What Happened When This Man Found a Midland Radio Lost for Three Years in the Montana Mountains?

We recently received the following letter from a customer who was shocked when his family found the same X-Talker T75 Two-Way Radio he had lost in the Ruby Mountains of Montana three years prior. After years of exposure to cold, snow, heat, dust, and rain, do you think the radio still worked? Find out below! 

In October of 2017, my son Brian lost his Midland T75 while we were hunting elk in the Ruby Mountains of Montana. Although we backtracked and tried to find it, spotting a little camouflage radio in that setting was like trying to find a needle in a haystack. We never found it.

Our annual elk hunting trips to the area continued. On October 26 of this year, my grandson Ethan was tracking elk in the same vicinity of where, unbeknown to him, his uncle had lost the radio in 2017. As Ethan looked down to check on some tracks, he spotted a black antenna sticking out of the snow. Curious, of course, he reached down and discovered a frost encrusted camouflage radio, which he brushed off and placed in his pocket. At camp that evening, Ethan decided to charge the thing up to see if it worked. When he later switched it on and tested it with another radio, he discovered that it worked perfectly! No elk were taken that day, but at least he had a nice two-way radio to show for his efforts.

I did not learn about Ethan’s discovery until a day or two later, when he mentioned what he had found on the mountain and showed it to me. Instantly, I recognized the model and suspected that it was Brian’s. I therefore asked Ethan to describe exactly where he found it. Sure enough, he had recovered it on the very ridge where Brian had lost it in 2017. I was astounded! Not only because he had found the radio against all odds, but that it still worked after sitting all that time on a mountainside in Montana! Three years of cold, snow, wind, rain, dust, and heat. Three years in a harsh climate where temperature differences between the seasons are commonly 100 degrees or more. What remarkable durability.

We were all so astonished that we decided this was a story worth sharing with Midland. I’m also attaching pictures of the main character, to help give you a visual of its marvelous condition. If you are only half as amazed as we were by this story, then it has been fully worth the effort of writing.