Guys,

I've received my share of broken radios due to poor packing.
In one case, I bought a pair of scarce Canadian-market-only
1960s Hallicrafters mobile CB radios from a fellow in VE7.
He put the two radios into a box with NO packing materials,
taped it shut, and UPS'ed it to me! Needless to say, both
radios were damaged beyond salvage. There was no electrical
damage, but ALL of the knobs and switches were broken, the
plastic front panels were broken, the steel cabinets were
dented, and the mic heads were cracked. My nice SX-101A
arrived with the glass smashed because the seller packed it
in stiff styrofoam that had absolutely no shock absorbency.
Same thing with an S-107; the glass dial was shattered. I
eventually repaired both of those receivers, but it never
should have been necessary. I've gotten lucky with a lot
of gear, but obviously not all the time. It's a crap shoot
at best. Shipping companies have no respect.

But wait... all is no lost!

I have a suggestion for shipping large and/or heavy BA gear:
ship it by motor freight! This is nothing new, but so many
of our ham brethren don't even think of it.

Get out the Yellow Pages and call around to determine the
best cost and shipping times. Pack the gear carefully in a
sturdy cardboard box with plenty of shock-absorbent material
all the way around, take the box to the trucking company and
have them strap it to a wooden pallet for shipment. Do make
sure the box is centered on the pallet.

With the box centered on a pallet, no other packages will get
bashed into yours, no humans will pick up your package and
toss it onto a conveyor belt, into a truck, or onto a plane,
and if you specify that no other pallets may be stacked on
top of yours, it can't get crushed from above. No damage!

This method will be rather costly, but the alternative is the
risk of having an irreplaceable piece of equipment damaged or
destroyed. No matter how well you THINK your equipment is
packed, if you ship via a normal shipper, there is still a
high probability that it'll be damaged in transit. How much
is that gear worth to you? Are you willing to risk it?

At work, we have completely stopped using FedEx, UPS, DHL,
and the other overnight shippers to transport our electronic
equipment because they were damaging 75% of our shipments.
Sure, they always pay the insurance claim, but in the mean
time, the production line is stopped until we the equipment
is repaired (which can't be done until the insurance claim
is paid!). Since we changed to motor freight shipment, we
have had ZERO damage! The extra cost is worth it.

73,
Dean K5DH