What is “SAME?”

A new radio capable of receiving NWS broadcasts gives listeners the best possible means of receiving severe weather warnings. This new generation of programmable NWR receivers has a special feature that allows listeners to choose only the watches and warnings that affect their county area and screen out any warnings issued for other counties within broadcast range.

Using digital technology known as Specific Area Message Encoding (SAME), all watches and warnings issued by the NWS are preceded by unique audio codes that describe the type of warning and identify the county or counties being warned. People who own a SAME receiver can pre-select their FIPS codes to ensure they hear the specific warning information they need to make potentially life-saving decisions.

Older NWR receivers are not affected by the technology change, but the older receivers do not allow listeners to take advantage of the SAME capability to screen alerts for individual counties.