All the morons at Acurite need to do is add an external antenna jack to the bridge and sell an external antenna to give you more range/more reliable signal.
Before you bash Accu-Rite too much, it may be worth perusing the FCC regulations that they need to adhere to as equipment manufacturers. Does adding an external antenna connector change anything with their type certification? Does whatever FCC Part they are using 433 MHz under restrict them from using an external antenna if it isn't permanently attached? I know for a fact that all radios permitted for use on the unlicensed FRS channels must have fixed antennas and not detachable per FCC rules, and Wi-Fi access points were originally restricted to only use reverse-TNC connectors for external antennas to prevent the end-user from swapping antennas. I haven't looked up Acu-Rite's stuff above, but it would not surprise me if they have to live under similar crazy regulations.
As I have to remind the "kids" who work under me in IT at my place of employment, knowing which buttons to push is 1% of their job. Knowing *why* they shouldn't push it (or should push it) is the other 99%. Yes, I can solder my own external antenna connector or hire a 12-year-old kid to install Microsoft Exchange on a private email server in my basement in Chappaqua, New York,
but they will fail almost every time to configure the e-discovery and archiving properly to adhere to corporate/government message retention requirements.....