Emergency radios

[tom mac]

BTW, love the cheap watch placed in with radios...

[bdcochran]

Cheap watches. You can obtain the cheapest Japanese digital watch for about $15. I have a pile of used Timex Ironmen. Of course, the batteries wear out over time. I regard the batteries as like an insurance premium. I have still a few used automatic watches.

I will give an insight into preps with a watch. You have all read how you should measure distances from your potentially assailed home to the big tree or the gate on the road. That makes sense. But how long does it take you to walk from the house to look out point in the day time and how long at night? How long does it take you to get from rally point to home? So a watch can have more than one role in your preps.

[Mac66]

This thread got me to drag out my Baofeng GMRS/2m radios and check them out. They all need to be recharged. I'll keep the spare battery packs in the charger from now on. And I do have 12 v cords for them. I'm also looking at new battery packs for my 2m hand held ham radio.

Speaking of watches.... you can get solar powered watches off of Amazon for about $20. Or a Casio solar for about $40.

My wife gave me a Pulsar solar powered watch 35 years ago on one of our anniversaries. I've had a bunch of watches since then (all now broken or with dead batteries) but the Pulsar never had to be wound and never needed batteries. Still keeps good time. It's made by Seiko today but I think she paid less than $100 for it back in the day. It's my EDC watch, I've even dived with it (waterproof to 100m).

[tom mac]

This thread got me to drag out my Baofeng GMRS/2m radios and check them out. They all need to be recharged. I'll keep the spare battery packs in the charger from now on. And I do have 12 v cords for them. I'm also looking at new battery packs for my 2m hand held ham radio.

Don't recommend leaving them on charge for long term.... Li-ions do best long term if charged to 85% and stored... so I'd just slow charge them up and check on them in another 6 months. Put it on the clipboard to redo... stored best in cool/cold location.
They can lose up to 5% per month.

READ ;
https://batteryuniversity.com/article/b ... -to-charge

[Mac66]

This thread got me to drag out my Baofeng GMRS/2m radios and check them out. They all need to be recharged. I'll keep the spare battery packs in the charger from now on. And I do have 12 v cords for them. I'm also looking at new battery packs for my 2m hand held ham radio.

Don't recommend leaving them on charge for long term.... Li-ions do best long term if charged to 85% and stored... so I'd just slow charge them up and check on them in another 6 months. Put it on the clipboard to redo... stored best in cool/cold location.
They can lose up to 5% per month.

READ ;
https://batteryuniversity.com/article/b ... -to-charge

Good point, I guess I had forgotten.