Wow, we do get off track here, huh? Backpacking in the wilderness, ham radio, blowing up things with one’s chemistry set. Ah, I remember doing all those things in the good old days of adolescence (K3GMT here, although W0AOY for a year in the middle).
But to get back on track a bit, I believe my initial resistance to the idea of rechargeable batteries comes from my experiences in olden times when rechargeable batteries were pretty punk. Some still are, like the ones they gave up on with the wireless mics at church (we’ve “updated” with ones requiring AA batteries).
More recently, I started to remember visiting my nonagenarian mother. The first thing I’d have to do when I’d go visit was to replace the batteries in her HAs so that we could chat. She no longer had the digital dexterity to change them herself. Good son that I am, I’ve inherited my mother’s penchant for arthritis. As a result, I’ve recently noticed that changing those tiny batteries is getting difficult. I still think my next HAs will probably be the replaceable type, but I’m guessing that in another 10 years, I’ll be looking at rechargeable ones myself, if only to save my children from having to change batteries for me, and during times before they visit, not being able to communicate with my spouse.
