Turned on the ancient Sony FM portable this AM and noticed
that the red tuning LED was not coming on even though the
signal seemed ok.

It runs on 4 rechargeables, currently a set of 2008 Eneloops
which were recharged about a week ago, but have only been in
use in the radio for couple of months (normally used in a Ricoh
Caplio camera)

Out of interest I took them out and measured the volts.
Out of the 4 batteries, two (inline) measured 1.29 volts
while the other two measured MINUS 0.094 volts !!??.

What's going on ?.

I put them back in the 7-day-shop intelligent charger and
they registered as empty on the LCD screen but after only
a minute they were reading 1.29 volts and after 15
minutes 1.34 volts by which time the lcd screen suggested
they were half charged.

What's going on ?. Is the charger at fault, or is the
radio causing this ?.

For some time I have noticed a strange, faint drum-beating
sound from the radio even when it is switched off.


Andrew