Theres always a risk associated with carrying a box around. As somone who does this on a daily basis with very large boxes I always have the worst case scenario situation flash through my mind when I leave the house. Accidentally banging it against something and cracking the case, battery failure on the go or worse component failure on the go, but I experienced something worse than this on the way home from work today.
About a quarter of the way home carrying my Lasonic TRC-975, enjoying a tune, and comtemplating the rather rough day at work and looking forward to the weekend BANG. The handle snaps. CRASH within a second batteries are all over the pavement and the power cable's hanging out like some appalling crime scene. I'm standing there with the handle in my hand shocked to the core.
Going into damage control I get all the batteries together and stow them in my backpack along with the now separated handle. Luckily this wasn't a busy time of day and I was the only one on the street, so I carefully put the battery cover back on her and made sure everything was picked up. I picked up the 975 and heard a sickening plastic rattle inside... I hastily put her under my arm and walked home,.. in silence.
I was grateful to not see anyone I knew on the way home and managed to get home without further humiliation. I'll take the radio apart and surmise the damage tomorrow, I'm pretty sure I have a spare set of metal handle brackets that will fit, so I'll replace them and see from there.
This nightmarish experience certainly isn't going to stop me carrying.. but I'm going to be far more careful with the radios I choose to take to work and plastic bracketed handles are now entirely off limits.
Let this be a cautionary tale for those out in the wild, blasting as they should, that it only takes one second for things to go horribly wrong.
Rock On.
About a quarter of the way home carrying my Lasonic TRC-975, enjoying a tune, and comtemplating the rather rough day at work and looking forward to the weekend BANG. The handle snaps. CRASH within a second batteries are all over the pavement and the power cable's hanging out like some appalling crime scene. I'm standing there with the handle in my hand shocked to the core.
Going into damage control I get all the batteries together and stow them in my backpack along with the now separated handle. Luckily this wasn't a busy time of day and I was the only one on the street, so I carefully put the battery cover back on her and made sure everything was picked up. I picked up the 975 and heard a sickening plastic rattle inside... I hastily put her under my arm and walked home,.. in silence.
I was grateful to not see anyone I knew on the way home and managed to get home without further humiliation. I'll take the radio apart and surmise the damage tomorrow, I'm pretty sure I have a spare set of metal handle brackets that will fit, so I'll replace them and see from there.
This nightmarish experience certainly isn't going to stop me carrying.. but I'm going to be far more careful with the radios I choose to take to work and plastic bracketed handles are now entirely off limits.
Let this be a cautionary tale for those out in the wild, blasting as they should, that it only takes one second for things to go horribly wrong.
Rock On.