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Solar Powered Radio |
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Keeping informed no matter what the situation.
A solar powered radio can be
a pretty handy item to have in your
survival kit... or more appropriately, your emergency preparedness kit.
As with other solar electronics, solar radios utilize photovoltaic cells to
generate electricity, which in turn charges batteries that are
stored in the unit.
An emergency radio
should always have either solar charging capability or a hand
crank dynamo. It is too easy to forget to keep fresh
batteries in a radio, especially if it is not used
often.
If you
are shopping for a solar powered radio, beware of the cheap
junk out there.
Some of the cheaper models get mixed
reviews... at best. Here are a couple of the
better ones we've seen:
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Eton FR500 Solarlink:
Eton Corporation is the North American licencee for Grundig
AG. So most Eton Radios are manufactured by
Grundig. The FR500 Solarlink is new for 2008, it
offers the same features found on a lot of the other Eton
products, AM, FM, SHortwave, weather channels, but also has
the added functionality of being a solar powered radio.
A photovoltaic cell across the top handle charges the Nickel
metal hydride batteries when exposed to sunlight. The
solar cell can also power the radio by itself when not
charging the batteries. |
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| Other features include a hand-crank which will allows
for 4 minutes of radio per 1 minute of cranking time, LED
flashlight, alarm clock, and cell phone charger. The
charger is capable of charging a cellphone using solar,
handcrank, or direct battery power... (If you want to
fully charge your cellphone using the
handcrank, we suggest you get in shape, that'll take about 3
hours... but you should be able to make a call or two after a
few minutes of cranking). The FR500
also has "Weather Alert" which when set will notify
you of NOAA alerts with an audible alarm. There are
also jacks on the back for an iPod cable, and
headphones. I think the new design looks pretty
cool too ! The Solarlink sells for $80 bucks,
which is not cheap, you may want to look at the
other solar powered radio offering from Eton, the FR150
Microlink, a cheaper alternative at $30. Now if it
just came in a waterproof model ! |
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Freeplay Summit:
Another good solar powered radio option is the Freeplay
Summit from Freeplay energy. The solar panel is
located on the top rear of the unit, along with a hand crank,
to charge the batteries at night. This is a quality
radio, and does not try to be anything else. The top and
bottom panels are rubberized for durability. It comes
with 4 wavebands(AM/FM/SW/LW), and 30 presets, along
with auto scan. There is also a built in Clock /
Alarm. The LCD display is bright, but as is the case
with the Eton unit, an LCD display is nice, but drop it on a
rock one time the wrong way and its lights out. |
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| The freeplay comes with an AC
adapter, and has a headphone jack for those times when everyone
else is sleeping and you are still sitting by the fire looking
at the stars and listening to the motor city madman.
The freeplay utilizes Nickel Metal Hydride batteries, and the
company says they are tested up to 10,000 self charge
cycles. Retail is $79.00 |
A word
about batteries:
NiMH batteries
have a longer shelf life and much freindlier to
the environment than Li-ion or Ni-Cad.
NiMH batteries are generally AA sized and can
be replaced with a set of regular AA batteries for backup.
Li-ion batteries
have a much lower self discharge rate than NiMH batteries, and
perform much better at temperature extremes. However Li-ion
batteries are ususally very proprietary, and tend not to be user
replaceable.
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