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It just gets more fun.<\/p>\n
The brand of allegedly exploding Hezbollah walkie-talkies is Icom, model IV-V82. Icom is a Japanese company, still active in the handheld radio market. Only one small detail: They stopped making that model of walkie-talkies ten YEARS ago. Also stopped making replacement batteries.<\/p>\n
Icom exported its IC-V82 two-way radio to regions including the Middle East until October 2014, when it stopped making and selling the devices, the Osaka-based company said in a statement Thursday. It has also discontinued production of the batteries needed to operate the main unit, it said. The company earlier had warned customers that almost all IC-V82s on the market are counterfeit.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Oops… that’s gonna make backtracing them difficult.<\/p>\n
From a supply chain viewpoint, someone has a very slick operation going on if they are making them – they would have to reverse engineer the circuit boards, modify the battery units where the explosive was allegedly secreted, probably even have to acquire injection molds for the housings. More likely is that someone acquired a bunch of\u00a0 counterfeit units and modified them.<\/p>\n
Among the many outstanding questions is how explosive materials were planted in the devices. If the Icom walkie-talkies are genuine and manufactured a decade ago, it\u2019s likely they were modified well after sale to their original customers. The company can\u2019t determine if the walkie-talkies are its own, but said the exploded devices appear to lack the hologram labels attached to its products.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Supposedly hundreds exploded. Make that a very, very\u00a0 slick operation.\u00a0 No holograms? Almost certainly no one in Icom had anything to do with it.<\/p>\n
Icom won a contract in the 1990s to supply the U.S. Department of Defense with transceivers.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Okay, that may be a bit less than comforting. But unless they were acquired from a third party, they are probably OK. I’d still think inspections are in order, hmmm?<\/p>\n