IanD

What you said about external antenna connectors is exactly the point I was trying to make; most "consumer" routers (including Huawei) don't have a good solution for external antennae, because hardly anyone uses them. The NR5103E is a rare exception, as are most of the "commercial/industrial" routers like the RUTX50, but these are invariably much more expensive. If you've got a good signal but the data rate is limited by network congestion it won't make any difference whether you're on 4G or 5G.

If you use big data every month then the Scancom pay-in-advance SIMs are cheapest. If you only need this when you're on the boat for shorter periods then the monthly 1pMobile SIMs are cheaper.

I've only ever used the internal antennae when setting up, all I know is that it works very well with external ones. One reason may be that the NR5013E has 4 wideband internal antennae (according to the spec), which is why it works properly on all bands with a 4x4 MIMO external antenna. Other routers have multiple internal antennae tailored to different bands which may have more gain, but makes using external antennae a PITA -- as described earlier... Which shows absolutely nothing about how good the router is at aggregation... 😉 For the benefit of others -- since I'm sure you're aware of it! -- the 5G network in the UK is almost entirely "NSA" (Non Stand Alone), which means that call setup and control and cell handover is done via a 4G connection, and then 5G is used for data transfer if it's available. That means the 5G routers have to be able to do simultaneous TX/RX on multiple 4G+5G channels to work at all, which means they have more parallel datapaths internally, which means they can (almost always!) aggregate more channels than 4G routers -- so even when only 4G is available they tend to give higher data rates where these channels are available. And of course when 5G is available they also usually give higher data rates, though not always in both directions. Many 5G routers are also 4x4 MIMO, most 4G ones are 2x2 MIMO, which can also increase data rate in many cases. So in many cases a newer 5G router (especially 4x4 MIMO -- with suitable antenna!) will give higher data rate than an older 4G router, and better carrier aggregation is one possible reason. Not always, but often. Lots of test data out there to show this... 😉

It is, for a 4G router. Good 5G routers are better still though... 😉

Most modern routers do band aggregation, they'll combine whatever bands are available to maximise data rate -- mine (5G NR5103E) often uses two or three bands simultaneously. But sometimes band blocking will force a router to use a different tower with weaker signal but more bandwidth (higher data rate), especially on older 4G routers which aren't as good at aggregation... 😉

I suspect the clue is "Everyone's on 3 around here but I'm not sure if that's because we're all misers." -- network congestion due to too many users all trying to do things like streaming TV at the same time, which is unlikely to get better... 😉

Our average daily use is considerably less than that, but I'm pretty sure 200GB/month wouldn't be enough if we were onboard for a month -- 500GB/month would be though. I did also have a cheap 500GB/month Three SIM from Scancom, but every time I tried it out it was slower than EE, sometimes drastically so when out in the sticks.

True (which is why I've got one!) -- but also bigger, heavier and a *lot* more expensive, which is why most canal boaters have much smaller cheaper GIs... 😉

However if you want "big data" on EE when you're on the boat but only spend a limited number of weeks a year on it, it's cheaper to use 1pmobile with a cheap (£3) 1GB/month package when you're away from the boat (assuming you use remote monitoring which I do, about 500MB/month) and top up with a 200GB/month (£18) or unlimited data boost (£25) when you're onboard. This also means you can switch network any time should you need to, if it turns out that EE aren't good where you happen to be. Before anyone says "why do you need that much data?" the answer is TV streaming, usually HD and sometimes UHD which eats data -- looking back at logs, up to 25GB/day maximum...

Scancom are, so long as you're happy to pay in advance and be committed to that network -- by far the best deal if you're on the boat all the time.

The reason the battery manufacturers use those multilayer humped busbars is to prevent stress on the terminals if the batteries move even slightly, for example when a boat hits something.

Chiswick is unfortunately impossible to find now, may have been dropped -- I always preferred it to Pride...

The problem with coverage checkers like that is that they're looking at signal strength, not network congestion which is often a bigger problem -- especially on 3 because lots of people use this as it's the cheapest network for big/unlimited data, result is it slows to a crawl at busy times. EE has better overall coverage for signal but also suffers less from congestion than 3, because it's more expensive and has fewer data gobblers using it...

Most (all?) steamers end up with big props because torque is high and engine rpm is low -- not in any way a bad thing in itself (quiet, good stopping power), except that it also means a deeper draft than normal is needed, so the boat displaces and draws more, and this increases the power required for propulsion (and fuel consumption) especially if the canal is shallow (badly dredged) and/or narrow... 😞

Anyone who's got enough solar power that there's some going spare even after charging the batteries... 😉

That figure was taken from actual efficiency curves for a Beta 43 with standard prop, about 19% efficient at 3kW/4hp output at 1300rpm -- see attached plot. Peak efficiency is 32% around 2000rpm, but this will never be reached when driving a prop (blue line). A condenser should mean higher efficiency than a direct exhaust like a railway loco, that's the whole point -- yes heat goes out of the condenser into the cooling water, but less energy is lost overall than by just throwing the steam away, especially since the expansion ratio can be bigger. But maybe with only double compounding this isn't that big an advantage... As you say compounds are less sensitive to cutoff than simple expansion engines (and use longer cutoffs anyway), and also more efficient -- even non-condensing ones.

Just imagine the number of pages of whining on CWDF if CART went to (logical!) area-based pricing... 😉

Given that their lifetime is so much shorter, that's kind of necessary... 😉

Mixed Young's Ram (bottled) and Special (draught) used to be popular in London... 😉

Including costing 4x as much? I'm sure that'll go down well with those doing possibly-problematic LFP installs "on the cheap" as noted above... 😉

As do Fogstar and various other suppliers. But if you're looking to rabbit on endlessly about LFP problems -- real or imagined -- this doesn't matter... 😉

And in that case if the batteries get cold and there are no heaters, they won't be able to charge them. That's not the fault of LFP batteries, that's the fault of whoever designed/bought/installed a crappy LFP system on the cheap and without thinking -- probably also with parallel LA and long wires, and a BMS that gets hot at high currents and dies after a few years. Nobody made them do it... 😉