By Rusty Nixon Correspondent
PLYMOUTH — Area emergency management agencies want citizens to be safe — and they’re even willing to take the time to help people electronically.

On Saturday at the Plymouth Walgreens from 7 a.m. to noon, members of the Marshall County Emergency Management Agency, Marshall County Amateur Radio, Marshall County Sheriff’s Reserve and National Weather Service Meteorologists will participate in NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) Weather Radio Programming Day.
NOAA Weather Radio All Hazards (NWR) program is one of the many National Weather Service operational program offices.
NOAA Weather Radio is an integral operational entity of every National Weath-er Service forecast office.
The name NOAA Weather Radio represents radio receivers that are capable of receiving weather and/or warning information from National Weather Service Forecast Offices, approved Department of Homeland Security offices responsible for the dissemination of warning information, and those Emergency Operation Centers that have been specifically authorized to disseminate warnings on the NWR operational frequencies. To be called a NOAA Weather Radio All Hazards receiver, the device must possess specific receiver requirements.
NOAA Weather Radio All Hazards (NWR) is a nationwide network of radio stations broadcasting continuous weather information directly from the National Weather Service office in Northern Indiana.
NWR broadcasts official Weather Service warnings, watches, forecasts and other hazard information 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Specific Area Message Encoding Technology
With the cooperation and promotion by WNDU and Walgreen's, the NWS will offer programming assistance for any NOAA Weather Radio with SAME (Specific Area Message Encoding) capabilities.
SAME enables the NOAA Weather Radio to be programmed to receive warnings for a specific list of counties.
Additionally, specific watch, warnings, and advisories can be set to trigger an alarm or alert on the NOAA Weather Radio. The SAME six digit identification format allows listeners to filter NWR broadcast of warnings and emergency alerts for their selected geographic areas. 
An additional application of SAME includes automatic system turn “on.”