Eton - American Red Cross FR1 Emergency Weather Radio With Smartphone Charger, Backlit Digital Display, Flashlight, 2000mAh Rechargeable Battery, NOAA Weather Alerts, Commitment To Preparedness

This is a great little emergency radio that I can highly recommend. First, how is the radio? The FM radio reception is very good, which is high praise from me given that we live in a valley where reception is generally a problem. The radio has a very small backlit LCD display but it gets the job done. The backlight times out to save battery power. Switching radio bands from FM to AM, shortwave, and NOAA Weather is done by repeatedly pressing the center “Band” button. Once the desired band is displayed, the + and – buttons raise and lower the frequency. A nice feature is that pressing and holding the + and – buttons scans the band for the next strong station. A better feature is that you can step through the band manually in increments and stop on a weak station. This is way better than those radios that you can't tune manually, only allowing scanning. Volume is adjusted in increments using separate buttons. The NOAA Weather station tuning is simple—switch to the NOAA band and press the +/- buttons until you get a strong signal. Please note that this radio does not offer a “standby” feature for NOAA weather alerts. It must be turned on and tuned to the weather band to receive alerts. The sound quality is poor, but recognize that this is an emergency radio, not an audiophile's item. Now, about the flashlight. It may be useful in a deep cave, or to locate an icy patch on dark walkway. I figure it was thrown in as a feature on the device because it could be. But, in fairness, the light doesn't need batteries to work, so it is useful when there aren't alternatives. Next up, the cell phone charger. It works well. When it's internal lithium battery is fully charged, it powers up a phone to a useful level quite quickly. You may need to buy a cord to connect your cell phone to the usb output. I don't have experience using the crank generator to power a phone as I have kept the device charged up through it's usb input. Other features of the device include a slim hand strap, a headphone jack, and a reset button. As ever, Amazon shipping was fast and free shipping was available. This is a good buy for the features it offers.

I really like this device. I will be carrying it on all my backpacking trips as a useful emergency device, battery charger, and radio entertainment in the evening. It's a well functioning radio with AM, FM, and Weather bands, a speaker and jack for headphones (ear buds). It has a digital clock with a lighted dial and alarm function. There is a useful (not super bright) 3 LED flashlight. The internal battery runs all these features, plus can provide a full or partial charge to a cell phone. With several minutes of cranking the internal hand crank generator can charge the battery enough to listen to the radio and turn on the flashlight. Continuous cranking for 4 minutes will result in about 1 minute talk time on a completely dead cell phone. It weighs about 8 ounces and has a fairly well made plastic case. It's easy to operate and I got really good reception and sound quality.

I bought two of these and put both through crank and USB charge test. They were discharged to the point where I could just barely see the lights, when switched on, and each was given a two hour USB charge. Both provided 23 to 26 hours of radio usage. After the radios cut off, each provided 12 to 24 hours of light. I performed this test several times and one FR1 out performed the other. The radios seemed to last about as long on each, but the lights lasted longer on one FR1 much longer than the other one. I opened them up to see if there was any noticeable difference and I did not see any. The battery had this description on it: ICR 18650 2000mAh 3.7V 1605. It has a harness and plug. If you replace the battery you will need to transfer the plug to the new battery. As best as I could tell the battery includes the over charge and discharge pcb on it. A possible replacement might be: Tenergy Li-Ion 18650 3.7V 2600mAh Rechargeable Battery module with PCB and Bare Leads $9.99. I have not tried this yet. (Just a best guess.)A two hour crank on a discharged FR1 provided 0 hours of radio and 15 hours of light,A four hour crank on a discharged FR1 provided 10 hours of radio and 25 hours of lightIf you would like to see the two machines I used to crank these, you can see them at:[...]I would have given the FR1 a 5 Star rating, but there is no on/off switch. I have not determined the discharge rate when not being used, it has to be very, very small. However it does mean that you need to keep it maintained more frequently. Overall a nice, well built product.

I bought this radio before a camping trip in the summer of 2020. While camping, I was in a canoe with this radio listening to music when it suddenly started downpouring. The radio was literally submerged for about seven minutes, and still functioned well after being taken out and dried off. It still works well almost two years later.

You will be winding forever! 3 minutes of winding for 1 minute of radio is ridiculous in emergency situations!

Haven’t used for a real emergency, but tested over a few days as a test. The hand-crank is a bit flimsy, but works fine. Radio picked up local stations fine. Worth the value price for a little preparedness-peace-of-mind.

This has radio weather band, led light and can charge your phone. And it can do that by cranking it only, but I recommend to fully charge before you put it in you bag.

DO NOT BUY. This thing does not hold a charge after one year. Due to the corona virus i was checking my emergency supplies and decided to crank this to get it to a full charge. After 30 min, it does not hold a charge AT ALL. Just dies on me.Waste of money. Will never buy ETON again. Dont be fooled by the "american red cross" sign on it. It's probably fake. Really terrible quality, i didnt even get to use it once.