Chapter 19 - The Stereo Stuff

        Among our 18 bags that we loaded for Costa Rica, in two army barracks boxes, we loaded Melaney’s stereo and CD player.  We also loaded a small TV. A personal DVD, a tiny rocket ship shaped DVD player, and an accumulation of around 500 CD’s and DVD’s.  What a hope; we get Sky TV which is satellite with a dish on the roof, and it plays the minimum of English speaking channels.  The DVD player isn’t operating as yet.  First it needed what is known as an S-Video cable.  It took almost a month to get to the right place near San Jose to find a Radio Shack (if you can believe).  When she returned, she set up the player and voila, a picture appeared. We planned to watch it, but there was no sound…….Back to the drawing board.  She googled the problem, and found that she needed to put on a sound link, which the cable from the player has ends that are too large for the TV so it’s back to a store that can provide a reducer..

       That will be fine for the Video player.  The Stereo equipment was a different story.  She had to pick up some speakers for that, and in setting everything up in order, she attempted to extract the CD holder, and it seemed to bind.  Now this is a special unit, in which it can be loaded with six CD’s.  Once she was able to get it out of the machine, she loaded it with some favourite recordings and replaced it.  When the unit was turned on, all that came out of it was some clicks.  It wouldn’t play.  That was so disappointing, and means another trip to find a technician.  This is difficult to find.  We will need some help. This stereo equipment is quite old, in years, but has been gently treated until this trip.  It is also very expensive equipment.  Who knows how far the barracks boxes were pitched in the loading and unloading….In the meantime, we entertain ourselves with the computers.