Cheap Boat Radio

[LoneRanger]

I have a 12' aluminum boat and I want to have some music in there once in a while or listen to a game now and then. What are my best options for making a radio for CHEAP? Here are my ideas:

1. Use a car radio and car speakers.

2. Use a car radio and outdoor speakers like the fake rock ones they have at Menards.

3. Try to find a stereo that runs off a cigarette lighter and just splice the wires before the plug and run it off my battery.

4. I was told you can run a battery-operated radio by putting screws in the end of a piece of wood and fitting it perfectly into the battery slot, then you attach your positive and negative wires to opposite ends of the piece of wood and you get power that way. Does that actually work or do you need a resistor? I know an inline fuse is a must, but what size?

Any help is greatly appreciated.

LoneRanger

[Ralph Wiggum]

I'd just get a small boombox and a small power inverter. Should be able to get by really cheap and you don't have to worry about installation or it getting wet when you're not using it.

[Minnesota Fats]

Buy a cheap radio from target and use batteries. If you don't care about sound quality too much, you can get one for $30 and one set of batteries will last you a whole season.

[smilee_54]

I bought a little radio the other day at wal-mart. It has a crank on the back that powers the radio. Its "splash Proof" (yea right) It says that if you wind the crank for 30 seconds you will give you about an hour of sound. AM/FM radio and it fits in a pocket well no batteries at all. cost me ten bucks so if it dies oh well

[IFallsRon]

Check out the SuperRadio by GE. There around $29 on sale at Fleet Farm. You can draw in signals from 100s of miles away.

[Sandmannd]

I used to put just a boom box in my boat and had a lighter adapter that I wired to the battery. Then I could plug it into that. If you go the car stereo route (ended up doing that myself) you can find some cheap ones. I got mine for $40 day after Thanksgiving a couple of years ago. Catch on that is to get marine speakers and not car stereo speakers. The speakers need to be water proof to keep in the boat. You can find them on hsolist pretty reasonable. I think I paied $25 for my set and they are really good sounding. I like the car stereo (need an atenna as well) cause I can play MP3 CD's as well and listen to the radio.