Importance of Crank Radios

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Importance of Crank Radios

by Jason
(Tampa, Fl)

Good article and information. After living through 4 hurricanes in one year with my wife and kids, I cannot stress enough how important it is to have a way to receive outside information via crank radios.

We were without power once for almost ten days, and we were always happy to hear about the latest emergency weather news and information or catch up on clean up efforts and other pertinent information.

Food for thought,

Jason

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Importance of Crank Radios

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hand crank radios
by: John

I keep a Midland Base Camp radio in my gear it has 3 modes of power hand crank,rechargeable batteries, or plug in the wall. It has am/fm radio,NOAA weather, GMRS a handheld mic and usb port for charging phones ect. all of which comes in handy. The only draw back is it does have world band. However the ability to connect with walkie talkies keeping friends and family in the loop in and out of camp is great.

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Worth having
by: Dustin Tarditi

I have 2 - one came with a 72hour kit, one was a Grundig model I got years ago. They are not bulletproof by any means, but still useful to have. My next step is to get a small solar charger to recharge small cell batteries for things like FRS radios, world-band radio, flashlights (I have a kinetic one, but that would get on my nerves after a few evenings of use), etc.

In a natural/man-made disaster where most people stay in place, they are quite valuable to keep in touch with emergency/rescue/recovery operations and regional (if not, national) news.

It's always a good idea to have a variety of options for home, but when selecting gear to take with you, go for items that are as durable as you can get and have as many uses as possible. It's amazing what you can do with some 550 cord and a few 55gal drum liners, for instance. If we were in a real bad situation and had to "get gone" I'm not sure I would take a bunch of different radios, but 1 hand-crank unit *may* make it into the go-bag. My Grundig has a flashlight built in, and the unit weight is quite light... it gets AM/FM/Worldband, so it's a decent candidate if space permits.

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yea, but..
by: Shaykh Idris

I have one: it also runs off rechargeable batteries, which is a good thing, because the plastic gear teeth broke... so, check that the teeth on the winder are metal, not plastic. unless you want to figure out how to replace them,

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Importance of Crank Radios

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Importance of Crank Radios