Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Steve Lebkuecher, who comments on our recent post about weather radios:
I have the Sangean CL-100 and highly recommend the radio for several reasons and in fact I bought several for family members as gifts. The Sangean CL-100 looks like an alarm clock and is what I use as an alarm clock but the CL-100 is a full featured weather radio as well.
The audio quality for general broadcast is excellent for a radio this size and the build quality is very good. I bought mine several years ago and have not had any issues. (About $60.00 from Amazon)
Some of the features I like and why:
S.A.M,E (Specific Area Message Encoding) Alerts only for your county. If a thunderstorm passes through a county next to you at 4:00 AM you will not be woken up. This has happened to me several times with my previous non S.A.M.E radio and I just ended up turning the radio completely off which obviously left me vulnerable to the next event.
Selectable Alerts – disable alerts that you may not care about such as wind advisory. Again I have been woken up with my previous weather radio that didn’t have this feature for a wind advisory early in the morning. Very irritating.
End-of-message (EOM) Radio turns off after alert is given so you don’t have to get out of bed just to turn the alert off.
RBDS (Radio Broadcast Data System) You can set the radios clock as well as the radio will display station ID and song name.
Display is excellent and has a wide viewing angle plus you can adjust the brightness. I do wish the display was a little bigger and mounted on the front of the radio VS the top so it would be easier to see the time if you wake up during the night.
Two separate alarms and can be programed for different days of the week.
Human Wake-up System – Alarm starts at a very low level and gradually builds up in volume. You can set the alarm to buzzer or radio broadcast. I hate being jolted out of bed by a nasty sounding alarm.
The jacks include DC power in, stereo earphone, AM external antenna, FM/weather external antenna, aux-in, external alert and grounding terminal.
Thank you for your review of the CL-100, Steve! I had forgotten about this particular weather radio and didn’t realize it was still on the market. I now recall an earlier post where Jeff McMahon touted the CL-100.
I love the CL-100 display and the fact that it doubles so well as a proper alarm clock. At time of posting, I notice one on eBay for $44 shipped–I hope someone buys it before I do. (Seriously–I’m very tempted.)
Shop for the Sangean CL-100 at: