Did anybody see what I did there in the title, “Weather Alert! Radio Arrives” instead of “Weather Alert Radio Arrives”? That’s because despite the Amazon product description having this text buried deep down, “NOAA weather alert radio,” this is no more a NOAA weather alert radio than a regular broadcast receiver tuned to a station that has weather reports. When the NOAA test tone goes off tomorrow, this radio won’t be listening for it.
Kudos to Amazon for getting the radio to me 2 days earlier than projected, and in the morning no less. $25.99 on sale with free Prime shipping. Note that AB-US-107Y in the product listing has changed to MD-107 on the package and in the manual. There is no brand on the box or manual, but “Axyebi” appears on a warranty sticker on the bottom of the radio and the Amazon product description.
First I noticed that opening the box required moving a tab labeled OPEN. It’s a small thing, but thoughtful to point out the tab. Right out of the box we have a bubble-wrapped radio, manual, USB-A to USB-C charging cable. The wrist strap and compass were pre-installed. The radio is formidable, 1 lb., 3.1 oz. with a size of 6.5 x 3.3 x 3.5 inches. And now to disclose the answer to the burning question: how long is the antenna? It measures 21 inches. Compare that to 10″ for my Mesqool CR-1009 Pro, 11.5″ on my iRONSNOW IR-688 or 16.5″ for the XHDATA D-608WB.
Something really bugs me about the Amazon Product Name:
Exactly what does “48100mWh” have to do with anything? The difference between this number and the also quoted 13000mAh is the difference between Watts and Amps. The radio is rated at 13000mAh (milliamp hours). That’s current flow over time, not energy, and it’s the way batteries are sold. To get Watts, one has to multiply by voltage, meaning that the company has multiplied 13000 by 3.7 (the voltage of the battery) to get the larger, technically correct value.
Look how a buyer might be mislead with these other products:
Ease of Use and Documentation
The radio seems intuitive to operate, but I first glanced at 10 small folded up pages of information. The instructions seem complete, well-written and nicely illustrated. I give the manual Grade A! While the radio is rated IPX4 (heavy rain, but not immersion), the manual says the device should not be exposed to “dripping or splashing.” The obvious points of entry for water are the speaker grill and back battery door.
The manual suggests cranking the radio for one minute at 130 RPM before first use (I guess under the assumption that the radio has been sitting in a warehouse for a long time.) Whew, that was vigorous activity! I noticed that the orange charge light came on while cranking. The manual says one minute of cranking powers 6 minutes of radio.
So let’s turn it on!
Hmm, not the initial impression I hoped for.
Charging
I tried the flashlight and got only the dimmest glimmer of light, pointing to the battery perhaps being discharged. (Recall that I cranked for a minute already.) I plugged in the charging cable, powered by a 2.1A USB port on a power strip, in series with a USB tester. The radio charged at 5.04V, 0.16A. That’s not good. I would have expected 1.5A at least. The charging light is on, and all 4 battery status lights are flashing in sequence, suggesting that the battery indeed is at its lowest state.
It’s probably worth trying another charger (or two). I got the same result. Plugged into the charger, the radio will turn on and it was initially tuned for my local NOAA weather station. So 0.16A at 5V is a charging rate of 0.75W, which would result in a charging time of 40 hours. BUT WAIT. As I was typing this, the charging rate vaulted to 4.95V at 1.5A or 7.4A. Now that gets me all charged up in just 4 hours. Of course one should expect the charging rate to slow down as the battery fills. The Amazon product says 9 hours for a full charge.
There are 4 battery indicator lights, 25%, 50%, 75% and 100%. When I started charging they turned on in sequence, starting with all of them off. Now maybe 15 minutes later, the 25% light stays on and the other 3 flash in sequence.
There is something important that’s come out this exercise. In my prior experience charging radios, USB-C power distribution (PD) chargers would not work (these are advance chargers with USB-C output. Check out my article: Charging Radios – USB-C. One of of the PD chargers that couldn’t be used was my Bscane portable charger, along with my car and an Apple 20W charger. The Bscane did work with a USB-C cable (both ends) on this radio. I tested the car and it worked too, although only at a rate of .7A. (My iRONSNOW IR-688 will not work with power distribution chargers.) So the MD-107 is the only radio I have that works with a USB PD charger with a double-ended USB-C cable.
After all that running around testing chargers, checking some other radios and updating another article, the MD-107 now has the 50% light on solid, and the radio works fine unplugged.
Update: After 6 hours of charging, the radio is working on the last 25%. The charging rate hasn’t fallen.
I tend to skip over crank and solar charging. Product literature always tries to lower expectations. Reviews say don’t bother. The crank on this one takes some work to operate, suggesting that it’s doing something. The solar panel looks to be about 108 x 37 mm, or 40 cm2. It’s a little bigger than my other emergency radios, and perhaps enough, placed in a window, to keep the battery topped off.
Operation
Emergency stuff
The reading light is under the solar panel on top of the radio and (while not my favorite design) automatically turns on when opened. It seems adequate. The flashlight is point focused and very bright at that point. Enough light is cast to the side to make it reasonable to use this flashlight for walking in the dark. I’m pleased with the flashlight.
There is a compass attached to the carrying strap. When using the compass, position the strap the farthest possible distance from the radio to prevent false readings due to the magnetic speaker in the radio.
The SOS siren was about average for emergency radios.
Radio
I tried accessing NOAA weather stations. My local KZZ28 was received well, as it is with all my weather band radios. The very best radios can sometimes get two others under the best of conditions. The MD-107 barely received a second station, which puts it above average. I’ll have to wait for warmer weather to attempt those best conditions outdoors.
Weather is important, but not the only kind of emergency communications. For broader information, broadcast radio is needed. A very hasty band scan picked up about 30 FM stations and I would presume taking the radio outdoors and tuning very carefully (stations are very close together on the dial) would increase that number by a few. I think a final test would yield average to slightly below average results; however, it gets plenty of stations and that’s what is necessary. The tuning dial is fairly small to cover 100 potential FM station frequencies, so getting an exact count will be pushing things.
I live in a weak MW station area. This has proven to be a problem for all my previous emergency radios. The MW scenario is a local disaster that wipes out all the local radio stations, leaving distant evening MW reception as the only way to get news. Indoors around noon with the radio pointed in just one direction, I picked up 5 MW stations and frankly that’s pretty good for a non-hobbyist MW radio. In the evening a radio like this would be amply supplied with more distant stations.
Conclusion
For a budget emergency radio, the Axyebi MD-107 is a good one. It will likely become my “daily driver” in the genre, replacing the IR-688 that I never liked. For under $50, one contender, which is a better radio, is the XHDATA D-608WB, but XHDATA weather radios in general give false alerts, and the D-608WB doesn’t have that much energy storage. Of course this radio gives no alerts, but that’s a problematic feature for a battery powered radio anyway.
One can pay a lot for an emergency radio. One can pay extra for shortwave coverage. One can get more sensitive radios. I think this one is fine for what I need.