# Looking for a good wind-up radio.



## jtice (Jul 28, 2006)

I am after a good wind up radio.

There are quite a few times I am out somewhere, camping, riding, etc, that I would like to take a radio.

I fugured a wind up one would be best, since I dont have to constantly see if the battiers are fresh before I leave.

I would also like it to be simi water proof, and pickup weather stations.
But those aren't a Must have.

Anyone know of a good one?
~John


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## Stormdrane (Jul 28, 2006)

Here's one.


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## powernoodle (Jul 28, 2006)

I have an Eton FR250. See it here. I had never heard of this maker, but apparently they make Grundig as well, which I have heard of. This one has the windup AM/FM/SW, 3-LED light, siren and you can charge your cell phone off it. I keep this one with my bugout stuff, and its always worked as its supposed to.

cheers


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## jtice (Jul 28, 2006)

Stormdrane,
thanks, I saw that one today while searching, looks nice, like that its water resistant.

Powernoodle,
thats the main one I have been seeing, well, the FR200.
and yes, it seems that Grundig and Eton are the same.

How does it sound?
I am not expecting much from a little radio like this,
but it would be nice for it to at least sound good enough for a few ppl sitting around the camp fire.

~John


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## was_jlh (Jul 28, 2006)

jt, check on http://www.ccrane.com/ site


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## greenLED (Jul 28, 2006)

Grundig


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## SimplyJ (Jul 28, 2006)

jtice said:


> I am after a good wind up radio.
> 
> Anyone know of a good one?
> ~John



Amazon.com has a bunch. Some have shortwave and TV audio and emergency LEDs. 

Here's one example:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000EIBVKG/?tag=cpf0b6-20

It's an Eton and the price seems to be decent.


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## Radio (Jul 28, 2006)

JT, check my sig line. Which one you want, I have several of each?


:lolsign:


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## jtice (Jul 28, 2006)

Sweet Tube 

I will catch you in chat tonight, I want a FR300 p p p p please 

~John


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## powernoodle (Jul 28, 2006)

jtice said:


> Eton . . . How does it sound?



Its fine. Nice and clear, and plenty of volume if you need it.

cheers


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## buba (Jul 28, 2006)

I noticed many come in either AM/FM/SW or AM/FM/Weather/TV. Which would be the best to have the SW or Weather/TV?

Thanks


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## jtice (Jul 28, 2006)

weather is more important to me,
gettiong the weather report while camping is great.


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## powernoodle (Jul 28, 2006)

If everything in your area was knocked out by a hurricane or nuke attack, it might be better to have SW, because you wouldnt be receiving any local tv or NOAA. But at night, you can still pickup AM stations that are skipping in from hundreds of miles away.

I'd rather have tv and NOAA, I think. 

cheers


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## Steelwolf (Jul 28, 2006)

Those radios all look very good and definitely has more functions than mine. I've just got a small Freeplay radio. The small, older model with the wind-up spring. Only AM/FM. But it works well and very robust. Not particulary weather resistant though.

Any one of these wind-up radios have digital tuning? I find it quite hard to tune in to a particular station, especially in a busy city where there are multiple stations in close proximity, or when the signal is weak like out in the bush. Multiple stations is especially a pain. Anyone been in Singapore? BBC at 89.0, RiaFM at 89.7, GoldFM at 90.5, something at 91.3, Symphony at 92.4, and so on... 0.7 MHz is not easily distinguished on my Freeplay radio.


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## jtice (Jul 28, 2006)

Yea, all the Eton and Grundig radios seemed nice,

I grabbed this one off ebay 
Thanks for the input guys !
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=330010588893&ssPageName=STRK:MEWN:IT&ih=014

~John


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## Pydpiper (Jul 29, 2006)

Nice choice John, that unit with the Grundig name on it sells for about $70 here.


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## buba (Aug 2, 2006)

I had a $25 amazon gift certificate and put it toward the FR400 unit. I looked hard at the FR200 and FR300's but the weather resistance and small size made me decide to give it a try dispite a couple of neg reviews about Radio/TV channel separation problems on amazon. Thus far I am happy I did. Everything works as advertised with no signal separation issues on the unit I received. But then I live 70 miles from the nearest TV transmitter. Once again thanks for everyones advice.


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## jtice (Aug 2, 2006)

Cool Buba,

I looked at that one also.
I ended up getting a FR200 off ebay.
I heard it has the best reception of all the models.

I just got a confirmation for shipping today,
so I might have it by the end of the week 
I will let you know what I think of it!

~John


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## sotyakr (Aug 2, 2006)

Here's a "radiohead's" review of the FR300.


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## chiphead (Aug 3, 2006)

buba said:


> I noticed many come in either AM/FM/SW or AM/FM/Weather/TV. Which would be the best to have the SW or Weather/TV?
> 
> Thanks


Weather/TV

Chiphead


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## Wingerr (Aug 4, 2006)

If you're planning to use it for long term storage emergency use, don't count on the rechargeable battery pack being anything but discharged when you need it- Keep alkalines or lithiums in the AA compartment with a separator to keep them from accidentally discharging, so you'll have power when you need it.
Trying to crank charge the fully discharged pack is pretty hopeless, I found; more time spent cranking than you get back in play time. You pretty much have to just continuously crank it to use it, and that's confined to FM, because the charging noise interference is too obtrusive on AM.
I have a Freeplay spring wound radio that I like better for storage purposes, though it's only AM/FM. I like that because it's a known quantity everytime I use it, and I can quickly crank it up for extended play. Sound from the much larger radio is excellent too-


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## Flying Turtle (Aug 4, 2006)

I have both spring-wound (Freeplay) and dynamo types of radios. Like Wingerr says, the Freeplay has consistant performance. Mine is also one of the older AM/FM models, so it's big and heavy, but the sound is pretty good. It also gets enough power from its solar cells to play loud. One downside to me is having to also listen to the spring unwind, but that's only noticable at low volume.

Geoff


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## buba (Aug 4, 2006)

The construction of the FR400 would make is easy to wire in three sanyo eneloop AA cells in place of the 3 - 2/3 aaa cell pack. But that would take a lot of cranking to recharge or use the ac adapter one a year to recharge. 

Technically that would be a flashlight mod since the FR400 has an LED light


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## Wingerr (Aug 4, 2006)

If you connected it up to the three AA's, it'd take about 10 hours to charge up, with the 200mA charge current it puts out. Doing it a while definitely makes you gain a better appreciation of battery chargers and what they do for you- 

Short circuit current output from the phone charger jack is about 650mA, and open circuit voltage is limited to about 8V. If you have some very low current device, it might be useful for powering them, with the addition of a regulator.


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## wmirag (Aug 5, 2006)

I like the wind-up radios, especially those with LED lights. I have the Freeplay with wind-up, solar, and AC sources. Nicer would be one that charges a cell phone battery too.

But my Freeplay is the size of a shoe box and it's heavy!

In contrast, my Sangean 210V is the size of a cigarette pack, has a speaker, produces a great Stereo sound on phones, and tunes better than my Freeplay. 

Most important, in the size and weight of the Freeplay, I could store the Sangean and enough batteries to run it for YEARS. So I think we should all consider the alternative of a small radio with a lot of batteries. Besides portability, the batteries would be a form of currency in an extended emergecy.

W.


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## jtice (Aug 6, 2006)

Heres alittle update on the Grundig FR200 Radio I got off ebay. for $36 shipped.

Its box says Eton, the radio says Grundig lol

Its very nice for the price.
Seems well made, 
the freq. adjustment knob, has a smaller knob in the middle of it for finer adjustment, a very nice touch.
I was pleasantly surprised by its clean sound.
It sounds much clearer than you would think to look at it, and goes to very usable loudness levels to fill a garage, etc.
The small speaker puts out virtually no bass, as to be expected.
But, the good thing, is that they thought to block the bass to the speaker, its not even attempting to produce bass tones.
This is one of the main things that will make the speaker sound better, 
and increases efficieny.

One of the things I was worried about, was crank to listen ratio.
They claim about 2 minutes of cranking is worth 1 hour of listening.
And so far, I have seen this to be that good or better.
Heres the cycles I have done so far.

Battery out of the box = 3.428V
Ran the radio 5 to 10 minutes here and there, testing it out for a day.
Cranked radio about 2 to 2.5 minutes.
Listened to radio in garage for about 1.5 hours.
Radio sound starts to get worse, and not as loud as running off the 3 lithium AAs I had in it.
Cranked radio alittle under 3 minutes.
Battery = 4.04V
Ran Radio for 1 hour, volume level for a small room.
Battery = 3.858V

So far, so good.
This is proving to be a very nice radio.
I am sure it perform great on my week camping trip coming up the 12th 

~John


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## TinderBox (UK) (Aug 7, 2006)

I just won one of these on ebay.

A baygen freeplay radio FM/MW/SW, clockwork no battery`s to die.
30min runtime from a 20 second wind.

$18.50 for the radio and $35.00 NEW, shipped from the US, works out about £28.00UK in total.







regards.


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## Wingerr (Aug 8, 2006)

I checked my FR-300 radio, and it seems to have a slight draw on the batteries even when everything it turned off; about 0.3mA. (Both 
Don't know if mine is defective or if it's part of the design, though I don't see why anything in there should require any kind of standby power.
That may be why the batteries always seem to be discharged when I go to use it after a long period of disuse.

Should be okay if you're constantly using it and recharging it, but you might want to see if you have a similar standby drain, and unplug the battery pack and batteries when storing for the long term.

I'd be interested if anyone else has the same thing with their FR-300.


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## jtice (Aug 8, 2006)

Is yours one that will alert you to the national weather alerts?
If so, its constantly monitoring that signal.

~John


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## Wingerr (Aug 8, 2006)

It has the alert feature, but I have it turned to 'off', so I didn't expect it to still be drawing anything. No clock or anything that should need standby power, which is why it was odd that it should draw anything at all-


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## Sharpdogs (Aug 9, 2006)

I would look into the Grundig models. I keep one in my disaster kit with some other supplies.


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## Wingerr (Aug 9, 2006)

:huh2:

Well here's something interesting- I turned the switch to "Alert", instead of "Off", and whadya know, the current draw dropped to zero. I'll have to try to find my manual to see if this is really supposed to be backwards like this, where off might actually be the position used for monitoring weather alerts, and alert is off. Too bad there's no way to confirm if it's actually monitoring without an actual transmission occurring.

Either way, I'll be keeping my switch on Alert from now on to preserve the battery power, whether or not it actually is on Alert mode.


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## CostcoAAcells (Aug 10, 2006)

John,

I have a Grundig FR-200 for 3 years now. It's a good little radio. I keep it in the bathroom and listen to it when I get dressed in the morning. A newbie at the time, I bought it being influenced by its German name sake--but it turns out Grundig doesn't make their radios in Germany anymore. IIRC, their higher end radios are assembled in Malaysia and their less expensive ones are assembled in China. No big deal, I still feel I got my $39.99 worth.

After 3 years it has developed a crackle when adjusting the volume pot. The battery compartment can swing open with little provocation. Those are the only problems so far, which aren't even that bothersome. I don't use its hand crank feature very often, only once in a while to make sure it works. I'm trying to preserve the cranking mechanism for a real emergency and for when I don't have any AA cells around. I know the internal rechargeable pack won't live forever; I do plan on replacing it sometime in the next couple years--just in case.

I've replaced the light bulb with an MJLED. It slid right in and works great. No more worrying about when that bulb will burn out.

The shortwave reception is poor on mine. The only thing that comes in really well is religious programming from a nearby city. I can occasionally get a few other frequencies, but they are religious and USA in origin as well. Don't expect any great long distance (DX) performance out of this guy. The FR-200 got me interested in SW for a while and I ended up buying a more expensive Sangean ATS-909 for SW listening. After a while I completely lost interest in SW because I learned that most things I liked listening to were also simulcast streaming on the internet and sound 100 times better. Besides monitoring fire/police radio with a scanner is far more exciting.

Good choice in a handcrank radio, John!

- Frank


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