Working in the construction materials testing field does have its advantages. Our standard procedure for frustrating cell phone performance is to place the offending cell phone in our 250,000 pound compression test device. We used enough force on one to create a shallow, cell-phone -shaped depression in a steel spacer.
At least we know what is wrong with them, then.

I had one fall out of my shirt pocket and immediately under the wheel of a 20 ton smooth drum vibrating asphalt roller. When the roller didn't do, the 300+ degrees hot asphalt did. I was not even able to retrieve the SIM chip from that one.

I also had one fall out of a shirt pocket into a tank where we cure our concrete test specimens. The tank is filled with a lime-saturated solution. The cell phones do not tolerate even a quick dip.

My office wanted to give me a Blackberry. I asked them to ask the salesperson how well they tolerated a hostile environment, reminding them that I am a hostile environment. To date I still do not have a Blackberry.

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1982 300SD " Wotan" ..On the road as of Jan 8, 2007 with Historic Tags