Eton American Red Cross Emergency Radio

Froooogled!

here’s the product website

a user manual

and a spec sheet

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Eton American Red Cross Emergency Radio [New] - $24.99 + $5 shipping

1 * Eton FR500 American Red Cross Emergency Radio

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So close woot but no deal, i want a Eton Mini AM FM and Shortwave Radio

I wooted a different Eton hand crank radio in the last woot-off and was pretty happy with it… then the volume control died leaving the radio stuck on full blast all the time. Eton service has been pretty good though and I’m eagerly awaiting the replacement (they even sent me a fedex label so I don’t need to foot the expense of returning it).

These are crummy radios. The AM band sensitivity is worse than my FR300, the shortwave is limited in frequency range, the calibration of the digital display is off by about 6 kHz, so if you want to listen say to 1240 you have to set it to 1246. The tuning on AM and shortwave is very broad (the selectivity is poor). Stay away.

I have one (didn’t buy it at Woot). It doesn’t charge my phone, radio is finicky… Anybody want to buy mine?

Are they water proof?

pretty bad reviews

http://www.amazon.com/American-Cross-FR500-Solarlink-White/dp/B0014SWPTQ/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

I bought one last time. It does NOT come with a wall power supply so you either have to crank all your energy or continually replace the 3 AA batteries. It does have a AC adapter port so if you buy an adapater separately, you can use it but these are usually overpriced so kills any cost advantage of this deal. The adapter will charge the Ni-Mh batteries. It also doesn’t come with any cell phone plugs but you get one free when you tell Eton what phone you have. When you change phones, will need to find some way to get the new plug. Can’t comment on the radio quality because the lack of AC adapter put in on back shelf.

Link is semi-correct. Your link is to the “standard edition”; Woot is hustings the “American Red Cross” (or ARC) version.

This is the link to the Red Cross edition:

http://www.etoncorp.com/product_card/?p_ProductDbId=518333

Same toy, different cosmetics.

Best,

a.

The spec sheet says it is SPLASH RESISTANT. However, I doubt there’s an actual test or standard for that for radios, so who knows what that means.

What’s the amperage output on this sucker’s phone charger bit? Some phones like my Pre need a good full 5V/1A to charge and many emergency chargers like this can’t seem to give up enough juice.

I actually just got back from a weekend of camping yesterday and one of the guys I was with had this exact product. He really loved it. I don’t know all the details, but I know that we were in the middle of nowhere Wisconsin and were able to pick up all sorts of radio stations from the US and Canada. It was fun to tinker with.

I wonder if you can charge any device that uses a USB charging cable through the USB Phone charging port. I’ve been looking for a device like this with a USB charging port and not a proprietary one.

I own 1 of these. It’s high up on the shelf in my Armageddon closet next to the MRE’s (_)

I dunno the spec’s, but your arm will get tired B4 you can send a text.

I really don’t understand why these dynamo makers don’t put SPRINGS in their dynamos anymore. Back in the old days you could crack hard for 15sec, and the spring would power the dynamo for 5min. Now, in the Brave New World, we have to sit there hand cranking away for 5min to get 5min of charging. Just plain stupid. It’s not like these things are high quality and removing the spring improves durability or longevity. It just makes them even less useful. BRING BACK THE SPRINGS! :slight_smile:

This might not be the best radio for radio nerds but when snowmaggedon hit us in DC and we lost power for 4 days, you better believe that i was glad to have one of these suckers. we got to listen to the super bowl and even get weather reports every 2 minutes. not the greatest quality piece of equipment we own but sure came in handy when we had no power.