One of the few drawbacks to swimming laps (I mean other than having to have access to a pool in order to do it) is that sometimes it's hard to find a good way to distract yourself while doing it. Other activities that are land-based, you can listen to the radio, watch TV or catch up on some reading.
But not so much with swimming. You can try to read while swimming, but it tends to not be good for the book. And water plus electrical devices is not such a great combination.
So, I was pretty excited a few years ago when I saw a waterproof swimmer's radio. It was a small device that could clip onto your googles' headband and included ear buds so you could listen to the radio while you swam. It seemed like a briliant idea and a nice way to occasionally add some variety to the swimming routine. It looked cool and I was eager to try it.
Notice I say try it here. I was curious to see if it would work for me and if it was something I'd enjoy using.
What I really wanted was to meet someone who had one and get a testimonial on the radio's effectiveness. Over the years, I've never seen anyone with one so last week, I broke down and bought one. OK, let me back that up and say I broke down and got a new Swimmer's Choice radio on E-bay for five bucks (the asking price on a couple of web sites is close to $40).
For five bucks, I figured nothing ventured, nothing gained.
Well, the radio arrived earlier this week and I eagerly opened it up, put the battery in and got it ready to try out.
I have to admit I was pretty jazzed about it.
The excitement lasted all of one lap. A couple of things that I didn't like about it.
The ear buds are wired directly to the radio--and the connection is not all the good. I kept getting crackling and the sound fading bouncing in and out at will. The next thing is the radio doesn't have a dial or an indicator of which station it's tuned to. Not a big deal, I thought. I will just tune it to whatever station I want in the car. Except that every time you switch the radio off, it resets itself. So if you like a station in the 100s of the FM band, you're going to have to scan through a bunch of other stations EVERY TIME you want to hear that particular station. I don't quite understand this as the radio has a reset button on it to take you back to the lowest FM band if you desire. Why also reset yourself back to the lowest station on the FM band every time the radio goes on and off.
So, I guess you could say this is an experience of nothing gained. I wanted it to work and I was hoping it would. But it didn't live up to my expectations and I honestly don't see myself ever really making much use of it.
Oh well, at least I'm only out a couple of bucks and not $40.
posted by Michael Hickerson at 4/28/2006 01:33:00 PM |
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