Emergency Radio

Having a hand crank radio with a weather station band is an -essential item to have in your bug-out bag. If any type of event ever occurred, keeping up to date on what is happening is a life saver.

The Weather station band has an electronic voice that reads the high and low temperatures for the area around you, and reports on any adverse conditions. This works well when the power is out and you need to keep an eye on the weather.

The hand crank is great because we all do the same thing, grab what we need and put it away and forget about it. When we actually need the item the batteries are dead.

Manufactures have learned they can jack up prices by adding a light, battery and USB charger. All the literature makes it seem you can whip it out in an emergency and use it as a battery backup for you phone. When you look at the spec's however it's not that easy.

The batteries are generally 2600mAh range, with smartphones usually taking 1800–3000 mAh for a full charge. So if you happen to have just charged your radio the day before(which is unlikely), you can get one full charge out of it.

The problem is it takes about 16 hours of continuous cranking to recharge the battery. The most realistic outcome would be you pulling out a dead radio, cranking it a little and listening to the radio. Forget about using it as a battery backup.

Here are the features I look for in my bug-out radio:

-Am/Fm/NOAA weather stations
- Low cost. Don't spend over $100.00. Save your money and get a Short Wave radio as a companion when you have the cash.
- Can use AA batteries. We have tons at all times, and it's easy to swap them out for emergency listening.
- Built in rechargeable battery. Forget about using it as a power backup for you phone/electronics though.
- Crank handle. If both sets of batteries die, 90 seconds of cranking is usually good enough for a quick 15 minute update.
- Solar Panel. For a longer event, being able to leave the radio in the sun and use it without cranking all the time is a great feature.

We currently have an older style 'dumb' radio, and haven't found a good replacement to suggest yet. If you have one that meets the above criteria, shoot me an email.