A testament to toughness.....

Heterodyne · Post by **Heterodyne** » Thu Dec 23, 2004 6:27 pm

2 days ago I bought a very mint MTX8000 B5 from Code 3.... No real use, just a glorified scanner. I'm not ashamed to admit it.

So... last night around midnight I trek out in the snow to do some grocery shopping. As we are in the midst of a terrible snow and ice storm, I grabbed the radio to listen to the local cops tackle the terrible weather.

So, this morning I wake up to go help my dad dig out the cars from the two feet of snow and inch of ice on top.... I walk out to the garage and my dad hands me the radio.

Turns out, with my arms full of groceries at about 1am the radio that I thought was securely clipped to my pocket fell onto the driveway, where it remained for nine hours in a blizzard and later bombarded by freezing rain. My dad only noticed it when it jammed the auger in his snowthrower and stalled out the engine.

Other than a nice gouge out of the plastic on the battery and a few scuffs, the radio was fine. It was caked in about half an inch of ice and compacted snow, but lo and behold, it's stiing here next to me barking out audio like it was brand new. I even opened it up to clean out the inside, only to find nary a drop in it's innards.

It survived a -10 degree night, a blizard, hours of freezing rain and getting eaten by a snowthrower. Tough stuff, man.

Just a little story I wanted to share with the group.

jim · Post by **jim** » Thu Dec 23, 2004 7:06 pm

DISCLAIMER: DO NOT try this at home. This stunt was performed by a trained professional on a closed course. Also, do not attempt this with a Waris radio.

Jay911 · Post by **Jay911** » Thu Dec 23, 2004 7:17 pm

Yet my HT1000 fell down carpeted stairs and broke the battery clips.

Nice survival story though!

MTS2000des · Post by **MTS2000des** » Thu Dec 23, 2004 7:54 pm

sounds like my HT600 story from a few years ago. In the summer of 99 I was doing lots of work on the exterior of my house (repainting, roof work, etc). I was using one of 5 UHF HT600's I owned at the time to work a local ham repeater. I then got into Jedi's that summer hot and heavy and traded most of my Genesis stuff away or sold it. Apparently one night after working hard I forgot I left one of the 600's out on the side of my house, on the ground near the demarc for my phone lines (rewired the house).

Well in mid 2000, around April, started having trouble with a phone extension. While I was probing the demarc, lo and behold I saw the gray plastic of an HT600 lying on the ground, face down, in about 6" of mud and leaves. I picked it up, still wet from a spring shower. Of course the battery was hosed. Just for giggles I slid a spare MT1000 battery on it..lo and behold the loud single BEEP came from the speaker! I keyed the radio, the LED lit, and the repeater came back to me. I called out and finally got an answer (old farts around here) and got a good audio report back.

The HT600 survived almost a full year of hot Georgia summer, followed by cold (though not as Canada) winter of 1999 (Y2K!), and Spring 2000 (full of rain) and still worked! I did open the radio and no corrosion on anything. Those O-Rings work miracles. I cleaned the radio with a toothbrush and diluted Joy just like the svc manual says. The only damage to the radio was a discoloration of the white product ID label on the back. I still have that radio and it works just fine now almost 5 years later.

Heterodyne · Post by **Heterodyne** » Thu Dec 23, 2004 8:07 pm

Probably the worst disaster story I ever had was an MT1000 I was going to ship to Seth for something.... The night I decide to wrap and ship it I decide to try to hit some repeaters across the lake in Rochester NY from my 16th story balcony in Toronto.

The radio slipped from my gloved hand and rocketed to the ground, smashed into about five pieces. I don't have the photos anymore.. but maybe Adrian does..?

Motoman · Post by **Motoman** » Thu Dec 23, 2004 9:09 pm

My MTS-2000 II fell into the pool, sunk the whole 3Meters. Was down there for about 2 Mintutes, the time it takes me to get my swimming gear on. Pulled it out, opened it up to find no water had leaked in and turned it on and has worked fine ever since.

k4wtf · Post by **k4wtf** » Thu Dec 23, 2004 10:37 pm

Perhaps one of the moderators can dig out my Saber survival story from last year and move it here. I'm pretty sure it's in the lounge. It lasted several hours in the show and ice (in the middle of the road) and was RUN OVER by a snowplow and who knows what.

John

Post by **HumHead** » Thu Dec 23, 2004 10:50 pm

John:

I'm afraid you'll have to re-tell the tale. I looked for you, but found nothing. With pruning, the Lounge only goes back to around February of this year.

VA3XDJ · Post by **VA3XDJ** » Fri Dec 24, 2004 6:03 am

I've heard similar stories about DPC550/650 flip phones. Such as the 650 spending the night in a snow bank and working as if new when found the next day.

Or the 550 getting run over by a compact car, in snow, and still working. (Well, aside from the annoying noise from the IC shield being cracked. You could hear when the LEDs were lit up and when InUse was blinking.)

Post by **/\/\y 2 cents** » Fri Dec 24, 2004 10:31 am

Too bad those stories w/ based on the glorious past models.The past is the past....try that w/ a cp200 (ht600 replacement)

wa2zdy · Post by **wa2zdy** » Fri Dec 24, 2004 9:36 pm

Heh heh, I thought that had been you Bryan with the flying MT1000.

Yep, some of these radios are tough. I have NINE Genesis radios now (I know, time to thin the herd) along with an HT200 still in use (on the 10m ham band) and some MT500s that are somewhere not yet unpacked.

But tonight, Santa brought me a whole new world. I got an HT1000 tonight for Christmas. I know they're good too since we use them at work. But I surely do worry about some of the more recent stuff coming out of Big M's factories.

Oh well.

VA3XDJ · Post by **VA3XDJ** » Sun Dec 26, 2004 2:49 am

Maybe its just me but I've noticed ever since the cellular market started taking off, and that their income from these carriers and their subscribes multiplied fourfold that their focus has been shifted away from two way radios. Motorola has started getting real cheap and cutting corners with the durability and quality of their radios. I know that in the 70's, 80's and 90's before the cellular boom, they were the biggest supplier of radio equipment to the USA and Canada.

Now Ericsson is starting to take care of their business with ProVoice and EDACS, Kenwood and Vertex for the conventional and some trunking stuff.

Of course, this probably doesn't apply to the higher end gear designed for military/PS/government but by looking at stuff like the XTN, some Spirit models, CDMs (vs. Maxtrac or GM300) and CP/CT models, I'm really not impressed at how they are designed yet the price is still as high as if it were quality and durable stuff...

Anyone else notice that trend?

Anyhow, as always, just my 2 cents and personal perspective.

ExKa|iBuR · Post by **ExKa|iBuR** » Sun Dec 26, 2004 3:00 am

Geeze Bryan, that's pretty damn impressive.

I had an MTX2000 UHF... well, I still have it... that survived a fall something like 450 feet off the roof of a building onto a gravel parking lot. The only thing that happened was the battery went flying (into Lake Ontario I might add

), and the antenna was pretty much a write off....but the radio still worked!

The battery was an old POS from 2000 anyway, so it needed to be replaced. The antenna was already halfway out the door, so it just gave me the excuse I needed to get new stuff anyway

Like so many others have said...try that with the new pieces of junk Motorola is selling...

-M