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KHB31: NOAA Weather Radio for Winnabow, North Carolina

KHB31 is the NOAA Weather Radio transmitter at Winnabow, broadcasting on 162.550 MHz at 1000 watts. It carries the National Weather Service Wilmington office's broadcast and covers 5 counties, each listed below with the SAME code an alert radio needs to wake for that county and stay quiet for the rest.

CallsignKHB31
Frequency162.550 MHz
TransmitterWinnabow, North Carolina
Power1000 watts
Forecast officeNWS Wilmington
StatusNormal (NWS data, July 2026)

Marine radios often label 162.550 MHz as WX1, but WX channel numbers vary by brand - go by the frequency.

Counties KHB31 covers

CountyStateSAME codeNote
BladenNorth Carolina037017E
BrunswickNorth Carolina037019
ColumbusNorth Carolina037047
New HanoverNorth Carolina037129
PenderNorth Carolina037141

A county marked with a note (for example partial coverage) is served for that portion only. 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.

A radio that will use this code

KHB31 alerts are only useful inside a radio you can program the s codes above into. Two that do it, for two different jobs.

At home, always on

Midland WR120B. Mains desk radio with battery backup. Program the SAME code from the table and it stays silent until your county specifically is warned, then wakes you.

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In the bag or the car

Midland ER310. Crank, solar and USB, with a flashlight. Receives KHB31 the same as anything else; it does not do SAME alerting. The one still working on day three of an outage.

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Hearing KHB31

Any receiver that tunes 162.550 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 North Carolina transmitter, county and SAME code: NOAA Weather Radio in North Carolina. Or look any county up with the finder.

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