[78-L] Early portable electric recording? [FWD]

[Michael Biel]

Mike Harkin wrote:
>> I've heard of wind-up radios, for places like Darkest Africa
>> where there's no electricity. IIRC the wind-up motor drives
>> a small geneerator; don't remember how long a winding was good for.
>> MIke in Plovdiv
From: Malcolm Rockwell <malcolm at 78data.com>
> One can also get these in Darkest America if one knows
> which catalogue to look in.  Mal


Or you can just go to Radio Shack where they have about 5 or 6 different
models.  Most also have a flashlight and emergency light, and I prefer
the ones which also have a solar cell power option.  Most of these now
also have a power outlet to allow for the recharging of cell phones. 
You don't need to live in an area where there is no electricity service
to experience power outages.  While I have never been in a situation
where I lost power for more than 10 or 12 hours, there have been areas
quite close to me -- including cities of a half million people -- where
an ice storm or a flood caused the loss of power for two weeks.  You
would have to be crazy not to have at least one of these. Most of these
crank radios do not use wind-up motors, but have the crank driving the
generator directly to put a charge into rechargable batteries.  You can
prepare the batteries with when you have power, and also keep it in the
sun if you have one with solar cells.  Then the crank is used to keep
the batteries topped off when you lose power and it is night, or if you
are running the flashlight bulb or charging your phone. 

To get back to the original question, the Magnamite wind-up tape
recorder I discussed earlier, only used the spring motor to move the
tape.  The tube amplifier needed batteries.

Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com