WNG575

WNG575 - Pack Monadnock

City	Peterborough, New Hampshire
Broadcast area	Southern New Hampshire, Windham County, Vermont, and North Central and Northeast Massachusetts
Branding	NOAA All Hazards Radio
Slogan	The Voice Of The National Weather Service
Frequency	162.525 MHz
Format	Weather/Civil Emergency
Language(s)	English
Power	300 Watts
Owner	NOAA/National Weather Service
Website

WNG575 is a NOAA Weather Radio station that serves Southern New Hampshire, Windham County, Vermont, and North Central and Northeast Massachusetts. Some cities served include Manchester, Nashua, Keene, Lowell, and Lawrence. However, the station can be received in parts of Central and Western Massachusetts as well as a portion of Southeast Vermont. The station is programmed by the National Weather Service office in Gray, Maine,^[1] and the station is transmitting atop Pack Monadnock near Peterborough, New Hampshire on a frequency of 162.525 megahertz.^[2]

Station info and service area

Coverage map of WNG575

WNG575 provides watches, warnings, and advisories for the following counties:^[2]

The following are some station specifications:^[2]

Hourly conditions are reported for the following locations, in the order of which they appear:

"Here are the (time) reports from around New England: in New Hampshire: Manchester, Nashua, Jaffrey, Keene, Concord, Portsmouth, Laconia, and Mt. Washington. In Massachusetts: Orange, Fitchburg, Worcester, Lawrence, Beverly, Boston, and Bedford. Elsewhere in New England: Portland, Burlington, Hartford, Providence, Albany, and New York City." Note that no distinction is made on the broadcast between the "elsewhere in New England" sites and the two eastern New York observations, likely due to the proximity of Albany and New York City to western New England.

History

WNG575 was created in 2002 when the National Weather Service office in Taunton realized that weather radio users in Northern Middlesex County and Southern New Hampshire were having reception problems with the stations already in place. On December 3, 2014, Cheshire and Hillsborough counties in New Hampshire were transferred from the Taunton office to the Gray office,^[3] which meant that WNG575 would become maintained by the Gray office. However, due to a local telephone company strike,^[4] the switch in station maintenance from NWS Taunton to NWS Gray did not occur until April 21, 2015.^[5]

On August 17, 2016, WNG575 and other NWS Gray stations transitioned to the new Broadcast Message Handler (BMH) control system, giving the station a new voice along with significant internal upgrades.^[6]

Test Signals

Every Wednesday morning at 11:25 a.m. Eastern time, the forecast office in Gray sends out the weekly test signal to all weather radio stations operated by their office, including WNG575. The test script is as follows:

This is a Required Weekly Test of the National Weather Service's Specific Area Message Encoding and tone alarm systems. If this had been an actual alert, this message would contain specific information about the watch or warning being issued. This concludes the weekly test of the NOAA Weather Radio alert systems.^[7]

In addition, once every three months (February, May, August, and November), NWS Gray is tasked with conducting the New Hampshire statewide Required Monthly Test of the Emergency Alert System, which airs on all broadcast TV and radio stations as well as all cable TV systems in the state. These tests are aired on all NWS Gray stations, including WNG575.^[8] The test script reads as follows for these tests:

The National Weather Service in Gray, Maine, has activated the New Hampshire Emergency Alert System in order to conduct a Required Monthly Test. That concludes this Required Monthly Test under the New Hampshire Emergency Alert System.

WNG575 and other NWS Gray stations do not carry the New Hampshire Required Monthly Test in the other months of the year, which are conducted by the New Hampshire State Police in January, April, July, and October and by the New Hampshire Department of Safety's Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management in March, June, September, and December.

Prior to April 21, 2015, when NWS Taunton maintained the station, the Weekly Test occurred at some point between 10 a.m. and noon Eastern and read as follows:

This has been a test of the NOAA Weather Radio tone and SAME alert systems. This test is conducted each Wednesday between 10 a.m. and noon. Specially programmed receivers are alerted for specific watches, warnings and advisories. In the event that severe weather is expected on Wednesday or there is inclement weather, the test is postponed to the next fair weather day. This concludes this test of the NOAA Weather Radio tone and SAME alert systems.^[9]

During NWS Taunton's maintenance of the station, the New Hampshire Required Monthly Test every three months was not carried on WNG575.

References