Annual transceiver service: Epic fail
“Sent with time to spare
Never made it to Pieps
Back now, unserviced”
I’ve just endured a shambolic, worrying, and hugely unsatisfying experience - What? No, not writing this haiku (but ok, yes, it is terrible) - something else that gives me genuine concerns about being able to maintain critical safety equipment if you live in the UK.
My transceiver had reached time for it’s first service and Pieps were offering a 20% discount on that, so in mid-October I booked a service, packed it up and sent it off to Austria. So far, so good. Tracking then said it sat in Austrian customs for a month, with no-one able to tell me why, what was to happen next, or whether I’d ever see it again. “Maybe it’ll get sent back to you”, Royal Mail customer services said, “You did put a return address on it, didn’t you?”. I mean, probably? But now really wondering… Felt like I better start researching for a new transceiver.
Late November rolls by and, ah ha, I get an update, but weirdly it says “Leaving the UK” - er, eh? This was followed by another saying it had been returned to the wrong part of the UK. Great! But, luckily, I do have it home again - package unopened. The only clue given for it’s return being a sticker on it saying “Unclaimed”. Pieps themselves say they received no notification of it’s arrival in Austria.
It cost me 12 quid for tracked delivery too. Oh well, at least I got it back.
Maybe I was just unlucky? Could be, but now I don’t have time to try again before my first trip in January to the slopes (fingers crossed for that coming off as well), so I’ll be heading out with an unserviced transceiver. Not that I suspected that it even needed a service, I just wanted to do the right thing and have maximum confidence in a pretty vital bit of safety kit. Once I’ve done some avi practice with it on that first trip and see it’s still working well, I’m sure I’ll get over the minor nervousness I feel about it right now. Then, I’ll try again, next summer.
The worrying thought is that this might not be a one-off - what if we can’t reliably get technical kit to where it needs to get to for servicing anymore…?
Still, at least we’ve taken back control, eh?
