fictional story with some facts mixed in
Our normal day is a life of adventure, the thing most radios only dream about. Our company ad says: “Learn the ropes of rock climbing from our expert staff. Soar through the air with one of our professional trapeze artists. Trek through the woods on a mountain bike. And don’t miss out on the opportunity to zoom through the trees on one of our many zip lines. Your next adventure is ready and waiting.” Me and my buddies are a pretty extreme sport crowd. We’re livin’ the dream! Nothing like zipping through the tree canopy riding on the hip of one of the adventurers. Ah… this is the life!
So here we were on a fine Summer afternoon hangin’ out with the cool crowd at the resort, zippin’ along through the trees, when suddenly my clip became dislodged from my guide’s belt and I began to tumble end over end to the floor of the forest. Luck for me the guide noted approximately where he had dropped me. A group of fellow guides on the ground swiftly began searching for me among the green vegetation. I waited staring up at the blue sky peaking through the tall branches. Occasionally I would hear them talk into their radio to see if they could hear my speaker respond. My ability to receive transmissions and speak out must have been quieted by the fall. All I could manage was a distorted mumble. So every opportunity I had I would mumble. Eventually, using their keen tracking skills they located me in my soft cushion of grass.
When it was discovered I was mumbling, they must have thought I had a concussion, and they took me to the office. I sat there on desk in a box with several other radios listing to the phone calls, office chitchat, and a noisy copy machine. I longed for the outdoors. I decided… the office was boring. Or maybe it is just boring to a radio of adventure like myself. I just wasn’t cut out to be an office radio.
Soon I overhear them talking about me and some others needing to go to a radio repair facility. By the next morning we were in a box, riding in a truck on our way to Missouri. One of the other radios had been there before, and said it will take about 3 days in the dark to get there. We might as well get some rest. Well sleeping worked for a while, then I was wide awake. As we passed through cities we could occasionally hear someone talking on their two-way radio through our receivers that were left turned on. The journey seemed longer since it was in the dark.
Then on day three we arrived at the repair facility. The lights were bright when the box was first opened. A friendly girl with a nice voice took me out of the box and put me in a brightly colored bin with the others from the resort. She read the note the guide had written and taped to me. She spoke out loud and said “this one has poor receive”, as she admired my customized exterior.
The guide who uses me most had decorated me with checkered flag duct tape. I figured it was because he and I together are so fast at all the sports. No team can zipline as fast as us, or climb the rock mountain so quickly. We don’t have race cars at the resort, but if we did, we would likely be among the fastest on the track. Some of the others in my group also had some customization. A radio nicknamed Green had a simple piece of green tape around his antenna, and another one had blue and white racing stripes. You could tell we were not the office radios, we are the extreme sport radios.
At the repair center we could feel the looks of the other radios as they admired our sporty look. While some radios had their company name emblazened on them, or a fruit sticker on their front, we were like a flashy sports car ready for the race. Our bin made its way through the repair facility and on to the technicians bench. He took great care in returning us to working order. Soon I will be headed back to Connecticut ready for my life of adventure. I’m dreamin’ now about zippin’ through those trees, climbing the rocks, can’t wait to be home.
If you have questions about 2-way radio repair give us a call here at Delmmar Communications, 800-872-2627. We are always happy to help.
~cl