts, the radio says - "The national weather service in Denver Colorado has issued a severe thunderstorm warning for..." If I am not right on top of the radio, what I end up hearing is, "...warning for..." It wouldn't be that big a deal, except the radio is on a different floor and every time it goes off, I have to get up and go upstairs to look at it. I've read every word of the instructions and have not been able to find a way to fix this. Also, I am not sure that SAME is working the way it should. Even though I have it set up for only my county and a couple of surrounding counties, it goes off for other counties. I kept my old radio plugged in and programmed the new one with the same codes. The new radio goes off for counties that the old radio doesn't. UPDATE on 1/4/2017: Now that I have had this radio for almost a year, I can officially knock it down to one star. It is essentially worthless. It routinely forgets which station I have chosen and when it does this, it stops alerting me to weather events. The display shows that I've chosen channel 4. When I press the weather button, I get no broadcast. To fix it, I have to go back in to settings and select the correct frequency. Once I've done that, I can listen to the broadcast and get alerts. I have had to do this at least twice a month since I got it. Meanwhile, my old Radio Shack weather radio continues to alert me to every single weather event that comes up. The speaker is blown out on it, so I can't really understand what it's saying, but at least I'm aware of it. When it goes off and the Sangean doesn't, at least I know that the Sangean has once again forgotten its settings. This is a useless weather radio and should be avoided.

I seldom write reviews as most products are fine enough but don't surprise me. This Sanjean CL-100 is amazing. This is our 3rd weather radio and by far absolutely the best. We love the features. Really well thought-out design. Love the push-buttons for station memory. It also has great reception! We boosted that even more with the accessory external antenna (Sangean ANT-100 External Antenna) - highly recommend that under $10 purchase if you are in hard-to-reach area as we are. We live in the country and get poor to non-existent weather service from local providers for our little spot but live in a storm-prone area of Texas. The warnings they give are after systems have rolled over us. Having a weather radio that we can set to alert a county away as well as ours gives us much-needed information. And it is accurate in providing what we chose for alerts and locations. That was a problem with others. We have the radio placed in the interior side of our bedroom, away from external walls. This is the first one of ANY of our past AM/FM radios (alarm clocks or weather ones) that we can get our much-loved local NPR station 35 miles away using the Sangean accessory external antenna. It has a very easy setup, not confusing as our last ones, and with many more choices about what type of warnings you receive. It nicely combines functions of our regular (and lousier-reception) clock radio and, when we realized it had such improvement on reception, we ditched our standard alarm radio and just have this one radio, rather than two, a weather radio & an alarm clock radio. We had used an external antenna with our alarm radio but that hasn't helped any of the several we have had in the past get the stations we get with this. This is one great product! The only change I would like is for the display to be tiltable so we could see the time more readily from prone position. Excellent value! Superior quality! Now we get the alerts we want and aren't bothered with others. It is leaps and bounds above any others we have had in the past. I love this weather radio! I highly recommend it!

A great machine, but even on the lowest volume level it was way too loud for me. I wish it had a volume dial like a generic FM radio.

I wanted a new weather radio to replace the very old cube style that's been here for years. The old one didn't even come on by itself to warn of approaching weather, we would have to go to the radio and turn it on for a report. Not too bad, in the daytime when the skies looked threatening we would be prompted to go and check it out, but of course no use at all in the middle of the night. Those storms I find are the most worrisome, the ones that blow up when you are sound asleep, oblivious to what is heading your way. We had a series of severe storms here last April in the State, and all of them after dark, some after midnight. The TV signal of course was interrupted, so we lost the local news station that had been broadcasting watches and warnings. We are just far enough out of town that the tornado siren is nearly impossible to hear if you are inside the house with the windows closed. The last thing I heard before loss of TV signal was ..'if you live in ____, (our town) take cover now. That was enough for me, and we spent an hour in the safe room waiting for the worst to pass. Apparently the siren in town went, and the all clear, but we didn't hear that where we are. I wasn't terribly concerned with how the unit looked, when I started hunting for a replacement. I wanted one that would allow me to edit out the dreck, for example the avalanche warning is of little use to me in land as flat as this. I wanted to be able to select a siren volume that wouldn't be heart stopping in the middle of the night, and a radio that would allow me to get warnings and/or watches for a select group of counties, mainly in the direction we get storms from, the Southwest. I did a lot of research, and sifted through quite a lot of websites, types of radios of many makers, and reviews before settling on this radio. And it's perfect! Does all the things I was hoping to have, has an excellent ordinary radio, and allowed me to set levels, counties and sirens exactly where I wanted them. In the first week after setting it up, we had a day where a series of storms blew through, and this little beauty performed like a trooper. It flashes, and the alarm comes on low and builds up in volume, but not to the point it's irritating. Gets your attention without deafening you. The NOAA weather message plays through once, and shuts of. The light flashes as long as the warning is in place. We had further warnings, three on the same afternoon, and each time it came on, did it's thing, and shut off. And although one thing I wasn't concerned about was what the radio looked like, I found I really like the style. It's easy to read, easy to set, hefty, and well put together. All in all I am well satisfied and I think I did very well using the Amazon gift cards I was given at Christmas.