I ran across the following radio and picked up a pair of them. They're $12/per where I bought them and seem to be a great option for the BOB--AM/FM/weather, AAs or hand-crank powered and about the size of two pocket radios sandwiched together. Anyone have any experience with these?

Jensen MR550

I bought one several weeks ago, from a Walgreens. After removing it from the package it ran for several hours until the power source drained. I found that it receives good reception on both AM & FM, the weather band is a vague. As for winding it up, after about a minute of steady winding (slowly, as long as the charge light is lit) I get about 15-20 minutes of power on this radio. For the price, I paid $19.00, I believe it's worth having it in my backpack.

I have a wind up radio/flashlight that won't hold a charge worth a damn.

I have a Grundig FR200 that works well, if a little big for a BOB.
I got a $5 am/fm radio from CountyComm that does pretty well, and it is tiny.
May have to spring for one of the GP4 shortwave radios with a built in LED light. (from CountyComm)

The Countycomm radios are surprisenly good!!

Dave

I don't see the point of this type of gadget unless you're going to some remote area for several years or something. For a BOB, I'd say use a normal AA or AAA powered radio, with lithium batteries if you're concerned about storage life. Countycomm has several nice radios of this type, which have shortwave coverage. They will all run for dozens of hours without a battery swap, plenty for several days of several hour a day listening.

Agreed, just be sure and get the wire antenna -- I listen to BBCAustralia on mine.

I'm telling ya man, get yourself a crystal radio kit and forget the batteries. They last forever, and all you need then is an earpiece. Saves on weight too. <img src="/images/graemlins/smirk.gif" alt="" />

I've never seen a crystal set that was in a very good case. <img src="/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" /> Any suggestions?

Well, I've built circuits I could fit in a film canister that seem to work pretty good. I guess for less than $10 a guy could find a way to build one that could go in an Altoids tin easy enough.

Hey, they're not the best thing going, but they never quit. The best part is finding suitable antennas and ground connections. If you play around with them a little you can really pull in some weak signals with them.

You're right, though, I don't ever see any commercially available ready mades. This is for those who like to know how their gear really works, and how to make it go. For $10 you can buy a nice transistorized radio, new even, and not have to screw around with anything but the batteries.

Still, I do like getting something for nothing. Kinda like using sunlight to start a fire. <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Darn. I was hoping someone had made one for military E&E or something, in a waterproof case.

Oddly enough, they are the one thing I've never made. Guess I'll have to get a couple of part sets, see if I can embed one in resin or something.

Thanks for all the feedback. I've given the radio a try and it seems to work great. Holds a charge well and gets decent reception, though it is an analog dial, so you have to hunt a bit. The only issue is bulk, but it fits great in the side pocket of my BOB. Weight's not bad, especially since I don't need batteries. If size were more of a concern, I'd definitely hit CountyComm but, for the moment, this piece is an item I'll use and recommend. Plus, I'm wanting to keep everything on AAs not AAAs, which I think the CountyComm radios use. As for the crystal radios, I'd love to learn more about those and see someone's setup who's had some success with them.

Crystal radios are only good in urban areas where there's a very strong xmit signal that's not too close to other strong xmit signals. In the boonies (no strong signals) or in denser cities (too many strong signals) they don't have the sensitivity and/or selectivity needed.

There are all kinds of xtal radio kits that let you do the whole thing with the crystal and cat whisker, but if you just want a simple no-battery radio, you could use a germanium diode detector (1n34 maybe) instead of messing with a crystal. Scrounge a loopstick antenna and tuning cap out of an old AM transistor radio and use a high impedance earphone.

Really though, an earphone radio doesn't take much battery power, so a conventional radio makes a lot more sense.

Yeah, unless you tinker with them a bit, they can be rather sloppy on the band, but they aren't bad. My first xtal radio kit was a radio shack special, and with the way I worked it (I was 9 at the time) I could get KGO out of San Francisco at night from Seattle (granted they pump out the power, but it is possible to pick up the long wave with them if you finesse it).

Really, the items sold as xtal radios today aren't, they use the low voltage diode junction as the detector, like you say, which is fine. In fact, it makes the kit that much less expensive and more rugged I think.

You do get to the crux of my vision, which is that if you know a little about the technology, it is easy to come up with a "xtal" radio circuit by scrounging on powered radios that no longer have a power source. Wasn't that a Macgyver episdoe? <img src="/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />

In the event of an emergency, wouldn't all the radio station go to that emergency broadcast system anyway? Would one of these small radios pick that up? Could I actually make one to fit in an Altoids tin? I would love to have a radio in an Altoids tin that I built. "Coming to you on the Altoid Forces Radio Network". I know that would get at least one more person around here into preparedness, and that is my goal.

I bought an earphone radio at Walgreens a few months ago for something like $5. It runs on a watch battery. Yes it would fit in an APSK pretty easily.

I wnet to Radio Shack and they do not carry crystal stuff anymore for making radios. They had a small earphone radio but I didn't buy it becuase the one I have does not work good. All it does is aggravate me when I try to tune it.