Emergency Weather Radios

This. :arrow_upper_right:

When I see a simple radio that includes a flashlight, powerbank function, bluetoof connectivity to play t00nz from your phone, other idiotic crap, that screams to me that the radio in general is garbage, and they add all that other garbage to “add value”.

What’s sad is that people buy into it… and buy it.

If anyone cares, my “weather radio” is my scanner tuned with the NOAA freqs.

Miss the actual voice recordings, as the robots just sound creepy. “Uncanny valley”, and all…

[quote=toddcshoe]

Nothing fancy. This is the second one I made, kinda crude but functional. The other one is buried in my bag. I tried to use the Xtar PB2 charger/power bank but the radio doesn’t pull enough current to keep the PB2 on. It also works with one of those Li-100 chargers/power banks but it is a bit bulkier. The Folomov charging cable just fits in my bag better. Just had to make sure I had the polarity right on the plug for the radio. This radio requires center negative, but I can change the polarity of the plug by swapping the magnetic connections on the battery.

Great, now I understand. I have all of this
Thanks!

If you don’t care about AM radio I’d probably recommend a Baofeng UV-5R for ~$25. You can specifically enter any frequency, including all of the weather channels, plus the standard FM radio frequencies. Even comes with a (poor) flashlight. :slight_smile: Just program it to prevent it from transmitting if it’s not legal in your area.

I have 2 of those but I haven’t used them for anything other than P to P communicating.

So do you have to manually enter a frequency? Or can you also scan?

I don’t think these scan but could be wrong…

They can scan fairly slowly, or you can manually enter the frequency. Or both— you could type in 160.000 MHz and then scan from there to find the weather channels.

If you’re in a fixed area, you can just find the one which gives the clearest signal, and keep only that one active.

Eg, by me, I can clearly pick up 162.550MHz (Rockville Center?), but on occasion pick up one that’s in Connecticut somewhere. Spotty reception, so I’d just leave it on “my” station. Wx up there could be drastically different than for my area anyway, so…

Only if you’re traveling would you need to scan anything. And even then, it’s only 7 channels.

I had all 7 in my scanner, and just “enabled” 162.550. I kept them in bank 20, exclusive just for wx stations.

+1
Very useful to have an analog two-way radio, when you really need it.
I am not a lawyer but I heard, when the need arises, you could transmit in case of emergency.

I want to get something better but has to be dirt cheap so if we leave it at the beach, I wont care to drive back an hour to get it. That is why I’m watching this thread. I was looking at the Sangean MMR-88, but at 80 bucks from Amazon.ca, it’s too expensive to lose or damage.
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I have one of those old Radio Scrap crank radios i bought for 20 bucks in the early 2000’s. It goes with us on outings but the chargeable ni-cad went dead a long time ago. And annoyingly, eats up batteries very quickly.

It has a tiny ni-cad pack but it also has slots to takes AA batteries. And here is a question……I wonder if I replace the recharge pack by driving (cranking) the drop in batteries? I have a ton of ni-meh batteries I can put in there. But will I cause any damage to the electronics or the batteries? The are going to be in series. I’m assuming that the crank is going to put out enough voltage to actually charge the batteries….maybe?

https://www.amazon.com/Grundig-FR200-Emergency-Discontinued-Manufacturer/dp/B000083CUA

Anyone fool around with one of these?

I have an FR200. Pulls in stations well but rather poor sound quality. No WB channels preset. Good for listening to a weather/news report bad for music.

Agree.

It’s just background music when sitting at the beach or a picnic. Still works fine, but the crank is now useless because of the dead pack.

Edit….

The Eton is getting some good reviews….from outside Amazon.

https://www.amazon.com/Eton-Emergency-Bluetooth-Smartphone-FRX5BT/dp/B01K6OCSI6/ref=sr_1_4?keywords=eton+emergency+radio&qid=1551486236&s=gateway&sr=8-4

These are hard to beat for the money. Clear and crisp sound and 2x AA battery usage. For an emergency weather radio this little jewel locks on to your local NOAA station with ease. Great little radio on AM & FM also. Picked this one up prior to past hurricane season.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00IKU3PFE/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

ETA: The reviews aren’t that great, but I have to disagree. Guess I got a good one. ymmv

How about this one?

https://www.amazon.com/American-Emergency-Smartphone-ARCFRX3-WXR/dp/B00HSHH5DI/ref=sr_1_3?crid=1558WQJWU222C&keywords=eton+emergency+radio&qid=1551488605&s=electronics&sprefix=Eton+%2Celectronics%2C244&sr=1-3

Does it use an 18650 cell? Is the cell removable?

From the reviews is seems like I does use an 18650 and you can replace it.

From what I have been reading, many of these radios that operate off 18650s come with cheap batteries. Many of the complaints can be fixed by replacing the battery with a better built one.

I’m looking at that one too, but can’t wrap my head around thd cost on a radio that can be stolen/lost/broken in the beach or picnic.

I wonder, is it safe to run unprotected batteries in a muggle radio that is likely to be run down to the ground in an emergency?

Yeah, but some reviews mention some custom harness that the cell is tied to. I couldnt tell if that harness can be easily moved to another cell.

Any feedback on this yet? How do you like it?

I received this one last week. Haven’t had time to really play with it but I do have some initial comments.
The sound is really pretty good for the size and it being a weather radio. It seems to have a higher end tuner in it because I can pick up stations I have never heard before. It’s very solidly built. The solar panel does seem to charge the battery under full sunlight. I have no idea how long it would take to fully charge the battery but it does charge the battery and so does the hand crank.

I do not like the fact that the only battery it can use is a short 18350 button top. It comes with one that I tested to be about 850 mAh which really isn’t that bad. I ordered some extra Keepower 1000 mAh 18350s and they are a little big. I can cram them in but I don’t feel comfortable doing it, its a little hard to get the battery back out. Presently looking around now for some shorter 18350s. Why they didn’t use a 18650 instead is beyond me. There seems to be room for it. The other issues I have are the very flimsy battery cover and the antenna is very easily bent when fully extended. I stopped pulling the very thin last section out.