Cato wrote:

Uuuuh, why don't you trust the windup radios. Have you had problems
with one? The Baygen radios have been used in Africa for a long
time. Over how long a term were you planning to use the radio.

Baylis' design has one flaw IMHO. The radio is mechanicaly very complex.
It uses a clockwork mechanism to run a generator to power the radio.
This makes a lot of sense, Baylis is a mechanical genius.

However the clockwork mechanism must run the entire time the radio is
running, and the governer has to work smoothly. In a keep using it
situation, this is fine, sitting it on a shelf may clog it with dust,
or rust it sold.

The Grundig FR-200 for example, is much simpler. It uses a motor as a
generator. The speed of the generator is not controlled, it charges
a NiHM cordless phone battery. They of course have their own problems,
I've had to replace mine twice. I expect if I had used it more often,
it would have ben less of a problem.

The FR-200 is also powered by any external 4.5 volt power supply
(wall wart, photocells, car adaptor), and three AA batteries.



In the case of an emergency evacuation, how long a term you would
need to use the radio would depend on the type of emergency. As to
trusting the wind-up radios, I have read reviews on the internet from
people that have had the crank handles break, and the generator fail
for some reason or other. I could understand the argument in favour of
having one in a shelter setting. But if you are on foot or bike
because of vehicle breakdown or some other reason, and you had to
carry everything on the backs of you and your family, then you have to
become very choosy as to what you would take. Would you want the wind-
up analog radio? Or a better radio, a digital. Same size or even
smaller and lighter then the wind-up?

I would carry something small. A walkman type radio would be good, a
cheap MP3 player might be better. They are the size of a stick of gum,
run 12 hours or so in radio mode on a single AAA battery and cost less
than $20. The problem with them is they are FM only.

As for how long do you need it, the concept behind post fallout shelter
disaster planing is that you needed 24 hours of shelter and supplies. If
you were in an area that had severe weather problems more. However your
plan was to sit tight until help arrived, and then leave.

Hurricane Katrina and the Lebanon war here (ignore the politics, learn
from it instead) was that this was not true. Many people got evacuated to
a dry shelter only to find that it was worse than where they came from.
No food, not enough toilets, no drinking water, etc. If they had stocked
up, their supplies were left at home when they were evacuated.

Here it was different. Old people, children, etc, stayed in shelters
for over a month. Many could have evacuated, most refused to leave their
homes.

People who did evacuate found they had no money, no job, no schools, etc.

Although I did worry in the '80s about the "big one hitting", I would
not worry about it now. It's not very likely. Much more likely is
a little one, but too big for local authorities to hit. Another hurricane,
a terrorist attack and so on.

Geoff.


--
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel N3OWJ/4X1GM
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