The familiar loud “FEMA alert” tone you hear on TV and radio is made up of two audio frequencies played together: 853 Hz and 960 Hz.

Quick Scoop: What “frequency” is the FEMA alert?

When people online talk about “the FEMA frequency,” they usually mean one of three things: the alert tone itself, the data tones inside the alert, or the radio channels that carry alerts.

1. The classic attention tone

On TV and radio, Emergency Alert System (EAS) messages use an attention signal to grab your ears.

  • This attention signal is a dual‑tone sound.
  • The two frequencies used together are:
    • 853 Hz
    • 960 Hz
  • That’s the loud blaring sound you recognize from tests and real alerts.

These tones are designed to be annoying on purpose so you’ll notice them even in the background.

2. The “digital beeping” data part

Before and after the spoken message, there’s also a burst of fast, digital‑sounding beeps.

  • This is called SAME (Specific Area Message Encoding), which tells devices what kind of alert it is and what area it covers.
  • SAME uses frequency‑shift keying (FSK) :
    • “Mark” (1s): about 2083.3 Hz
    • “Space” (0s): about 1562.5 Hz
  • The signal is about 1200 Hz wide and encodes the alert details in those tones.

You don’t usually need to know this unless you’re into radio, signal decoding, or building your own receiver.

3. Radio frequencies that carry alerts

Some people asking “what frequency is the FEMA alert?” are actually thinking of the radio channels where alerts are commonly heard.

The big one for public alerts is NOAA Weather Radio , which regularly carries weather and emergency alerts and can relay EAS messages:

  • 162.400 MHz
  • 162.425 MHz
  • 162.450 MHz
  • 162.475 MHz
  • 162.500 MHz
  • 162.525 MHz
  • 162.550 MHz

These are VHF radio frequencies used by weather radios, scanners, and some emergency gear.

On top of that:

  • TV and AM/FM radio stations you already listen to can interrupt normal programming and carry EAS alerts on whatever station/frequency they normally use.
  • Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) — like the nationwide FEMA/FCC phone tests — go over cell networks to your phone, not a single “magic frequency” you can tune to like a radio channel.

4. Clearing up common rumors

Online forums sometimes spin conspiracy theories about FEMA “blasting a secret frequency” during alert tests that can harm people or “activate” something in their bodies. Based on how the system actually works:

  • The alert your phone gets is just a data message over normal cellular infrastructure , plus a loud notification sound generated by your phone.
  • The TV/radio tones are simple audio frequencies in the human hearing range (hundreds to a couple thousand hertz), not exotic radiation or special EMF beams.

In other words, it’s the same kind of sound you’d get from any audio recording, just engineered to be impossible to ignore. TL;DR:

  • The classic EAS “FEMA alert” tone on TV/radio uses 853 Hz and 960 Hz together as the attention signal.
  • The encoded data beeps use around 1562.5 Hz and 2083.3 Hz.
  • Common broadcast channels for alerts include NOAA Weather Radio frequencies like 162.400–162.550 MHz ; phone alerts don’t use a single public “frequency” you can tune to.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.