I tested a $14 emergency radio with solar and hand-crank power – it’s in my survival kit now

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In an age of 5G, satellite internet, and being able to make calls from your smartwatch, an AM/FM radio might seem old-school and outdated. I mean, they had those things when dinosaurs roamed, right?

Today, most people seem to think radio outside of cars is dead. But nothing could be further from the truth (research suggests radio still has an enormous reach, 87% weekly reach, ahead of smartphones/TV, and is still the main source of in-car entertainment). And when it comes to emergencies — you know, the sort of stuff that’s happening all around us, like wildfires, heatwaves, and storms — FEMA recommends that you have a radio in your kit, alongside your spare water and food, flashlight, and first aid supplies.

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And not just any radio, either. Since the power could go down for an extended period, it’s recommended that you have a battery-powered device that can be charged via hand crank.

Now, I’ll be honest. I’ve not had a radio in my kit for a few years, but as I’m seeing more power outages and wildfires here in the UK — both things that can take out the communication infrastructure — I thought it wise to get one. Also, readers have asked about radios, so I thought I’d take a look. 

$14 or $80? I went for cheap

There are quite a lot of radios out there, ranging from budget prices to about $80. Since this device isn’t something I’ll be using a lot, I didn’t want to spend big bucks on it if I didn’t have to.

So, I bought a cheap one. And since I didn’t want the punchline of my cheapness to be that I pulled the radio out mid-emergency only to find it didn’t work, I put it to the test.

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I paid $14 for a pretty generic yet feature-packed radio. For that money, I got a radio that picks up AM/FM and the NOAA weather band (more on that in a moment), has a triple-level LED flashlight (which, oddly, doesn’t have the usual obligatory SOS function), packs a built-in 2,000 mAh/7,400 mWh battery, and is chargeable via USB-C, hand crank, or the built-in solar panel.

I said the radio doesn’t have an SOS strobe feature, but it does have a surprising and somewhat startling SOS siren feature that you activate by holding down the LED button for a couple of seconds. I discovered this capability when trying to see if the device had a hidden SOS LED feature.

And, to top it all off, the radio can act as a tiny power bank. All this in a package measuring 5.1 x 2.1 x 2.4 inches and weighing 0.51 pounds. Something worth noting is that this unit is IPX3-rated, so it’s not dustproof, but is rated to resist splashes (don’t immerse it in water).

Why do you need a radio?

Bottom line: to listen for emergency messages.

The FCC’s Emergency Alert System regulations (specifically, 47 CFR Part 11) legally mandate that AM and FM broadcasters carry Emergency Alert System (EAS) alerts and presidential alert capability. These alerts include severe weather warnings, such as tornadoes, flash floods, and hurricanes, civil emergency messages for hazmat incidents and evacuation orders, AMBER alerts for child abduction, and periodic tests.

If you’re tuned to a station, you should get these messages.

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OK, you’re probably familiar with AM and FM, but what’s that weather band I mentioned earlier?

The weather band is a separate network run by the National Weather Service that broadcasts continuously 24/7 from the nearest NWS office. The band covers about 90% of the US, plus coastal waters, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and the Pacific territories.

You need a dedicated weather radio or a multi-band emergency radio that specifically covers this band, since most standard AM/FM radios don’t (it’s actually seven channels in the VHF band, between 162.400 and 162.550 MHz).

This $14 radio does it all: AM, FM, and weather band.

Note that I can’t test the weather band in the UK because it isn’t broadcast here. Oddly, I purchased two of these radios. One was the US version that had the weather band feature, while the other didn’t, so there are clearly different models for different markets. 

Charging the radio

The quickest, easiest, least-fuss way to charge the radio is USB-C, which takes about four hours.

When the grid goes down, you’re now relying on the power of the sun, or the power of your arm to charge up the radio. The first time I tried solar charging, I left the radio out for a day, and that method only powered the radio from flat to 50%. Something didn’t seem right, so I tried that technique again, making an effort to reorient the panel toward the sun every few hours, and that approach gave me a full charge in under a day.

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The hand crank is a different story. Cranking the handle for five minutes — and that’s at a fairly vigorous pace of three to four revolutions per second — generated enough power to run the radio for about 20 minutes. Cranking for a full 30 minutes put about a quarter charge into the battery.

Cranking is definitely a backup charge method. If possible, use USB-C or solar. That crank is hard work and should be a reserve tactic for real emergencies.

Given that the radio only holds 2,000 mAh of power, this is a tiny power bank. Sure, that power could get you out of a jam, but it’s not much, and you can get a tiny lipstick-sized power bank that can hold 5,000 mAh of power. 

The radio itself

What can I say about a radio without sounding like I’ve been transported back to the 1950s?

It works.

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The speaker is loud, the device tunes into stations properly, the volume control is smooth and precise, and it has a multi-hour runtime (between four and five hours) from a single charge.

That’s a good radio, and its capacity will be perfect for staying in touch when the power and internet are down.

ZDNET’s buying advice

I find it a bit hard to spend $50 plus on a radio that I’m not going to use much, but for less than $20, I’m happy to buy it as a “just in case” (and given how close wildfires are getting to me and the infrastructure I rely on, I might need it sooner than imagined).

While the power bank is definitely a last-resort feature, given how small the battery is and how long it’ll take to charge if the power is out, the radio and the light are great, and the solar panel and crank handle certainly do the job. Yes, they’re slow, and the crank is hard work, but these issues make you appreciate all the more how easy life is a lot of the time.

There are more expensive radios aimed at the bugout/survival/prepper market, with the “money is no object” choice being the Midland ER310. If you’re serious about your prepping, this device is what you need. However, if you want a just-in-case radio, this budget $14 unit will do the job fine.