Sleigh the outage.

Jingle all the way, on two meters

Ham radio gifts

A ham already owns a radio. What they want is more range and power that keeps it on the air. A real whip antenna is the cheapest upgrade a handheld gets, and a 12 V LiFePO4 battery in a box with USB-C turns any rig into a field station. We run three of these on our own 12 V setup.

Nagoya NA-771 whip antenna

The classic upgrade over a stock rubber-duck antenna on a VHF/UHF handheld with an SMA-female jack.

Under $50

WE OWN

DC HOUSE 2-in-1 converter

Clips to a 12 V LiFePO4 battery and turns it into 45 W USB-C.

Under $50

WE OWN

POWO Carlife battery box

Anderson, USB-C and QC ports on top of a 10 to 30Ah battery, with a handle.

$50-150

WE OWN

DC HOUSE 12 V 30Ah LiFePO4

384 Wh of 12 V in a 6.6 lb brick that fits the POWO box.

$50-150

Have a merry little blackout

Prepper gifts

Most preppers already have the water filter and the bug-out bag. The gaps are alerts, communication and power that's sized to their gear. A crank weather radio hears warnings with no grid, a headlamp frees both hands, a GMRS pair keeps the family on one channel when cell service fails, and a watt meter shows what the fridge really draws.

Midland ER310PRO emergency radio

Wirecutter's top emergency radio pick. NOAA alerts, crank, solar and a 10,000 mAh bank that charges a phone.

$50-150

LHKNL rechargeable headlamp 2-pack

Two USB-C headlamps with a red mode. One for the go bag, one for the junk drawer.

Under $50

P3 Kill A Watt

Reads the real watts of a fridge or CPAP, so a power station gets sized right.

Under $50

Midland GXT1050 GMRS pair

Two radios with NOAA weather alerts and rechargeable packs. GMRS transmit needs an FCC license, no exam.

$50-150

Fa la la la LoRa

Meshtastic gifts

Mesh nodes send texts with no cell tower and no subscription. The WisMesh Tag and the Heltec V4 run Meshtastic or MeshCore, whichever their local mesh uses. One node is a toy and two make a network, so give a pair. We carry the WisMesh Tag every day and run a Heltec V4.

WE OWN

RAK WisMesh Tag

Card-thin, IP66, GPS, and it runs Meshtastic or MeshCore.

Under $50

WE OWN

Heltec V4 board

The bare ESP32-S3 board for a builder who wants to flash and case it.

Under $50

RAK Mini Meshtastic Starter Kit

A WisBlock base and LoRa core that make a low-power node. Add a battery and an antenna to finish it.

Under $50

RAK WisMesh Pocket v2

An all-in-one handheld node with a screen, GPS and a built-in battery. Nothing to assemble.

$50-150

Yule be glad you have backup

Power station gifts

A power station is the gift that pays off on the first dark night. Pick by watt-hours, not the surge figure on the box. A 300 Wh DC unit covers phones, laptops and radios, and a 1 kWh LiFePO4 station runs a fridge through the night. The calculators on this site show runtimes for real loads.

WE OWN

EcoFlow RIVER 3

We own one. The RIVER 3 manual, model EFR705, lists 245 watt-hours and 300 watts AC.

$150-500

WE OWN

Anker SOLIX C300 DC

288 Wh of USB-C and 12 V in a lunchbox for laptops, lights and radios.

$150-500

Anker SOLIX C1000 Gen 2

1,024 Wh of LiFePO4, 2,000 W AC, a 10 ms UPS mode and 600 W of solar input. Minute Man Solar calls it his top portable pick.

Splurge

Here comes the sun, and Santa

Solar gifts

Solar turns a battery into a supply that refills itself. Match the panel to the station: a solar power bank rides in a pocket, a 28 W USB panel tops off phones, and a 450 W foldable feeds a 1 kWh station with a 40 to 60 V input. Check the station's solar voltage window before you wrap anything.

BLAVOR 10,000 mAh solar power bank

A pocket bank with a trickle solar panel and two flashlights. The stocking stuffer that rides in every glovebox.

Under $50

BigBlue 28W solar charger

Folds to paperback size and charges phones and power banks straight from the sun over USB-C.

$50-150

ZOUPW 450W foldable panel

450 W for 40 to 60 V station inputs, with XT60, Anderson and DC7909 leads in the box.

$150-500

Deck the halls with boughs of cable

Gifts for the guy who has everything

He owns the tools and the truck. What is left to wrap is a cable rated for 240 W, and a switch that moves one circuit to battery on its own.

Anker 240 W USB-C cable 2-pack

Braided 6 ft cables rated for 240 W. Nobody owns enough good ones.

Under $50

WE OWN

Xantrex PROwatt SW auto transfer switch

Ours runs one circuit. It flips that circuit to a PROwatt SW inverter when the grid drops.

$50-150

Questions