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The app uses your GPS coordinates to find the 5 NEXRAD weather radars closest to you, sorted by distance. Without location, we have no way to know which radars are nearest.

Your coordinates never leave your device. The list of all NEXRAD radars is bundled with the app, and distance calculations happen locally on your phone.

Android: Settings → Apps → Give Me 5 → Permissions → Location → Allow.

iOS: Settings → Give Me 5 → Location → While Using the App.

Then return to the app and tap refresh.

Right now, no. The radar dataset only covers NEXRAD WSR-88D radars operated by the U.S. National Weather Service. If you're outside the U.S., all radars in your "5 closest" list will be marked out-of-range.

NOAA also covers Puerto Rico, Guam, Hawaii, Alaska, and several U.S. territories — so those work fine.

Each radar is color-coded by its distance from you:

• Green (< 50 mi) — Excellent coverage. The radar sees right above you.
• Cyan (< 125 mi) — Strong coverage. Reliable for nearby weather.
• Amber (< 250 mi) — Useful coverage. Good for regional weather context.
• Red (< 500 mi) — Edge of range. Still useful but beam is climbing.
• Grey (> 500 mi) — Out of useful range. Not tappable.

NEXRAD radar beams travel in straight lines, but the Earth curves underneath. Beyond about 250 miles, the radar beam is so high above the ground that it sees only the upper atmosphere — not the weather where you are.

We allow radars up to 500 miles in the list because in places like Hawaii or remote Alaska, the next-closest radar might still be useful for general context. But anything farther is greyed out because it can't show you anything meaningful about your local weather.

TDWRs (Terminal Doppler Weather Radars) are airport-specific radars designed for windshear detection on landing approaches. They use a different signal format that isn't reliably available as pre-rendered images from NWS.

The good news: the regular NEXRAD WSR-88D radars (like KOKX for NYC or KDIX for Philadelphia) cover the same area and are designed for general weather observation.

List view shows the 5 closest radars as cards sorted by distance, with quick details and a tap to view the loop.

Map view shows the same 5 radars as colored pins on a Google Map alongside your location. Tap any pin to see its details and open the loop.

Out-of-range radars appear (greyed) in the list but are hidden from the map.

When you tap a radar, the app downloads the 10 most recent images and plays them as an animation:

• Pause / Play — toggle animation
• Loop / Rock — Loop replays from start; Rock plays forward then backward
• Speed — six speeds from 0.5x to 5x
• Full — fullscreen for a bigger view
• NOW — manually fetch the very latest frames

NEXRAD updates roughly every 4–10 minutes depending on the radar's scan mode (faster in severe weather). The app auto-refreshes every 3 minutes while you're viewing a loop, and you can tap "NOW" anytime to force a fresh pull.

Each frame has a tick on the timeline. Tap any tick to mark it as bad — the animation will skip it. Useful when a single frame is corrupted or missing data (the orange color flags it as disabled).

Tap an orange tick again to re-enable that frame.

Yes — pinch with two fingers to zoom up to 5x. Drag with one finger to pan. The zoom level stays as you flip between frames.

A few things to check:

• Confirm your device is connected to the internet
• The NWS server occasionally has brief outages — tap NOW to retry
• Individual frames sometimes 404 — these get a broken-image icon; the animation still plays the other frames

If every frame fails consistently for a specific radar, that radar may be offline for maintenance. Try a different one from your list.

Pull the radar list down to refresh, or kill and reopen the app. If you're indoors, your phone's location may be using a cached WiFi-based fix that's miles off from your real position — step outside briefly for a GPS lock, then refresh.

If you see the Google logo but no map tiles, the device is having trouble reaching Google's map servers. Check your internet connection and try again. If it persists across networks, please email us.

Crashes are automatically reported to us via Firebase Crashlytics (no personal info — just device model, OS, and the technical stack trace). We see them and fix them.

If something seems persistently broken, please email support@fritznet.net with what you were doing when it happened.

Two types, both dismissible:

• App Open ad — a full-screen ad that appears when the app launches or returns from background
• Interstitial — a full-screen ad the first time you tap a radar in a session (then no more for that session)

Both come from Google AdMob.

Tap the gear icon in the top-right of the home screen → "Remove ads $2.99". One-time purchase, never expires.

The purchase persists across reinstalls as long as you sign in with the same Google Play or App Store account. Use "Restore Purchases" if you've reinstalled.

Sign in to the same store account (Google Play or Apple App Store) you used for the purchase, then open the app → Settings → Restore Purchases. The entitlement will sync.

Refunds are handled by your app store, not by us directly:

• Google Play: Go to play.google.com → My Orders → request refund within 48 hours of purchase
• Apple App Store: reportaproblem.apple.com → select the purchase → request refund

If there's an issue we can address, email support@fritznet.net first.

Tap the gear icon → "Have a promo code?" card → type the code → Apply. Codes are not case-sensitive.

After several wrong attempts, code entry is temporarily locked to prevent guessing. The lockout escalates: 30 seconds after 3 wrong tries, 5 minutes after 4, 30 minutes after 5, and 24 hours after 6 or more.

Wait for the timer to expire, then double-check your code and try again.