DV Info Net - Don't buy any audio from Mike.

Will testify to Lectro durability. Some years back we were filming inside a Navy destroyer and were on one of the side top walkway / gantrys in the engine room when one of our Lectro plugins got dropped. We heard it clanging and bouncing down the inside of the steel hull only to be followed by a splash as it hit the bottom of the ship and dropped into the mess of bilge salt water, diesel, oil, and various other lovely fluids.

That's got to be lost I ventured. No that wasn't the case. About 20 minutes later a couple of junior sailors turned up with it having gone on a successful fishing expedition. I thanked them but was all the while thinking it was a waste of time as I thought there was no way the Lectro was going to suffer that massive drop and bilge soaking.

Well I took it back to base then stripped the TX down and dropped the PCB assembly into a cup of methylated spirits. Meth spirits being miscible absorbs water. After five minutes in the spirits I then hit the PCP assy with a hair dryer to evaporate the meth spirits. I then sprayed the PCB assy with some WD40 and then wiped off the excess WD.

Lo and behold it worked. I was so impressed I contacted Lectro in the States and recounted the tale. They posted the story up on their site. They said they weren't overly surprised as they built them to be rugged. The rep I spoke to said a couple of weeks prior someone had dropped one out of a news chopper as it took off. The TX dropped about 30 meters to the concrete chopper pad. He went on to say that the case was pretty badly damaged but the TX still worked.

That Lectro TX continued to work for years. It only went after the government changed all our wireless frequencies which made all our Lectros illegal to use. Great gear!

Chris Young