) writes:
In: , "Mark S. Holden" wrote:
This is a common scam.

A few months ago I sold a Questar lens, and a bidder contacted me with a copy of
an email he got from someone claiming to be me offering to close the auction in
return for a prompt wired payment. Fortunately, I was able to confirm it wasn't
me and add a warning to my auction that this was happening.

I've also had people contact me after an auction claiming they were the seller
and the high bidder backed out so the item was available for my bid.
In one case, the guy attempting the fraud was remarkably stupid because I won
the auction, paid for the item, and already had it.

But these kinds of things aren't likely to happen on auctions for items bringing
less than several hundred dollars.

This one was for a cheap radio. I didn't really consider it a "scam", just a
rather clever "trick" on the merchants part to inflate a price.

It was one of those "info-mate" crank style radios. (Anyone have experience
with those?)

I wouldn't mind a cheap crank radio with shortwave AND weather band. I've got a
crank AM/FM and I like it for storms, but, alas, no weather band, shortwave
or other, so it'd be pretty worthless in a longer power outage. (It's AM doesn't
work all that well, tuner sticks, etc.. the main feature is the crank & solar
panel)

One thing I like about mine is that I can very quickly crank it part way,
release the handle and it'll play while the spring mechanism unwinds (This is
kind of important, when a tornado is on it's way, the 15 seconds to wind it
even part way feels like eternity) The batteries charge AND the radio operates
while it unwinds. No weather band though...

Never occured to me that some radios would have the crank directly connected to
the dynamo, with a restriction that the radio can't be used while cranking. If
the radio could be used *while* cranking, it'd be nicer than mine but if it won't
operate during the crank cycle AND you have to turn the crank for 60 seconds
before turning it on, (w/out the spring, so high speed cranking 4 x faster DOESN'T
equate to 15 seconds) what use is it during emergency?

Of course, manually operated generaters were traditionally cranked directly.
All those WWII spy radios and emergency gear, when you pedalled or spun
the crank you were either charging a battery or running the radio directly.

A windup radio is a relatively new thing (or if it's not new, it was rare
until relatively recently). The Baygen was quite an innovation, in
terms of power, when it arrived on the market, and that's either
the introduction of the windup generator, or he made it popular. For
consumer radios, you really didn't see generators until the Baygen arrived.
Afterwards, they started becoming more and more common, with of course
other items added to the mix. I was given an LED flashlight at Christmas,
and it's got a generator.

There may be patent restrictions on the windup, or other manufacturers
are unable to create as neat a result, making them go to a regular generator.

I have no idea, but one guess at why you aren't supposed to use
the radio while cranking is that the generator may be too noisy. Either
it will interfere with radio reception, or they worry that the spikes will
damage the radio circuitry.

That LED flashlight of mine says the same thing, don't turn the light
on while cranking. But I've done it, and it's not damaged yet.

Michael

Digging further revealed this model had these restrictions, so, I was kind of
glad to back out. :-)


Jamie
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