A GREAT ADDITION TO YOUR HURRICANE SUPPLIES

Since I live in South Louisiana I have to deal with the dangers of hurricanes every year. For the last 30 hurricane seasons my wife and I have evacuated several times to shelters and motels, been without power quite a few times and have had damage a couple of times to our property. After the extensive damage from hurricanes Katrina and Rita just a few months ago the awareness level of the potential dangers has been elevated. I finally got tired of running to the store to get what few batteries were available for my flashlights and radios so I decided to try one of those hand cranked multi-purpose gizmos sold for emergency use. I chose the $50 Eton FR-300 Multi-Purpose Radio. Here is what my family thinks about this device.

DIMENSIONS – The device is not very large at all (about 7”x7”x2”) when the Eton FR-300 Multi-Purpose Radio is in its storage case with all of the accessories and manual. When you are evacuating space is always a premium in your vehicle so. Also it only weights a couple of pounds.

DESIGN & LAYOUT – The Eton FR-300 Multi-Purpose Radio comes in silver. All of the controls are well laid out, easy to read and intuitive so there is not much of a learning curve to figure out how to use it. The radio tuner has both fine and normal adjustment controls. The Eton FR-300 Multi-Purpose Radio has all business look about it which is appealing.

POWER SOURCES – You can power the Eton FR-300 Multi-Purpose Radio with a hand crank charger, three AA batteries or an optional 5V DC power supply. I am not sure how long three AA batteries since I have never intend to install any. The hand crank charger charges a built-in Ni-MH battery and will allow the radio to play for about 15-20 minutes after one minute of vigorous cranking. That is all I would expect from an emergency hand cranked powered device and this is enough for most hurricane evacuees. The 5V DC input could come from a car 12V DC adapter for use in your car or a 120V AC adapter for use when you are in a shelter.

PERFORMANCE & FEATURES - The Eton FR-300 Multi-Purpose Radio offers a lot of features in such a small package. It is a sort of a Swiss Army knife type of a radio. There are several radio bands available. The device will receive TV channels 2-13, AM, FM, and all of the 7 weather bands. I have had no trouble getting clear weather, Am and FM band reception. I am unable to receive any TV channels but that may be because I am about 50 miles from the New Orleans stations. I do receive some local FM stations on the TV bands. Another available feature is a dual purpose light. There are two white LEDs to function as a flashlight which provide just enough light to barely get by. Not enough to really read by. Included is one red LED which will flash if selected. This could be use as an alert beacon if broke down on the side of the road. Now there is one last neat feature with limitations. Eton has included a cell phone charger. When you have evacuated or without power the cell phone charger becomes an important device and being able to charge your cell phone is very crucial. The problem is even though Eton has included several cell phone adapters, yours may not be available. Of course you probably could purchase or built your own cell phone adapter. Also available is a siren which makes the wah-wah sound. I really do not believe I will be using this feature.

My family feels the Eton FR-300 Multi-Purpose Radio is a useful important addition to our hurricane emergency supplies. Since the TV reception may not be the best I would also consider the Eton FR-250 which substitutes a 7 short wave bands for the TV bands and the 7 weather channels while keeping all of the other features of the FR-300. I promise you the Eton FR-300 Multi-Purpose Radio will be used and appreciated the next time we lose power or evacuate for a hurricane.