"A chicken leg is a rare dish."

"She ran halfway to the hardware store."

"It's difficult to gauge the depth of a well."

Dick Heil from Verizon calls himself "the 'Can you hear me now' guy in the real world." Except he doesn't make any calls, and he doesn't ask Verizon's well-known tag line as he wanders around North Dakota's prairies. Instead, Heil, a baseline driver for Verizon, drives specified routes across North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa and Omaha, Neb., while a cacophony of recorded male and female voices talk about chicken legs, hardware stores and the depths of wells.

The sentences may not be heard normally in cell phone conversations, but they are chosen to include many vowels and syllables in the English language. As a baseline driver Heil goes on two- or three-week-long driving trips each month checking the quality of cell phone calls and whether or not the calls are connecting.

"That's what I think is great about Verizon," Heil said. "They're not only concerned with connecting the call, but how that call sounds."

The sport utility vehicle is topped with 14 antennae, each no more than 5 inches high. Two laptops ride along in the front seat and two 40-pound boxes containing four cell phones each ride along in the back end. Heil's company vehicle loaded up with Verizon equipment carries a price tag of $280,000.

The equipment continually sends calls with the babbling voices repeating the recorded phrases and creates a real-time snapshot of cell coverage and call quality at different times.

The testing is designed to be as much like customer cell phone usage as possible. The routes, which are determined by statistics from the national Department of Transportation, are roads where frequent cell phone usage occurs. The testing is done in the day during high traffic times and the calls are made by individual cell phones.

"That gives us the best info available to better serve the majority of our customers," Heil said.

Heil has his own cell phone mounted by the steering wheel, but he does not use it often. When it does rings, he uses a hands-free ear bud. He said Verizon stresses safety in his job. He does not need to pay attention to the two laptops besides him either.

"I don't have to take my eyes off the road," Heil said. "We're very safety conscious."

When Heil finishes a baseline testing trip, he is back in the office in Plymouth, Minn., processing the information he gathered. Heil said he enjoys being thorough in his work, knowing he is helping to improve cell coverage and quality for Verizon.

"We want to put ourselves in the customers' shoes and see this is how the network is working," Heil said.

Heil also said he loves the travel aspect of the job.

"That, I think, is one of the best parts of the job, being out on a day like this," Heil said. "The only thing that could be better possibly would be if I was running my Harley right now."

Heil said he usually only gets to know the front desk clerk or waiter at a local restaurant on his trips. In the evenings Heil calls his wife in Minnesota or his daughter in Wisconsin. He gets frequent updates about his 18-month-old granddaughter and e-mails his other daughter who is stationed with the Air Force in the Middle East.

Heil, who grew up in Iowa, said he enjoys driving through the Midwest. He said there is always something to see as he watches the growth happening in cities between his trips.

"If you go to a city two or three times a year, you really see the progress of new buildings and businesses," Heil said.

As Heil turns around on an I-94 exit 10 miles west of Mandan, he points out the view of rolling hills and farms.

"This is what I love here. I love the prairies."

(Reach reporter Cathryn Sprynczynatyk at 250-8264.)