Hawkeye Weather

Worthless after only 1.5 years, but Midland came through!

Customer Rating:
I got this as a gift 1.5 years ago, after doing research among fellow weather buffs to see which weather radio they thought was good. And it WAS good for 1.5 years. Then a high pitched squeal is all you would hear across all weather channels. I contacted Midland, and since it was out of warranty, they said I would have to send 45 bucks plus shipping costs (not to mention cost of shipping back to them to receive a new one) and they would send a new one. This exceeds the cost of buying a new one from Amazon. I'm sick of the disposable mentality accepted by manufacturers and consumers these days. This thing is a RADIO, no moving parts, and they can't build it to last more than 18 months??? I even emailed the bigwigs at Midland hoping for some sort of REASONABLE resolution but so far they have not contacted me.

7/27/10 update: Midland customer service manager emailed me and they are replacing the unit at no charge. I went from being very upset to thrilled with their customer service, and will remain a Midland fan, as they really do stand behind their products.

Not a Great All-Rounder

Customer Rating:
I was looking for a radio/alarm clock that also had weather alert functionality. I settled on the WR300 since it seemed to check all the boxes.

The set-up instructions are wrong in places, but if you follow the set-up you'll understand the basic method and can figure out how to achieve something even if the actual instructions don't work. Irritating, but not a deal breaker. I set-up my WR300 in about 20 minutes, which included getting the S.A.M.E. county codes off the internet. It's not that hard to be fair.

We finally had our first weather event a few weeks ago. When Mr. T. Nado paid a visit to our town recently, my Midland WR300 went ballistic! Good to know it's paying attention to what's going on. From a weather alert monitoring and alerting standpoint, the WR300 is all good. I hope it doesn't die in 6, 9 or 12 months like other customers have reported. I guess I'll see.

As for being an everyday alarm clock radio, it's not that great for a few reasons.

1. The back lit screen display, while a pretty blue, is way too bright. At night in a dark room, it really lights the place up. Distracting for me. You can turn the back light off, but then you cannot see the time when the room is dark. It needs a light sensor so it dims when the light level is low.

2. The time component of the display is tiny. Located in the top right corner of the display, the digit size is smaller than the digit size of the year which is located in the center of the display. How dumb is that? It would have made more sense to have these swapped around. Big time in the center and small year in the top right corner.

3. The slanting angle of the front makes the display impossible to read if your bed is at the same or similar height to the clock. Even if you had the overly bright back light on at night, you'd have to sit up in bed to see the display properly. If you're one of those people who wake up at night and want to sneak a peek at the time without having to move much, this clock is not for you.

So, for a weather alert/alarm clock radio it's great so far. For an everyday use clock, it's not so good. I decided to keep mine just for the weather/alarm functionality and will buy a separate digital display clock that's easy to read from a distance and dims the display in low light.

Don't order this product

Customer Rating:
This product arrived very promptly, but was not in working order. I could not even get the info window to light up and there was absolutely no sound. It was promptly shipped back for a refund and I went to Radio Shack and bought a great replacement.

Well satisfied with this weather radio

Customer Rating:
This radio serves the purpose of allowing us to program it so that it doesn't wake us up for watches and for weather conditions that don't concern us.
As other reviewers have noted the readability of the screen is almost nonexistent, but it's not a huge issue for us since the audio and alarm features are more than satisfactory.
We would buy this radio again and would recommend it to anyone considering a weather radio.

Works as advertised

Customer Rating:
I got this model so I could not have to listen to every single alert. Works great for that.