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NOAA Weather Radio
The one broadcast that keeps going when everything else is down. A weather radio with SAME alerting is the only thing on this page that wakes you up at 3 AM, and it needs no license, no app and no internet.

Printable comms card. The essentials from every tab on one page, with space for your household plan. Print it and keep it by the weather radio or in the car, where it works when the internet doesn't.

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For the Wimberley Valley: WXK27 on 162.400 MHz. The Austin transmitter, 1,000 watts, licensed to cover Bastrop, Blanco, Burnet, Caldwell, Hays, Lee, Travis and Williamson counties. Program SAME code 048209 so a desk radio alarms only for Hays County.
162.400 MHz
WXK27, Austin
Primary for Hays County. SAME 048209.
162.550 MHz
WXK67, San Antonio
Covers Comal, Bexar, Guadalupe, Kendall and neighbors. The likelier second signal from the south end of the Valley.
Scan all seven
162.400, 162.425, 162.450, 162.475, 162.500, 162.525, 162.550. Use this when the Austin transmitter is down; it was off the air for repairs in November 2025. Kerrville (WWF90, 162.450) is a long shot from here.

SAME alerting

A dedicated weather radio (Midland and similar desktop models) or a handheld scanner with a weather alert function can sit silent until the National Weather Service issues a warning for your county, then sound an alarm. Set the county code to 048209 and it ignores warnings for surrounding counties.

Keep it plugged in with fresh backup batteries. This is the device that works when the cell network and the power are both out.

Warn Central Texas

The other thing that wakes you up. warncentraltexas.org is the free regional alert system run by CAPCOG for Hays and nine surrounding counties. Register a cell number and email for your street address and local emergency officials can reach you by text, call or email with evacuation and shelter notices for your neighborhood.

It depends on the cell network, so it complements a weather radio rather than replacing one.

AM and FM Broadcast
Any car radio or battery radio gets these. Local first, then Austin, then the big-signal AM stations that reach the Valley after dark.
Wimberley
FreqCallNotes
94.3 FMKWVH-LPLocal emergencyWimberley Valley Radio. Community nonprofit chartered to carry public and emergency information and local news. Formed after the 2015 Memorial Day flood. Also streams at wimberleyvalleyradio.org.
104.1 FMKOWO-LPWimberley Texan Radio. Volunteer nonprofit built around Wimberley High School sports and community programming. Not an emergency broadcaster, but local.
Regional FM
FreqCallNotes
90.5 FMKUTAustin NPR. Extended coverage during regional emergencies.
99.7 FMKLBJFM simulcast of 590 AM. Austin news and talk on a car radio.
103.9 FMKBEYMarble Falls. Hill Country news for Blanco, Burnet and Johnson City; news on the hour weekday mornings and evenings.
107.1 FMKLZTAustin, Spanish language.
AM
FreqCallNotes
590 AMKLBJAustin news and talk, Fox News Radio on the hour. The Austin station most likely to stay with a developing story.
1200 AMWOAISan Antonio news and talk, 50,000 watts. The fallback when Austin signals are disrupted.
740 AMKTRHHouston, 50,000 watts. Audible here at night by skywave.
After sunset the ionosphere carries AM signals hundreds of miles. WBAP 820 (Dallas), KTRH 740 (Houston) and WOAI 1200 (San Antonio) all come in after dark, which matters if local stations are knocked off the air.
MeshCore Mesh
Text messaging that works with no cell service, no internet and no grid power. No license, about $50, and it reaches the Valley.

What it is. Small solar-powered radios on hilltops and rooftops relay short text messages from one to the next across the region, using LoRa radio in the 900 MHz band. You carry a companion radio the size of a car key fob, paired to your phone over Bluetooth, and type in an app. Austin Mesh, a volunteer group, has built this network out from downtown Austin across the Hill Country, and as of mid-2026 it reaches Dripping Springs, Driftwood, Wimberley and San Marcos. Adapted from austinmesh.org, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Here in the Valley

The Wimberley Valley Amateur Radio Club hosts a solar repeater on a hilltop tower near the Square. It links directly to a downtown Austin node, with Driftwood, Fischer and the Dripping Springs cluster around it. Coverage in the Valley is good but not everywhere, and growing.

Nobody in the Valley runs an observer node yet. The nearest listening posts are around Dripping Springs. A resident who hosts one would put Wimberley on the live map.

WVARC members are active on the mesh. There is no club channel yet; the way in is Friday breakfast or Tuesday coffee (see Ham Repeaters).

Getting on

Radio: the Seeed Wio Tracker L1 Pro for MeshCore, about $50, comes pre-flashed in an enclosure with a battery and antenna. Nothing to install on the radio. An aftermarket antenna helps at the edge of coverage; RF Index publishes tested comparisons of radios and antennas.

App: MeshCore for iPhone or Android. Pair over Bluetooth, pick a handle, send an advert. Austin Mesh's setup walkthrough covers the rest.

Channels: the Public channel is already on every radio; everyone on the mesh sees it, and it's the place to ask neighbors for information or help. Other channels you add yourself: tap +Add Channel, join a hashtag channel, and type the name in lowercase. Start with #testing, where people and bots answer test messages, to confirm your radio reaches the mesh.

Do it before you need it. A radio set up during a flood is a radio that doesn't work.

Two commands worth knowing

Join the #bot channel and send !flood for river gauge status or !nws for active weather warnings. A volunteer gateway answers over the radio. It also pushes flash flood and severe storm warnings to #alerts as they are issued.

Join the #meshwx channel and send wx 78676 for current conditions, warn 78676 for NWS warnings, or forecast 78676 for the forecast. Send help for the full list. A volunteer bot named WX-AUS answers on the channel. It gets its weather from a satellite dish, not the internet, so it keeps working when the internet is out. Replies are limited by distance, so if nothing comes back, you may be too many hops from the bot.

See it live

CoreScope shows every node and message the volunteer observers hear, on a map, in real time. Useful situational awareness even without a radio.

txme.sh is the bot service behind #bot, with its own map and an explanation of how the weather and flood alerts work.

austinmesh.org for the network, its repeaters, a monthly meetup and a Discord where people will help.

Limits. Text only. This is volunteer-run, best-effort infrastructure, not an emergency service; the warning you act on comes from the National Weather Service and Hays County, and no official agency is known to monitor the mesh. Everything on the Public channel and the hashtag channels is readable and archived on the open web, so use a handle and treat Public as public. The mesh is new and everyone is still figuring it out.
FRS, GMRS and MURS
Family and neighborhood radios. FRS is what most households already own; GMRS adds range and a Wimberley repeater for a $35 license with no exam.

FRS

The walkie-talkies sold in pairs at any big-box store. No license, up to 2 watts, channels 1 to 22. They share those channels with GMRS, so a family on FRS can talk to a neighbor on GMRS. Range is a mile or two in the Valley's terrain, less in the river bottoms.

GMRS

Same channels, more power, and repeaters. A $35 FCC license covers your whole household for ten years, no exam. Channels 1 to 7 allow up to 5 watts, 8 to 14 are limited to 0.5 watts, and 15 to 22 allow up to 50 watts from a mobile or base radio.

Channel 20, 462.675 with tone 141.3, is the informal travel and emergency channel. Not official, but widely monitored.

GMRS repeaters reachable from the Valley
OutputInputToneLocationNotes
462.600467.600none listedWimberley
WRJV395		OpenLocal Valley coverage, about a 5 mile radius. Try carrier squelch first. A Tuesday evening net is listed; time unconfirmed. Repeaterbook entry last updated March 2024.
462.550467.550103.5Canyon Lake
WRUW408		Open20 mile radius with reports from Dripping Springs. Time and weather at the top of the hour and NOAA alerts as they come in. Likely from the south end of the Valley and the Devil's Backbone. Updated January 2026.
462.700467.700136.5Buda
WSGB808		OpenSunday 8 PM SHARC-NET, visitors welcome. Useful along the 290 corridor. Updated December 2024.
MURS (no license)
ChannelFrequencyNotes
MURS 1151.820VHF, which handles the Valley's hills and trees better than UHF. 2 watts max, no license, no tone needed. Good for ranch, farm and neighborhood use. Channels 1 to 3 are narrowband.
MURS 2151.880
MURS 3151.940
MURS 4154.570Channels 4 and 5 are the wideband pair; older business radios and store "blue dot" and "green dot" units live here.
MURS 5154.600
FRS to start. GMRS when you want range and the Wimberley repeater. Ham radio when you want everything else, and the people who run it (see Ham Repeaters).
Amateur Radio Repeaters
For licensed amateurs. Working repeaters only, verified October 2026 against Repeaterbook and the clubs' own pages. Anyone can listen; transmitting needs a license.
Wimberley Valley Amateur Radio Club (WVARC): 145.250, offset −0.600, tone 162.2, at the Square. Club net Tuesdays 7:00 PM. The club has no website. It meets for breakfast Fridays 7 to 9 AM at the Wimberley Cafe and for coffee Tuesdays at 9 AM at Brookshire Brothers. WVARC also hosts the Valley's mesh repeater (see Mesh).
2 meter
CallOutputOffsetToneNotes
AK5Q145.250−0.600162.2Net Tue 7 PMWimberley Square. WVARC. The in-town repeater.
KE5LOT147.050+0.600114.8Net Tue 7:30 PMKyle. Hays/Caldwell Amateur Radio Club, hchams.com. County-wide coverage.
W5DK146.920−0.600131.8Devil's Backbone, the high ground between here and San Marcos.
W5MIX146.740−0.600noneDripping Springs. EchoLink and IRLP.
70 centimeter
CallOutputOffsetToneNotes
WA5AP442.550+5.000141.3Wimberley. The trustee's 2 meter machine on 147.100 has been off the air since September 2025; this one is up.
W5MOT444.325+5.000186.2Dripping Springs. IRLP.
Simplex
FrequencyBandNotes
146.5202 mNational simplex calling frequency. The first place to call if the repeaters are down.
446.00070 cmNational UHF simplex calling frequency.
Tones are for transmitting. To listen to any repeater, tune its output frequency and open the squelch; you'll hear everything regardless of tone. Hays County ARES is run through HCARC; confirm the current net on hchams.com.
Public Safety, Hays County
Hays County law enforcement and fire/EMS now run mostly on LCRA's P25 trunked radio system, which a Baofeng or a basic scanner cannot receive. What's listed below is the conventional VHF that still carries audio.
Receive only. These are licensed public safety frequencies. Transmitting on them without authorization is a federal crime. Listen for situational awareness; call 911 to reach them.
Fire and EMS
FrequencyToneNotes
154.010151.4Wimberley VFD dispatch. The channel that matters during a local fire or flood.
155.895151.4Wimberley Fire/EMS dispatch, patched from the LCRA system.
154.385151.4East Hays fire dispatch, patched from LCRA.
154.355DCS 351South Hays fire dispatch, patched from LCRA.
154.250127.3North Hays fire operations, patched from LCRA.
Sheriff
FrequencyToneNotes
155.865151.4LegacyHays County Sheriff VHF 1. Still licensed and listed, but the county is migrating fully to P25 and this may carry little or nothing.
155.970151.4LegacyHays County Sheriff VHF 2. Same caveat.
The P25 path. The LCRA P25 system that carries most county traffic can be received with an inexpensive software-defined radio and free trunking software such as SDRTrunk. No hardware needed: Broadcastify's Hays County page streams a Hays County fire and EMS feed online, which works until the internet doesn't.
During a flood, the warning does not come from the sheriff's channel. It comes from the National Weather Service. See the Weather Radio tab.
HF Emergency Nets
For licensed amateurs with HF privileges. When repeaters and the internet are down, the Texas HF nets are how word gets in and out of the region.
If everything is down: monitor 145.250 and 147.050. If the repeaters are silent, call on 146.520 simplex. For statewide information, the Texas ARES net frequencies below. For getting word to family, the health and welfare frequencies.
Local
FrequencyModeNetSchedule
7.188 MHzLSBWVARC Saturday morning net. Wimberley Valley Amateur Radio Club, 40 meters.Saturdays 8:30 AM
Texas ARES
FrequencyModeNetSchedule
3.873 MHzLSBTexas ARES emergency and tactical traffic, night. The Texas Traffic Net also meets here nightly.Texas ARES: Mondays 7:30 PM. Texas Traffic Net: nightly 6:30 to 7:30 PM. Continuous during disasters.
7.285 MHzLSBTexas ARES emergency and tactical traffic, day. When 80 meters goes long after sunrise.Daytime during disasters. Texas morning traffic net 8:30 AM.
3.935 MHzLSBTexas ARES health and welfare, night. Family welfare messages in and out of a disaster area.During disasters
7.290 MHzLSBTexas ARES health and welfare, day.During disasters
Why there are day and night frequencies
BandFrequencyModeBestReach
80 m3.5 to 4.0 MHzLSBNightTexas and neighboring states. The statewide nets live here after dark.
40 m7.0 to 7.3 MHzLSBDay and eveningRegional to national. Texas traffic nets by day.
20 m14.0 to 14.35 MHzUSBDayNational to international.
Hays County ARES is run through HCARC; confirm the current net on hchams.com. Register with ARES before a disaster, not during one. The section-level source is ARRL South Texas.
Wimberley Watchtower · Radio & Comms · Wimberley, TX 78676 · Printable card (PDF) Verified October 2026 against Repeaterbook, RadioReference, NWS, FCC and club sources. Confirm any frequency before relying on it in an emergency.