US >
Multiple States >
Multiple Counties
Feed Notes
The Metropolitan Emergency Radio System (MERS) repeater is licensed under call sign KNIS980 to the City of Lenexa, Kansas.
The repeater output frequency is 154.130 MHz and uses a CTCSS tone of 151.4 Hz.
MERS can also be heard on the Metropolitan Area Region Radio System (MARRS) on talk group 33017
Users of MERS are emergency managers and public safety personnel on both sides of the Kansas and Missouri state line, as well as the National Weather Service and Red Cross. The channel is primarily used to communicate severe weather watches and warnings from the National Weather Service in Pleasant Hill, Missouri to various agencies, as well as receiving precipitation, sighting, and damage reports from public safety.
Participating agencies:
- Pleasant Hill, MO Weather
- Belton, MO Emergency Management
- Blue Springs, MO Police
- Central Jackson County, MO Fire
- Clay County, MO Emergency Management
- Clay County, MO Sheriff
- Douglas County, KS Emergency Management
(Has been heard on MERS, but is under the responsibility of the Topeka, KS National Weather Service office.)
- Excelsior Springs, MO Police
- Grandview, MO Fire
- Grandview, MO Police
- Gladstone, MO Public Safety
(Licensed as KRG682 for repeater input)
- Greenwood, MO Public Safety
- Independence, MO Emergency Operations Center
- Independence, MO Fire
- Johnson County, KS Emergency Management/Communications Center
(Heard using call sign KAB956)
- Johnson County, KS Fire
- Johnson County, KS Sheriff
- Johnson County, MO Sheriff
- K.U. Med Police (KS)
- Kansas City Metro Red Cross
- Kansas City, KS Fire
- Kansas City, MO Emergency Management
- Kansas City, MO Fire
- Kearney, MO Fire District
- Leavenworth County, KS Emergency Management
- Leawood, KS Police
- Lee's Summit, MO Fire
- Lenexa, KS Police
(Licensed as KNIS980 for repeater and input)
- Liberty, MO Fire
- Liberty, MO Police
- North Kansas City, MO Police
(Licensed as WNBC651 for repeater input channel)
- Oak Grove, MO Emergency Management
- Odessa, MO Police
- Olathe, KS Police
- Olathe, KS Fire
- Overland Park, KS Police
- Platte County, MO Sheriff
- Prairie Village, KS Police
- Raymore, MO Emergency Management
- Raytown, MO Emergency Preparedness
- Riverside, MO Public Safety
(Licensed as WQBQ849 for repeater input)
- West Peculiar, MO Fire
- Wyandotte County, KS Emergency Management
The feed will be manually activated if severe weather threatens, and automatically activated for the following:
- Hazardous Weather Outlook:
- Usually broadcast around 6 AM CST (feed online 5:45-6:15 AM)
- Usually broadcast around 1 PM CST (feed online 12:45-1:15 PM)
- Sometimes broadcast between 6 and 7 PM CST (feed online 5:45-7:15 PM)
- Monthly Weather Briefing:
- Broadcast at 9 AM CST on the first Wednesday of the month. (feed online 8:45-10:30 AM on first Wednesday of the month)
There is usually an announcement during this briefing regarding the weekly weather radio activation test.
- Monthly roll call:
- At 10 AM CST on the first Wednesday of the month. (feed online 8:45-10:30 AM on first Wednesday of the month)
Due to the delay or possible failure of any of the equipment involved to provide this feed, it should not be used as a single source of information in making critical life-saving evacuation decisions.
The radio is an early 1980's era Motorola Maxar which connects to a homemade clone of the Decibel Products/Andrew DB220 folded dipole antenna. This feed, along with the Kansas City SkyWarn Net feed is encoded using a 1997-1998 era IBM Aptiva computer with an AMD 233 MHz processor with 64 MB of RAM. The soundcard is a CT4870 Creative Labs. The operating system is a GUI-less version of Linux Debian 6.0. Liveice is used as the source client.
Updated: February 18, 2013, 13:15 CST
