*UPDATE, EUREKA post #7* - (original headline here: ) Low-tech-me's latest hard-knock lesson: USB-A /USB-A a no-no!

Last edited Mon Oct 6, 2025, 10:22 PM - Edit history (1)

So, been digging up stuff to get rid of, found a few things from years ago - ex-phone, little short wave radio, emergency little radio, digital little camera - all of which in junk box forgotten for years. Am usually a pack rat for device *manuals* all highlighted and laminated, but this recent trove manual-less and the use knowledge therefore lost, although now almost everything is on the internet.

Some of these items use batteries, maybe with options for charging. This is about the emergency radio - options for cranking, solar, and yes cable charging. It has a USB A slot, and a mini-something slot. Decided to need a double ended A and A cable to fit into the plug and the radio. First stop retail that had only all A to C things and was told that they had never seen A to A. Next place, the first couple of young sales kids didn't even direct to the cables section and kept scrolling their phones to find out whether there was whatever in the store. So another sales kid suddenly appeared and took me over to the cables section and found an A-A, with an included coupler to C, fine.

So the knock. Got home almost elated that I found what I thought I needed, proceeded to put it in motion. Guess what, no sign of life, totally dead reaction, no little lights or beeps or whatever. The box and instructions said this was for "transferring data" (not charging?) between computers and that something (software?) needed to be downloaded to the computers. I was not using this for computers, and uninformedly assumed a connection is a connection and had no way to "download" on the charging task I was attempting. So the only way to test for some life in the cable was to try a different device - my phone, which is C and proceeded to use a coupler A to C.

Yes, life was happening, but instead of charging the phone, the battery started going down, the opposite way. Then horror - a *DANGER* message on the phone, something about an existential threat to the phone. Disconnected tout suite! Then in panic ran a phone diagnostics thing, that seemed to have O.K. results. But still anxiety about whether damage had happened. Left the phone overnight without new charging to see whether the battery would be worse in numbers in the morning. Morning, the number was the same, so O.K.?

*** So after this, did some of the googling research that should have been done before. Found out that double-A cables, when connected to devices, have some nefarious results of internal something or other, currents going back on themselves or something. So into the trash for my purchase. I'm sure the wizzes here will be able to fill out the vast knowledge gap.

The other research for my weather radio was that the A slot on it is "audio output" - no idea what that means, that an "output" will be to hear it with an "output" cable without charging? AND, that the mini-USB slot could be for charging? In my junk box of cables, there WAS a mini cable and it WORKED for life and charging!


NO-NO! :