Grundig FR200 Emergency Radio
by Eton
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Our Price: $99.94 Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: Speakers See more product details |
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Customers in the UK,
Buy this product at amazon.co.uk
for British Pounds
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Grundig FR200 Emergency Radio
Customer Review: Buy it for emergencies, use it everyday (Updated 2 years later)
Summary: 5 Stars
From reading the other reviews, I see most people love this radio, but some dog it. They're both right. Your level of satisfaction with this radio will have more to do with your buying motivations than the product.
Grundig has a well established reputation for making fine products. If you are a shortwave enthusiast who is looking for a good shortwave radio, sadly I must admit that you need to keep looking. The tuner is iffy (by your standards) and it does not have the 'Grundig Feel' of their more expensive products.
But notice Grudig calls it an 'Emergency Radio,' not a shortwave radio.
If you want something for peace of mind -that you will never be caught without a radio because of dead batteries- then this is a great product. I live in a hurricane zone and every time there is a storm approaching, all my friends wait in long lines to buy batteries. I know I'm ready 24/7. As an added bonus I'll always have a flashlight with me. (which is more handy than I would have guessed)
(Here is the kicker-) If you want an emergency radio AND you like to listen to the BBC or Radio Canada every once in a while, then this is definitely the product for you.
I've had mine for a year and a half and I use it at least 3 times per week. The best way to describe the tuner is "credible." It can pick up all the big name stations, even indoors, but it is not stunning. The tonal quality is acceptable but I'm usually listening to the spoken word and not music. (I have an iPod for that ;-)
I bought it because I wanted a cheap shortwave. The fact it had a crank and a flashlight was gravy at first, but it is more and more important as I use it.
Some notes about the battery:
You'll never turn the hand crank enough to fully charge the internal battery. I have a fancy NiCad charger so I charged the battery fully and it lasted 6 weeks of near daily use during Gulf War II. (I'd guess 120+ hours, I was amazed) Problem is, your arm would fall off before you got there. Even if you don't give it a full charge, I find the cranking to listening ratio pretty good.
But do what I do- I run it on NIMH AA's and it lasts for weeks. I never pay for batteries but I never have to crank it either. (unless the batteries die)
And a final thought on durability which some people discuss.
I've dropped mine several times even once from about 6 feet up while I was painting. I have one scratch on it but other than that, it really does look much like the day I bought it. The case is still tight and the controls firm. I give it to my 6 year old nephew and he cranks for hours with no ill effect. I'd say durability is quite good.
I hope this review helps you get a feel for the radio. If your needs come even close to matching what this radio was designed to do, then I feel confident it will exceed your expectations in the long run.
=====Update=======
Well, 2 years -and Hurricane Katrina later- I'll never be without this radio. We left town 2 days before the storm and I brought it with me. At night I could pick up WWL radio (50,000 watt clear channel) from Memphis.
My nephew (who I mentioned above) broke the antenna off for me so no shortwave for me any more but AM/FM works fine... That was homicide, don't blame the radio. It's now approaching 4 years old, I still use it weekly and it is still in good shape otherwise.
BTW- I came back in town just a few days after the storm to rescue some friends' pets and help get some people out of town. I brought extra gas, extra water, 5 days of food and this radio. That probably say it all.
Customer Review: Flawed Shortwave & FM but overall a very useful product
Summary: 3 Stars
On newsgroups and message boards, this handy and compact little radio is being touted as a good choice for beginning shortwave listeners: but I would disagree. As usual for the current line of low-end Grundig products, the "single conversion" intermediate frequency design has resulted in serious image problems: in other words, you pick up a single strong station at two, or sometimes three, places on the dial: in the correct location at the intended frequency, plus one or two spurious images above and below it. In the crowded shortwave bands, this makes listening extremely difficult, as the images cause wobbling whistles and lots of interference (and make it hard to even know WHERE the radio is tuned.) In addition, the planetary tuning mechanism has really dreadful backlash: to tune in a shortwave station, you have to go past it, then back up and tune around until you *finally* get it centered. Then, the radio drifts and a few minutes later you are forced to do it all over again: maddening.AM (called mediumwave in Europe and much of the world) is more satisfying as the stations are not crowded together as much as shortwave, and the band is shorter so there is more spread from one end to the other: the tuning isn't nearly as critical. Selectivity is pretty good, and sensitivity is excellent. I have not noticed image problems that are as troublesome as in the SW bands.
FM reception was disappointing; selectivity seems poor, and sensitivity rather low. Stations "mush" together -- if they can be picked up at all. Expect only the strongest signals in your reception area.
The generator system works very well though a trio of new AA cells gives more output and slightly better sensitivity.
I tried six units and found that performance varied slightly. One brand new radio had a weak set of batteries that would not charge correctly; another had extremely tinny sound that lacked fullness (surprising to me but probably due to a poor speaker or bad audio capacitor.) A couple of the sets weren't as sensitive as others. So quality control apparently varies somewhat.
The unit I purchased is very satisfactory as a simple emergency and/or AM broadcast receiver, though not much useful for FM or shortwave. But it sounds a bit better than pocket sets, and definitely outperforms most of them in terms of AM sensitivity. (I am a retired broadcast station chief engineer in the SF bay area, with fifty years experience as a shortwave listener.)
Customer Review: All Emergencies Great and Small
Summary: 5 Stars
My goal in buying this product was to put together an emergency package in case of blackout or hurricane. Some reviewers referred to the impending Rapture - my thought was somewhat less apocalyptic: the electricity has gone out twice in the last year in my condo building and it is alternately scary and boring to sit in the dark without cable, internet or other diversions. This Grundig model is a pure pleasure when you see the sturdy and elegant construction, the leatherette handle across the top for easy carrying, the nice fabric carrying case with outside pocket to store the booklet, batteries, etc.... and when you factor in the reasonable price this is a bargain that could warm your heart while it lights your living room. According to the booklet, the flashlight part is intended to enable you to find your lantern, candles or other supplies. It is bright enough to illuminate a good large portion of the room, or to read by, although it does eat up the power source as someone else noted. The radio is enhanced by a nice long antenna and a fine-tuning knob set into the larger tuning knob. This enables you to fine-tune the stations on the AM, FM or SW bands. The reception is superb: it actually pulls in several more FM stations than my audio system can! The AM band sounds good with little static, thanks to the fine-tuning. The two shortwave bands are new to me; it has been fun tuning across the bands picking up distant stations especially the BBC. For those of you used to digital tuning, you may find it primitive to have to turn the tuning knob, but it gives a nice physical sense of "sweeping" across the band.The real knockout for me is the crank that enables you to renew your power source if your 3 AA batteries run out: ninety seconds of cranking at two turns per second will keep you powered up for about an hour, then you can repeat the process. It is impossible to overcrank, according to Grundig customer service, and even a baby boomer like me can summon up enough vim to keep me listening 'til the lights come back on. Plus you don't have to store it with batteries in it, which as we know always turn out to be drained by the time the emergency occurs.
I recommend this radio/flashlight very highly. It is well-designed, practical and fun. You will not be sorry to have this little gem around even if you don't experience a blackout.
Customer Review: A decent emergency wind-up radio, albeit a bit dated
Summary: 3 Stars
This is the Grundig FR-200. It's decent, but I do have some nits.
THE GOOD:
* Sound quality: Although mono, it's adequate.
* Battery life: The unit uses three AA batteries, plus a small plasti-sealed NiCad pack (about the size of an olive) for the recharge crank. I've been able to run the radio for an hour or two each day, for several weeks, before having to change the AA's. {BTW, I use Tenergy 2600 miliamphr NiMHi AA's in this, and they work great}. I rarely use the crank-driven NiCad, but it's runtime is rather modest - a full minute of cranking yeilds 45-60 mins of listening ... at a very modest volume.
* Portability is good.
THE MEDIOCRE:
* TUNING: {minus 1 star) The pre-printed plastic frequency indicator on mine is poorly aligned to the unit's actual frequencies, so unless you happen to recognize the voice of a familiar DJ, or stumble past while a given station is doing station identification, chances are good that you'll be as much as +/- 15% away from the indicated AF/FM frequency ... and you'll get no help at all on most of the other bands. I'd happily have paid 2-3x as much for a comparable radio with a digital tuner and a minimal LCD readout ... with only a modest impact to total battery runtime.
* CHARGING: (minus 1 star) The smallish handcrank generator is clumsy to use, and having to spend 1 second out of every 45-60 cranking like a crazed chimp, charging a dinky little NiCad mini-cell, is irritating. I would have liked an additional feature that'd allow you to directly charge instead the three AA's via a built-in smart charger connected to a universal power input ... thus enabling recharging (or direct play) from things like you're car's cigarette lighter, a portable generator, a PC, a portable roll-up solar pad, etc. I'm pretty sure there are newer versions of this sort of radio that have a larger & more ergonomic crank mounted to the rear, as well as solar recharge capability/compatibility. This model, as of this writing, has fallen behind the latest technology trends.
All in all, it's still handy, and recommendable ... but there are newer and better choices available out there.
(Note: I've reposted this review because the other product AISN number it was attached to expired.)
Customer Review: love that german engineering
Summary: 5 Stars
So i got a crappy gpx thing that was SAID to have comparable functionality, for a comparable price. Boy, was that a mistake. I'll never buy anything for more than $20 that i havent looked up on amazon.
Commentary aside, i got this. First off, it's big and ugly. It's bigger than it looks in the picture. Second off, it's sturdy as hell.
The handle's plastic, but i don't feel scared to handle it roughly.
The rechargable battery is 3.6v NIMH cordless phone battery. You can find these all over the place, and nickel metal hydride batteries are a lot more better behaved than NICAD. You can pull the battery out easily without any tools.
The LED light is bright to the point that its painful to look at directly. You can read by it if your eyes are good. The light sits in a small enclosure that you can pull out easily.
The speaker is loud as hell. The headphone jack is really really loud. Apparently, every bit of the power that goes to the speakers is routed to the headphones, because i just plugged in earbuds and they got as loud as the speaker. Uncomfortably loud, at an arm's length.
The bag is tough, well made, with magnetic snaps. It looks suspiciously like a purse when you carry it.
The reception is ok. I never cared for radio, but the crank and the shortwave somehow make it more interesting, even if most of the shortwave is in spanish, and half the stations on all four bands are jesus channels. When i looked for a german station, i found one. Deutschland über alles.
Crazyness update: A couple hours looking at hack of the day gave me the urge to make something do something it shouldn't. So i got in there and put the AA compartment and the rechargable battery on the same circuit, so i can theoretically unplug the built-in battery and recharge AA's. I don't know what i'm doing, but it seems to work well. This increases charging capacity 6x-9x.
In my adventures with electric induction, i unplugged all batteries, and cranked rapidly with the led on. DON'T DO THIS. I blew the led.
This thing has taken unbelievable falls. This thing just fell off a seven feet ledge and tumbled down into a culvert with running water. Still works.