subject: Hand Crank Emergency Radios [print this page] Around the 1990s Trevor Baylis, a British, invented the first hand crank emergency radio that was built by simply using a transistor radio, music box and a toy car. He was inspired by a television programme he was watching about the increase of AIDS around Africa. The program deliberated on how radio broadcasts can help educate people on AIDS but how that was curtailed by the fact that most people in Africa did not have access to electricity. With such widespread lack of standard power sources such as batteries and electricity, Baylis decided to invent a radio that used a cheaper way of getting power. He convinced several investors to finance his idea and won the BBC Design Award in 1996. He distributed the radios through his own company BayGen Power Industries.
From the foregoing, even though it was initially built with the power problem in Africa in mind, the hand emergency radio finds use in many other situations where power would be a problem. For instance, widespread natural or manmade disasters can cause power blackouts thus preventing the persons in the affected area from getting life saving information they would otherwise receive through radio or television. Most electrical gadgets in the home today such as televisions, radios and computers rely solely on mains electricity. In such circumstances, a hand crank emergency radio would serve as a backup source of information that can be used to find out vital information on what is in the vicinity and what people should do to mitigate the effects of the disaster.
The handheld emergency radio, as implied by the name, is powered by the use of a hand crank which is wound for two minutes. This provides the emergency radio with sufficient power to operate for anywhere between 30 minutes and one hour depending on the intensity of use. Even though the radio uses the hand crank, it can still be powered by using other conventional sources of power such as batteries, a solar board or using an adapter plugged into the mains supply. The more the number of power sources that can be used to fire up the hand emergency radio, the better it can serve as an emergency radio.
The hand crank emergency radio has the ability to receive both FM and AM frequencies. More advanced hand radios can receive international channels through the shortwave frequency. Of all the channels, the radio must be able to tune in to weather channels that relay information on weather conditions especially if the disaster is weather related such as a hurricane or floods. Hand crank radios are also fitted with additional functionality such as an emergency flashlight that can help them better serve as a utility tool during such crises. Like the radio, the flashlight is powered by winding the hand crank. The emergency radio is light weighing about 2 pounds. The cost too is low with most radios priced at below $100 per unit.
