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Grundig FR200 Radio
I am very pleased with my radio. I love that if I forget to turn it off I'm not wasting batteries!!! Good Basic Radio I had this radio for 2 years Fm reception is good AM is a bit more difficult I found battery life to be excellent with good quality AA's Hand crank works get about 10 mins for 1 min of cranking. Light is bright enought to be useful within 6 feet Used it during Hurricane Rita. A good radio would recommend. For limited use around the house and emergency backup Case will not hold up to hard outdoor use. OK for Emergency Radio/Terrible Shortwave Radio At first the novelty of this Grundig FR-200 radio due to the crank generator is impressive, but the longer you own it the more it seems like a useful toy versus a true "emergency" radio. The generator requires a lot of cranking to keep it operating without using batteries, the light is useful in a pinch for short periods, the AM/FM reception is good, but the shortwave reception is almost useless for trying to tune in and hold regular broadcasts. Like the other low cost analog tuner shortwave radios I have used, you may be able to find the station eventually (if you know what to listen for) but the reception fades and is very poor in most cases. Nothing like the clear AM/FM reception. In most cases you need a digital tunner to have a truely useful shortwave radio to use for regular daily broadcasts. The digital tuner on the Eton E5 and Sony 7600GW allows you to input the desired frequency directly, or seek for available stations. It also holds the frequency and does not fade out requiring constant retuning. You basically get what you pay for with shortwave radios, but I am still somewhat disappointed that the FR-200 is not more useful as a shortwave radio except for a few strong channels that I have no interest in receiving. I think the FR-250 model that can charge your cell phone battery would be a more useful emergency radio. Good for off-shore On July 28 2003 I set sail alone from San Pedro, California, in a Lancer 30 with the intent on fetching Hawaii in around 32 days. (One may google "Lancer 30 Movement" for the log of that trip.) I brought a new FR200 radio along with me so that I could listen to time ticks at WWV to help with navigation (in case the GPS went out). The Shortwave bands did "okay" but were kind of hard to tune in: the fine dial seemed kind of "mushy---" I had to pass stations and come up on them from behind, and then retune the stations when they faded away. Over 400 miles off-short I was still able to pick up the CBS Radio Mystery Theater radio show on the AM band, coming out of Los Angeles or San Diego (I do not know which), and that was fun to have with me as I lay in the port quarter berth, antenna sticking out of the main hatch (the antenna position did not seem to matter: no matter where I pointed it, reception on the AM band seemed the same). The light worked fine, and the hand crank worked fine. I did not know how much cranking the dynamo needed to charge the Nickle-Cadnium battery pack, so I cranked it pretty much constantly (I did not know any better). Now I live in the canyon lands of New Mexico where radio reception is extremely poor: I'm surrounded by cliffs that rear over 2,000 feet above my head. The FR200's short wave band down here work better than the FM and AM bands (one cannot get most FM stations, nor cellular telephone, nor TV broadcasts: we get one FM station--- an excellent Country & Western one). Unfortunately there is still the SW dialing slugishness, and the frequency tends to wander. This seems like a good radio is a person is only interested in the AM band and the hand-cranked dynamo. A Must for your Emergency Preparedness Kit This little gem will light your way and keep you in touch with news sources in the outside world during power outages or camping trips. Small and lightweight it is very easy to crank for a few moments and enjoy the reward of light & radio. Great gift for family & friends | |
