Hand Cranked Emergency Radio?

M

maury

Joined
Sep 24, 2000
Messages
606
One of the dubious “benefits” of living in Downtown Manhattan for the last week has been a chance to see just how well the emergency supplies and equipment I have worked. Happy to report that just about everything performed as expected. Even better, our apartment house only suffered minimal damage, loss of water for the week and so on. Lots of folks fared much, much worse.

Anyway, one item that needs to be replaced was my hand-cranked radio. It is an older model, bought at Radio Shack some years ago. It worked well enough, but the sound of the spring motor that (I presume) operated the generator was really loud. As might be imagined, this got to be particularly annoying as time passed. It also was not equipped to charge a cell phone as I see some newer ones are.

So, can anyone recommend a reliable emergency radio that works off a hand crank, charges a cell phone and runs quietly?
 
CC Solar Observer AM/FM/Weather Emergency Radio w/ LED Flashlight

[video=youtube;g0hg_fdaikg]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=g0hg_fdaikg#![/video]
 
Eton is a well-regarded brand of emergency crank radio. I have one here at the secret underground bunker, and my elderly parents have one as well. A good crank radio should be part of everyone's preparedness regime, even if you have a generator, etc. Knowing what is going on in the outside world is essential, both practically and psychologically.
 
I have an Eton radio as part of my emergency disaster gear. It has a flashlight and a USB connector for (slow) recharging of cellphones in addition to the radio feature.
 
I have an Eton that I use for camping. The stations don't come in very good, The solar power only works on very sunny days, and seems to be cheaply made for the price. I haven't used any other crank radios to compare it to but I only give it a C at best.
 
I have an Eton and a Grundig,both of them have features that I like,the Grundig is AM/FM,shortwave,the batteries are easily replaceable,the crank charges a separate battery pack,one like cordless phones use,the radio works better than the Eton but the light that's on it isn't much better than a nightlight.The Eton is AM/FM with 7 weather channels and a cell phone charger,the flashlight on it is great,the weather channels work good,the AM/FM leaves a little bit to be desired,it also charges by solar power but as mentioned before,it needs to be in pretty direct sunlight to charge.
 
tipup09 said:
I have an Eton that I use for camping. The stations don't come in very good, The solar power only works on very sunny days, and seems to be cheaply made for the price. I haven't used any other crank radios to compare it to but I only give it a C at best.
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I got an eton for a gift a few years ago I would give it a c for Crap as in piece of ...... It would quit playing when you know it was charged 1/2 turn of the crank and it would play for a couple more minutes
Roy
 
plumberroy said:
I got an eton for a gift a few years ago I would give it a c for Crap as in piece of ...... It would quit playing when you know it was charged 1/2 turn of the crank and it would play for a couple more minutes
Roy
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That's good to know. The misses wants one for Christmas. I'll have to look for something else.
 
AlexWitte said:
That's good to know. The misses wants one for Christmas. I'll have to look for something else.
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The one I have (it's in the grand kids toybox) is the smallest one they make. The play the radio will play a few minutes and die move the crank ever so slightly and it will play a couple more minutes . It usually quit about the time some one on the reds made a big play:mad: air mailing it in to the next room doesn't help it either :D
Roy
 
these are all junk IMHO. get a shortwave capable radio like a GP4L. Solidly built. They actually work, thats a plus for me in an emergency situation. Another way to go about this is to have a folding solar panel you can hook your rechargeable batteries for your flashlight, your phone charger and DC your radio.
 
Sangean. Yes, that's a hand crank on top.

51PK13QY83L._SX385_.jpg
 
My take is that emergency radios are meant for just that, emergencies. So what if you need to keep cranking in order to get weather & emergency news? What else do you have time for when sitting in the dark? Being able to add a few more minutes to your cellphone and getting the equivalent of candlepower is also important when you have nothing. The price of these units usually reflects that.

If you want an full-time radio, then get something like a Bose.
 
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