This fellow popped up on Amazon, on sale for $25.99. It’s not my usual sweet spot for a radio with its analog tuning dial and no shortwave, but I have come to the conclusion that those two features aren’t important to me in an emergency radio. It’s set to arrive January 23.
The AXYEBI AB-US-107Y has the standard feature complement one expects in the genre:
- MW/FM reception
- Weather band
- NOAA Weather Alerts
- Charging crank
- Solar charging
- Reading light
- Flashlight
- Emergency Alarm
- Ability to charge other things
It adds a compass.
What stands out is the stated 13000 mAh battery capacity. One of the significant issues with weather alert radios is that they take considerable power just sitting there waiting for the alert, so a big hulking battery means more alert time. The product description says one can listen to radio for 90 hours on the internal battery. It can also run off 3 AAA batteries in a pinch.
To carry that much power, the radio can’t be small, and it isn’t at 6.5 x 3.3 x 3.5 inches.
Here’s the battery:
The other extra value is that it’s IPX4 weather resistant. That’s not submersible, but protected in a heavy rain. I had one nice weather radio destroyed by a light rain.
The Amazon product description describes it as “Upgraded” for 2024, specifically a larger battery, a longer antenna (length not specified) and louder SOS siren.
Every weather radio I have tried receives the local weather station easily and I’m confident this one will too. They generally fall apart on MW, but we shall see.
I may keep this one in the car. I currently use an iRONSNOW IR-688 as my emergency radio, but it’s pain to tune and it’s almost useless on MW. This one looks extremely intuitive to operate.
Questions:
- What does the speaker sound like?
- What’s the MW/FM performance?
- How long is the antenna?
- Does it support USB-C fast charging?
- How does it compare to my other weather radios?