Home > Consumer Reviews > Freeplay Corporation Freeplay Plus Radio

I'm new to short wave listening but am impressed with this radio. AM and FM are much better than the FR-300 I have and better than the Sony home stero and the "jambox" in the workshop.

The light works great and will light a room quite well. Its not a spot light, but doesn't profess to be. One candle power is what its rated at but I think its more. It shines across the back yard nicely. I like the magnet mount on the back of it and 6' cord for mounting somewhere other than in the radio.

The short wave is very nice and has a fine tuning knob that comes in handy for bringing in those distant stations. I have listened to South America, China, Germany, BBC, and many others that I'm not sure where they are because of the language barrier. I'm sure one was Russia and one was Japan. There are more short wave stations in english than I thought there would be, like the one from China I happen to like listening to. The four page pamflet that comes with it suggests a short wave antenna will help reception. A length of speaker wire and an alagator clip will do the trick but I haven't tried it yet.
There is some fadeing but I'm still able to hear whats said on most of the frequencies. I live in the south east US [ an hour from the ocean ] and I hear reception is better here so yours may differ.

The hand crank is a bit stiffer than I expected, but for one thats rated at 10,000 x 60 cranks I would expect something solidly built and it seems to be just that. Just crank it 60 times [ two minutes ] and it plays for about 20 hours depending on sound level and usage of the light. This is the main reason I bought this radio.. no wall plugs, no batteries, no problem. You can depend on this baby to perform when the batteries die in everyone elses and they come to you for world news or weather reports. Being a scout and then in the military many, many years ago, I have always believed one should "Be Prepared" and this radio is a good start.

I haven't tried the solar panel yet but if it works like everything else I'm sure it does what they claim it will.
This is a solid radio that I would recommend to everyone.
The only cons are it didn't come with a ac/dc adapter plug [ though takes one ] but getting one at radio shack won't break me if I get too lazy to crank it for two minutes. It seems a bit large for what it consists of but I haven't opened it to see why all the room was needed so untill then I'll trust that they knew what they were doing.

Lastly I'd like to thank J&R who sold me this and after buying it on Tuesday morning I got an email Tuesday night saying it had been shipped and it was at my door Thursday afternoon.

This radio does everything it says it will, and it does it quite well.

My siblings and I bought this for our parents, who also live in Oklahoma, and they have been very enthused by it. My 77-year-old father actually listens to regular radio with it, and has tinkered with the shortwave.

The sound is very good, and it is easy to operate, even for my extremely non-technical Dad. He did get tired of winding it, and this leads to my only gripe: CCrane need to include an AC adapter. The dynamo is nice, but the novelty wears off quickly. (We bought an adapter from Radio Shak, and it has worked fine.)

I received one of these radios as a gift, and being in Oklahoma we have serve storms and tornados this time of year and loose electrical power. This radio is wonderful, and such a sense of security when the power goes out. I would recommend it to everyone!

When it came time to replace my broken Grundig AM/FM/SW radio, I looked around for something a bit more full-featured.

The Freeplay Plus works as well as the Grundig on all radio bands. Neither better, nor worse. The crank is slightly more difficult to wind, but not terribly so. The solar panal is a plus. The large flashlight is removable, a plus, but seems less brilliant than the smaller one on the Grundig.

Most intriguing in the list of features to me was:
"Jack for optional headphone or external shortwave antenna (both not included)"

Finally, I would be able to use an external antenna in a jack instead of clipping it to the telescoping antenna, which over time, is what broke my old Grundig.

The manual however makes no mention of a jack for an external antenna. There is no dedicated jack for one, and the only jack into which an antenna plug may be inserted is the headphone jack. From the feature list, it would appear this is what one is to do.

But as headphone jacks are wont to do, the speaker is thereby disabled. I take it on faith from the feature list that the antenna functions well in that jack -- but if one is unable to listen to the radio because of it, I think the feature is of questionable use.

Sad to say, it was for this feature I spent $99 for the Freeplay Plus emergency radio instead of $39 for a new Grundig which works just as well. Minus four stars for deceptive advertising.

I purchased a freeplay flashlight, and when I really needed it, it would not work. The company acknowledged the fatal flaw in the design but would do nothing for me. The rating system does'nt allow zero stars, but these guys deserve minus stars.

" Not only is the spring prone to the problem you've come up against, its coiled energy (even when "unwound" it is still partly coiled) makes it dangerous to open the case, so repair is difficult and replacement is the only practical option in such a situation."

They said that I should buy a new one, you've got to be kidding me!