How to Reset Midland NOAA Weather Radio & Other Tips

NOAA weather alert radios have proven to provide timely life-saving information. However, these radios require some programming in order to provide you with the relevant information for your area. One customer stated Midland's WR120 desktop weather radio "This thing has saved my life by warning us of an approaching tornado. Thank goodness we were spared from the tornado but it’s good to know we were warned in time."

How do I delete a county on my WR120 NOAA Weather Alert Radio?

By setting the radio for a SINGLE location, you are telling the radio to alert only for location #1, and to ignore all other locations. Location #1, the first county you program in your radio, should always be the county in which your home is located.

To delete a county:

Press MENU

Press UP ARROW or DOWN ARROW buttons until display shows SET LOCATION

Press SELECT

Display should say MULTIPLE

Press SELECT

Press UP ARROW or DOWN ARROW until you arrive at the county you want to eliminate

Press the RIGHT ARROW

Press the DOWN ARROW

“Hash mark” lines appear, indicating the county has been deleted.

Press SELECT

Press MENU twice to save changes

If you originally programmed MULTIPLE counties into your radio but no longer want to hear those warnings, you can eliminate all counties except the SINGLE county that you live in.

Always program your home county as the first county entered into the radio - MULTIPLE counties are then loaded into positions 2,3,4,5….etc. If you get tired of hearing all of the other counties, you can easily turn those ‘extra” counties off:

Press MENU

Press UP ARROW or DOWN ARROW buttons until display shows SET LOCATION

Press SELECT

Press UP ARROW or DOWN ARROW until display shows SINGLE

Press SELECT

Press MENU twice to save changes.

For full step-by-step county programming, including multiple counties and vacation homes, see How to Program a Weather Radio's S.A.M.E. Code for Local Weather Alerts.

Other Tips for Maintaining Your Weather Alert Radio

If you have made several mistakes in programming the radio and would like to “start fresh," you can do a re-set that erases all information and re-sets the radio to how it was when you first took it out of the box. Find out how to reset your Midland weather radio below.

Factory Resetting Your WR120 NOAA Weather Alert Radio

Unplug the radio from the wall. Make sure the batteries are good. If they are, the clock will appear in the display window. If the display window is blank, put in a fresh set of batteries.

With the radio unplugged from the wall, and working batteries installed, remove one battery from the radio. As you replace that battery into the radio, press and hold the large WEATHER/SNOOZE button on the front of the radio. Keep the button pushed while the battery is replaced. Once the battery is replaced the display window will indicate that the WR-120 radio is RESET, at which point you can release the WEATHER/SNOOZE button and proceed to re-program the radio. It will behave as if you just removed a new radio from its box.

Battery Maintenance

Another fact worth noting, if the batteries are old, low on power, or starting to fail, they can cause lots of strange issues in programming. A fresh set of batteries often “cures” a radio of its ills. If even one of the 3 batteries is bad, it can affect anything or everything in the programming sequence.

There are many factors to consider when shopping for an NOAA weather radio, but it is worth the effort to protect you and your family in the event of severe weather.