KXI68: NOAA Weather Radio for St. Ansgar, Iowa
KXI68 is the NOAA Weather Radio transmitter at St. Ansgar (transmitter at Kirkwood & 420th), broadcasting on 162.450 MHz at 1000 watts. It carries the National Weather Service La Crosse office's broadcast and covers 8 counties, each listed below with the SAME code an alert radio needs to wake for that county and stay quiet for the rest.
| Callsign | KXI68 |
|---|---|
| Frequency | 162.450 MHz |
| Transmitter | St. Ansgar (transmitter at Kirkwood & 420th), Iowa |
| Power | 1000 watts |
| Forecast office | NWS La Crosse |
| Status | Normal (NWS data, July 2026) |
Marine radios often label 162.450 MHz as WX5, but WX channel numbers vary by brand - go by the frequency.
Counties KXI68 covers
| County | State | SAME code |
|---|---|---|
| Cerro Gordo | Iowa | 019033 |
| Chickasaw | Iowa | 019037 |
| Floyd | Iowa | 019067 |
| Howard | Iowa | 019089 |
| Mitchell | Iowa | 019131 |
| Worth | Iowa | 019195 |
| Freeborn | Minnesota | 027047 |
| Mower | Minnesota | 027099 |
Program the six-digit code into your radio's SAME location list - the SAME code guide walks through it, and how alert radios work explains what the radio does with it.
Hearing KXI68
Any receiver that tunes 162.450 MHz FM can listen: scanners, VHF ham radios, marine sets, or a software-defined receiver. What those do not do is wake you at 3 a.m. - for that you want a dedicated radio with SAME alerting, covered in the buyer's guide.
Every Iowa transmitter, county and SAME code: NOAA Weather Radio in Iowa. Or look any county up with the finder.
Sources:
- “NWR County Coverage Listings”. weather.gov. Archived from the original on 2026-07-19. Retrieved 2026-07-16. Every figure on this page - frequency, transmitter site, power, operational status, and county SAME codes - is from this dataset. Transmitters move, change power, and go down for maintenance; verify locally before you rely on it.