September 2002
I bought a really cool Sony ICF-SW100 worldband travel radio from eBay. The bidding went on for a week, and I secured it for €180, which was a lot to pay for a radio, but it was cheaper than new.
I walked half a mile to the bank and got a Sterling banker’s draft because the vendor was in Scotland. Then I had to walk a mile to the post office and put the draft in an envelope, and sent it off to Scotland.
October 2002
A week later, my lovely radio arrived. It worked fine for a while, but then the battery compartment lid housing broke. So I have to tape the thing up to hold the batteries in. A bit unsightly but no biggie.
November 2002
I went to London for the weekend and brought my lovely radio. But when I went to turn it on, I discovered it didn’t work.
I returned to Dublin, and located a Sony-approved repair shop, so I used up a lunch hour to drive to it. The guy in the shop was a buttmunch with an attitude - he left me standing there for 10 minutes before he served me, though there was nobody else in the shop. He looked at it, and sneered “it’s a ribbon cable problem; it’ll cost you €170 just for us to look at it”.
I wasn’t having that, so I left the store and did a google search for ICF-SW100 ribbon cable repair. Eureka! A page all about this notorious design fault, and how to effect the repair. To do it, I had to order a part from Sony.
So the next day I wasted another lunch hour driving to the nearest Sony dealership, who told me that they didn’t do parts because they were only a franchise.
I called Sony Ireland, and they said they had the part in stock - all I had to do was to mail them a check for €25. Great! When I got home after work, I got my checkbook, wrote the check, then the next day walked a mile to the post office, and mailed it off.
December 2002
Two weeks later, the repair kit arrived. Armed with the web instructions and the repair kit, I set about making the repair. Except to get the damn thing open, I needed a 1.5mm cross-head jeweller’s screwdriver, which I didn’t possess. So I wasted my lunch hour and went to a hardware store. They didn’t sell them. Another hardware store: no jewellers’ screwdrivers. Went back to work.
God bless Google: I found a small company in Dublin that sold jewellers’ screwdrivers. He offered to send me a selection for €24. The sweet old man said he’d send them out even before I mailed a check. So I got out my checkbook again, walked a mile to the post office, and mailed off the check.
January 2003
The screwdrivers arrived, so armed with these, the instructions, the repair kit, I dismantled the radio. All the tiny little bits went into a paper cup, and I took out all the PCBs. I was amazed at how much crap they managed to cram into that tiny little case. Two hours of eyestrain, frustration, a stabbed hand and fiddling around, I finally got the new ribbon cables threaded through the housing and the lid, and the repair was complete. I reassembled the whole thing - akin to “pushing a dozen live worms though a hole” according to the instructions, taped the batteries in, and turned it on: bada bing! It worked. I was so pleased, having saved myself at least €120.
February 2003
This morning, mildly hungover from last night’s Guinness, I walked to the store in the crisp morning sunlight to buy a newspaper. I brought my trusty radio with me so I could listen to a current affairs program on headphones. I came back home, and decided to check the SDMB.
I put the radio on the chair in front of the computer, went to get a coffee, came back to the computer, and sat down.
On the motherfucking radio.
Which had the lid up.
There was a hideous cracking sound as the lid was bent backwards against the hinges, and was ripped out of the body of the radio by my butt. The lid is now dangling off the body of the radio, held on solely by the new ribbon cables. The metal hinges are completely warped, and the lid and body hinge housings are both totally smashed. Bizarrely, it still works, but is now entirely non-portable, which kind of destroys the point of a travel radio.
I am such a fucking idiot.
