Post by overlord on Jul 21, 2014 17:55:13 GMT 8
Ambient Weather WR-111 Crank Weather Radio
www.ambientweather.com/amwr111.html
I recently purchased an Ambient Weather WR-111 Crank Weather Radio from one of the local sellers of Prepper Equipment. He sold it to me at around USD70.00. I know, it was kind of expensive compared to the shelf price. Luckily, I was able to test it during the time that Typhoon Rammasun hit the Philippines and we had no electricity for a few hours.
Let's review the unit.
The unit came in a nice box although without much protection inside to protect it from scrapes and bumps from shipping. I would assume that it was packaged properly because I didn't see anything damaged when I took the radio out of the box.
The package came with the following components:
- The WR-111 radio with flashlight, FM/AM/WB Radio, mini-Solar Panel, and ports for charging
- A USB Charging Cable to charge the radio
- Various cellphone connectors
- a rechargeable off-the-shelf 800mAh CR123 Lithium-Ion battery
The radio itself is pretty nice looking and seems to be able to hold its own in rough situations (although I never planned to drop the unit to find out). It had rubber on the corners and a cover over the ports.
The radio itself has the following features:
1) FM/AM/Weather Alert Radio. The Weather Alert is not applicable here in the Philippines
2) Flashlight
3) Charging station for devices
4) Mini-solar panel to charge the battery
5) Crank to charge the battery
Radio:
If you leave the radio under the sun, you can practically run the whole afternoon listening to the radio with about 3 hours of listening time when there is no more sun.
The battery can give up to 3 hours plus of radio time (for AM and FM only)
The tuning buttons are kind of awkward since you have to press the buttons several times to be able to find the station you want.
Flashlight:
The flashlight is pretty bright considering it is a 3-LED flashlight. If your main purpose is to use it as a flashlight, it can get a bit awkward due to its size but in a jiffy, it is quite useful.
* Never really ran it for a long time since I had some powerbanks and a USB LED Lamp for lighting. My friend has used it as a source of light and after four hours, it was still bright.
Charging Station:
I tried using it as a charging station, let's just say that since it only has an 800mAh battery, it didn't take long to drain it while charging one of my devices.
According to the manual, it is adviseable to crank the arm if you are doing high-drain activities like charging a device. This can get pretty tiring.
Based on reviews on other websites, the WR-111 has a better cranking performance compared to other brands. You need less cranking to use the radio or flashlight.
Pros:
- One minute of cranking can give up to 20 minutes of radio time using normal volume
- Acceptable radio run-time off a fully charged battery
- Since it uses an off-the-shelf rechargeable battery, replacements are easy to find
- The solar panel really helps with the charging of the battery although this makes it good only for use with the radio and flashlight
- Pretty strong radio pick-up signal
- Very compact, can store easily in your BOB but not as part of an EDC
- Contrary to the manual, the mini-solar panel can actually fully charge the battery
- The crank is pretty sturdy compared to other crank radios I have seen
- Seems to be pretty robust
Cons:
- Twenty minutes of cranking time can give about one minute of cellphone charge
- To charge devices, you have to use the crank to augment the battery and solar
- Limited Capacity of the battery (although this can be remedied when larger capacity batteries come out)
- Weather Band is applicable in countries that have it. Consumes a lot of battery power also
- Everytime that battery is removed, all saved values (time, channels, etc.) are reset
- Tuning buttons are just up and down, has no station memory but has a scan mode
Verdict:
For a country like the Philippines, it can be useful as a portable FM/AM radio, flashlight, and emergency charging device. I wouldn't mind having it in my BOB
Note: This model has been discontinued in favor of the WR-112 which has a built-in Emergency Siren