Leaked Memo: “Submersible” Radios Really Just to Encourage Showers
By K5PO, on the scene
QINGZHEN, China — Memos recently leaked from a top amateur radio equipment supplier have left the ham community embarrassed and the company scrambling to escape from a public relations situation run afoul.
This memo exposes the real reason submersible HTs were created.The memo in question, penned from the ZuTango Radio Company’s CEO Zeung Weng, was dated October 13, 2003, and was addressed to about a dozen employees in the Research and Development division.
In the leaked memo, Weng stated he had been attending a few hamfests on a publicity tour for the company in the summer of 2003. Weng was appalled by the poor hygiene of some of the hamfest attendees and remarked, “Some of these guys don’t step away from the radio long enough to grab a shower!”
The unkempt amateurs gave Weng a unique idea: building a line of “submersible” dual band handi-talkies to encourage these stinky ops to shower up. Realizing that insinuating that your clients are smelly would not represent the company well, Weng devised a marketing plan to sell the HTs as if they were to be used in fanciful emergency situations.
“We’ll show rugged-looking men in outdoor scenarios, sporting search and rescue gear with one of our ‘shower-proof HTs’ strapped to their orange ARES vest!” Weng said in the memo. “They’ll never guess we’re really marketing to some folks that could really use the fresh air!”
The research and development division hit the ground running and had the HTs in stores by early 2005. Since then, the line of “shower-proof” or “submersible” HTs has taken the company from a small industry player in 2003 to the world’s premier HT manufacturer in 2013.
ZuTango CEO Weng has since resigned over the leaked memo and was quoted as saying that the situation “really stinks” but also quipped that he’s got appreciative letters from XYLs across the globe and he “doesn’t apologize for his product’s improvement in the hobby’s rank and foul.”
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