Midland WR120 — Vol 3: Memory & Setup

3.1 Programming workflow

All configuration is on-panel via the front-panel buttons and 4-line LCD. There is no PC programming, no CAT control, no app. The WR120 is the simplest device in the lineup from a configuration standpoint — and the most opaque, since menu state is invisible until you walk through it.

3.1.1 The four configuration steps

1. Channel: MENU → Weather Scan walks WX1–WX7 and stops on the strongest. Confirm receivability with the LCD signal bars or by un-muting via WEATHER for a clean-audio check.
2. FIPS code(s): MENU → FIPS / SAME Setup, select a slot (1 through 25), enter the 6-digit code via up/down arrow scrolling (not a true numeric keypad — 30–60 s per code). Repeat per county. Save. Codes are looked up at https://www.nws.noaa.gov/nwr/coverage/county_coverage.html: a leading “0” plus the 5-digit Census FIPS county code, e.g. Livingston County MI = Census FIPS 26093 → S.A.M.E. 026093. The leading “0” means “entire county”; “1” / “2” etc. are partial-county codes used only where NWS has explicitly subdivided coverage. For most users the “0” full-county code is what’s wanted.
3. Event codes: MENU → Event Setup walks the ~80 codes one at a time; SELECT toggles enabled/disabled. Budget 10–15 minutes for the full walk on first setup. Most operators leave defaults alone on the first pass and only tune the filter after a few false-positives annoy them.
4. Alert mode: MENU → Alert → siren / voice / both / display. The setting applies to all event codes uniformly — per-event-type alert behavior (e.g. siren for Tornado, voice-only for Severe Thunderstorm) isn’t supported. Pick the most-startling mode that’s tolerable for the room the radio lives in.

3.1.2 The sensitivity / channel-quality knob

Weather Scan picks the strongest channel automatically; no manual squelch knob (appliance convention). Marginal reception on the chosen channel (intermittent dropouts, hiss during un-muted listening) is remedied by repositioning (move 6–10 ft toward an exterior wall or away from RFI sources), extending the whip fully and re-scanning, or adding an external antenna (§6.2).

3.1.3 No PC programming exists

Unlike every other receiver in this series (Unidens on ProScan/Sentinel/FreeScan, Baofengs and Yaesu on CHIRP, AnyTone on its vendor CPS), the WR120 has zero host-side programming software. Configuration lives on the radio’s NVRAM, set via the front panel, and that’s the only interface. Vol 3 (Programming Software Landscape) correctly has no entry for the WR120 — it would be an empty row. The flip side: no codeplug-as-a-file backup either (see §5).

3.2 Codeplug backups

There is no codeplug. Configuration lives in onboard NVRAM (LCD clock is RAM-backed by the AA cells; FIPS codes, channel, event filter, and alert mode are NVRAM-backed and persist through full battery removal). No file format, no PC tool, no export.

Backup discipline is therefore paper-based. Document the configuration in programs/midland-wr120/notes.md (TBD — populate with the specific channel, FIPS codes, event filter, and alert mode). A reasonable template lists the channel + transmitter callsign, the per-county FIPS code with its label (home / work / parents / school / vacation), the event-filter state (typically: all Warnings + all Watches + RWT enabled, advisories per preference), and the alert mode (siren + voice is the default).

For most users the FIPS list is the only thing genuinely worth backing up. Channel selection is rediscoverable in 30 seconds via Weather Scan; the event filter and alert mode are configured once to defaults and rarely revisited. Without the paper backup, recovering the FIPS list means re-looking-up every county and re-walking the on-panel data-entry menu — annoying but tractable.