Emergency Radio: Eton Scorpion?

I realized the one thing that i lack in backpacking trips, car trips, and prepping equipment is an emergency/weather radio.

Do you think the Eton Scorpion is a good,portable, and light in weight radio for backpacking, camping, and other emergencies. Any Eton Scorpion owners out there?

I have never taken a radio--that's one of the things I go backpacking to get away from--along with phones and other gadgets! The one "gadget" I take is my camera.

It's far better to learn to read the clouds and various other weather signs! Weather forecasts here in the Pacific NW are pretty unreliable anyway, I've found. That's particularly true in mountains, which create their own local weather.

I do carry a Personal Locator Beacon in case of life-threatening emergency, but only because I go solo. Call it psychological weight-saving, if you will, getting friends and family off my back.

Do you own the SPOT II beacon?

No, I have a McMurdo Fastfind. The SPOT is not considered a Personal Locator Beacon. A true PLB uses official US government satellites and is registered with the US Coast Guard (NOAA). There is only one button to push and it connects with the Coast Guard. The SPOT uses a private (somewhat iffy, I've read) satellite system and a private registration system.

If I was going to carry anything, I'd carry a sat phone or maybe a PLB. Once you are out in the wilderness, radio reception will be sketchy at best. My feeling is that unless you have a base camp team that can relay weather reports to you by radio or phone, you aren't going to get a signal.

When I was in NZ, many of the mountain huts on the South Island had radios in them linked to one of the ranger stations. You called in every night to let them know how many people were in the hut and get the latest weather updates.

I have a very small Sony (M37?) which has weather bands. It works great in a marine environment, but I am not so sure about reception in the mountains. Learn to read the sky.