Midland Consumer Radio WR-120B Review
I really wanted a new weather alert radio with Specific area message encoding (S.A.M.E) so that it could give me a warning in case of extreme weather conditions. Therefore before buying a new weather radio I literally looked at every single radio on amazon. Most of the radios that I came across seemed to have many issues like reception, reliability, construction, etc. I really wanted to avoid buying those therefore I narrowed my search down to Midland radios. This is when I came across the Midland consumer Radio WR-120B.
- This radio is the updated model of WR-100 which is considered to be one of the most popular weather radios. Therefore I bought the WR-120B weather radio for myself. I for one think this is a great standard alert weather radio. I was very pleased with this radio because it had the S.A.M.E technology that I was looking for. This technology allows you to setup your county or multiple counties in to your radio. It will also allow you to program the radio to sound an alert only when the weather and other emergencies threaten your county or counties. This technology also eliminates all the alerts from other areas. Along with this the WR-120B has a memory system that accepts up to 25 counties. This way you could monitor a large number of counties at once or restrict your radio to a single county.
- The radio also contains a user selectable warning system. Also you get to pick the warning system. It has a 90 dB siren, a flashing LED light or a voice alert. Therefore the alarm has a 3 setting voice, tone and display. The tone of the alarm is very loud, which is great! The voice alarm plays the loud tone for about 5 seconds or so and then it goes in to the radio broadcast. The display on the other hand just illuminates the backlight. I also like the backlight on the display as it makes it easier for me to read the lettering on the radio. The interface of the radio is also pretty amazing as it allows me to flip through all current alerts using the up/down buttons. This way I don’t have to listen to the radio to get the updates. Therefore this radio is very simple and easy to use.
The WR-120B also contains a clock with an alarm and a snooze button. The radio also runs on 3 AA batteries for backup. I did test the battery time for this radio. With the backlight on, the radio lasted for about 4 days. It would have lasted longer if I would have turned the backlight off! Even after 3 days the display was still very bright which I thought to be a very good thing. Also there was no difference in the backlight, reception and functions when I had unplugged it. Therefore this makes the radio perfect for travelling purposes. Over all I really like this weather alert radio. However I wouldn’t give it 5 stars because the voice alert used in this radio is not a pure voice! I would like for the company to fix the voice alert. Other than that I really like the radio and it is a must have radio with the best value out there. Highly recommended!
Pros
- It has S.A.M.E Localized Reception
- Continuous backlighting options keep the LCD on
- Easy to use
- 25 Programmable Counties
- It has a user selectable warning system
- 10 reviewable alerts
- 7 preset weather channels
- Receives over 60 Alerts
- Uses 3AA batters for power back-up
- All Hazards Alert
Cons
- Don’t really get the purpose of color coded alert indicators
- Voice alert is not pure
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Pros
SAMSUNG can be serviced loaclly but Insignia cannot be .It gets sent away to a repair depot hundreds of miles away.And all they do is put your TV in line and grab a refurbished unit off the front of the line Eventually your TV gets refurbished and sent out to another Owner .The bad part is you get somebody else's problems, and you pay a SET FEE to get it repaired .To me, that's a real problem if they didn't FIND a problem REPAIR it properly Because YOU PAY FOR SHIPPINGCons
SAMSUNG can be serviced loaclly but Insignia cannot be .It gets sent away to a repair depot hundreds of miles away.And all they do is put your TV in line and grab a refurbished unit off the front of the line Eventually your TV gets refurbished and sent out to another Owner .The bad part is you get somebody else's problems, and you pay a SET FEE to get it repaired .To me, that's a real problem if they didn't FIND a problem REPAIR it properly Because YOU PAY FOR SHIPPINGSummary
SAMSUNG can be serviced loaclly but Insignia cannot be .It gets sent away to a repair depot hundreds of miles away.And all they do is put your TV in line and grab a refurbished unit off the front of the line Eventually your TV gets refurbished and sent out to another Owner .The bad part is you get somebody else’s problems, and you pay a SET FEE to get it repaired .To me, that’s a real problem if they didn’t FIND a problem REPAIR it properly Because YOU PAY FOR SHIPPING
“A weather radio with a lot of drawbacks ”
Pros
Affordable Easy setting up processCons
Has signal problem A lot of radio interference Isn’t functional when plugged in; works on batteriesSummary
Living in a place where the weather is very unpredictable and future tornado warnings have been issued, I purchased Midland Consumer Radio WR-120B couple of months back. My experience with it has been bad so far. Even though the weather radio is simple to set up and reasonable, it has its limitations. One of the drawbacks of this radio that I particularly find very annoying is that there is a lot of radio interference. I have several times lost the channel the weather radio was initially set on and after losing the channel, I was not able to find any other for some time.
The weather radio turns into a completely dysfunctional gadget when it is plugged in a power source but on batteries, it runs fine but because of this, I am not a big fan of this weather radio. After facing several issues with this weather radio, I got myself a new one that belongs to a different company because during extreme weather conditions, unpredictable weather and tornado warnings, I can’t risk losing my family because of not being notified on time by a weather radio that was specifically brought for that purpose only.
“A must-buy multi-purpose weather radio for households ”
Pros
Affordable; not too expensive Great functionality Perfect alertsCons
The battery don’t last for 3-4 days Voice alert is not good.Summary
Moving to a new city, I wanted to buy myself a weather radio to keep myself up to date with the weather updates, which prompted me to order the Midland Consumer Radio WR-120B. The radio is an updated version of the WR-100 model. After receiving it, it took me less than four minutes to set it up. I found the manual quite simple and easy to follow. The radio is great when it comes to alerting about tornadoes or any other extreme weather condition.
One more thing I really like about this radio is that it comes with Specific area message encoding technology, which makes it one of the best weather radios ever. The availability of S.A.M.E on the radio also increases its functionality and efficiency during alerts. Moreover, I can also adjust the alerts and LED according to how I want. There are different tones and voices to choose from, if I want to set a voice alert on the radio. The Midland Consumer Radio WR-120B is also multipurpose as it also has an alarm clock integrated in it. The radio runs on 3 AA batteries which last for nearly 3-4 days when the backlight is switched on. I am all in favor of this weather radio as it helped me in adjusting to the weather pattern of the city we recently moved in.