Nancy calls me a big kid. It's true us Capricorns are supposed to reverse age - we're old when we're young, or is it young when we're old...?

Anyway, I'd been wanting a Star Trek TOS (The Original Series) communicator for years and thought they would be out of my price range. Now that I (finally) got my SS one of the things I looked for on eBay was a ST Communicator. To my childish delight I found they were selling for around 30 bucks. Of course, they were made in China (what isn't these days?) and recently, since the box had advertisements for later ST action figures.

When the package arrived I immediately opened it and gazed at my very own Communicator! Getting it off the cardboard backing wasn't easy as it was held rigidly at an angle, so the buttons could be accessed through a "Try it Now!" hole in the plastic and it was tied with three thick metal wires. The one through the metal cover of the Communicator, that was held open, required gentle extraction lest I damage it.

Finally getting the Communicator out I pressed one of the two control buttons and was asked by Capt. Kirk, "Your signal is very weak, can you turn up your gain?" I pressed it again and it said the same thing ... and again. Pressing the other button did nothing. Damn, it's defective! I thought.

I jetted an email to the seller explaining what happened and in a couple hours got a reply saying the problem was the "Try it Now!" plastic tab that was sticking out the side of the Communicator needed to be removed. Trouble was there was no plastic "Try it Now!" tab in my Communicator.

Though there was a small hole where the tab obviously was supposed to be and looking inside I saw two small contacts. I figured those must have something with enabling all the Communicator's features. So I grabbed my handy pocket knife, shorted the contacts and the thing lit up and sound effects started playing! Made me jump in my chair!

I scrolled through all the voices activated by pressing the right button and there are a bunch from Kirk, Spock, Scotty and Uhura. Stuff like, "Enterprise, this is Kirk," and "Aye Captain, Scott out." Pressing the left button activates the Red Alert signal, which five seconds after the cover is closed the Communicator emits the classic two-beep signal and when the cover is opened Spock pipes up, "Captain, shall I beam down an armed party?" accompanied by background sounds from the Enterprise bridge.

It feels right in size and weight, makes the chirping sound when the perforated cover is opened and the round dial spins making a moire pattern. The sounds aren't high quality and suffer from distortion from the tiny speaker, but for $30 I'm not complaining.

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