Sangean MMR-88

Brand: Sangean Electronics

The MMR-88 is Sangean's rugged crank set, built around a rubber armored shell and a lithium battery that charges from solar, the crank handle or USB. It covers AM, FM and the weather band with alert standby, and adds an LED torch with high, low, strobe and SOS Morse modes, an emergency siren tone, a clock, a headphone jack and a USB output for topping up a phone. Sangean has been making receivers since 1974, and the tuner shows it in weak signal areas.

Suited to a truck, a camp box or a coastal house where salt air kills flimsy plastics. It has no SAME programming and no shortwave, and it costs roughly three times a no name crank radio, which buyers either accept as build quality or resent. The battery is small, so solar and crank are genuine backups here, not decoration.