Portable Radio Recomendation

[TanksHill]

As some of you may know or have heard southern Ca had a bit of a blackout this past Friday. I think my family fared very well. I had everything I needed from oil lamps to flash lights, with fresh batteries etc...

I have a small wind up / solar radio. It worked but not well. With the power outage the local radio stations went first. It was weird. When I got home I found one in the 600 range on AM that was working. But with the geography of my hill and the neighbor just south of us being up hill. My signal from San Diego is pretty much sucky. We tried to get on air antenna TV a while back and it just does not work.

So my question is do any of you have any radio recommendations. I would prefer a wind up emergency type but could deal with batteries if necessary. I want fm/am and and maybe more. Something with the ability to pick up a good signal.

What do you think??

g

 

[moolie]

We have this one, works for us

Do you get good radio reception otherwise, or is it just the radio you were using? At our old house we couldn't pull in certain stations from our living room, but could from other rooms.

 

[BarredBuff]

 

[TanksHill]

I think I may have some signal issues. Not bad but a decent antennae is required. My fm radio in the kitchen works well but the antennae has to be just right. I listen to am on a clock radio. I know crazy, its reception is horrible. So I have been looking for a radio anyways.

I just figured I could kill two birds with one stone.

Thanks for the link I will check it out.

G

 

[Icu4dzs]

Grundig makes good radios and some are hand cranked. You might want to look into a battery operated/hand crank radio which has AM/FM, SW, Weather band and maybe even TV band.

World band radio's are hard to find now but they are worth it. A reasonably good antenna is the key. There is something called the "Tesla Antenna" which uses the earth as your antenna and works REALLY WELL. You will need a copper rod and some coaxial cable to build it but the results are awesome.
Hope this helps.
Trim sends
//bt//

 

[TanksHill]

That antenna sounds really interesting. Another SS project. Maybe I can assign this one to my dh.

Thanks for the help. I will google that brand.

g

 

[k0xxx]

The Tesla Antenna is more of a type of antenna, rather than a brand.

Another solution could be as simple as just running a long piece of wire out the window and strung as high as you can get it. Then either wrap the bare end of the wire inside the house around the pull out antenna on the radio. For AM broadcast bands it may work well enough to get reception, and you can easily remove it when it's not needed. I'd try this first, and if it doesn't work, move on to something more involved. I use a similar wire (only about 15 ft. off of the ground) to get better reception from an AM station about 60 miles away. The only difference is that I have put an alligator clip on the end, to use to attach it to my radio's antenna.

 

[TanksHill]

I meant that I will google the Grundig. But yes I think I might just grab a stretch of wire from my dh and see what I can do.

It was just very difficult to hear the station that was on during our blackout. The sound quality was very scratchy and poor.

I will have to work on it.

Thanks again,

g