Mitch - Soma

Dunno, had two on board for a few years, but they both, at seperate times a year or so apart, just went out one night and never returned. Haven't got any now. They were great fun though, and I do miss them, but am not intending to replace them any time soon. Niether of them were at all pleased when the engine was running and we were cruising, and it was certainly quite a lot of trouble when cruising single handed. Cat's pulling a Houdini at the lock when one is on route to a time-scale, and having to moor up for 3 days waiting for a cat to return can be rather frustrating. Also not sure about the praise thing regarding mice. My youngster - a 2 year old male - would regularly bring a mouse in undamaged, and proceed to drop it on the floor and watch as it shot under the fridge. He would wait patiently for about half an hour for it to come out, eventually give up, and saunter off to find another and repeat the excercise. At one stage I had more mice than a pet-shop!!! He would also bring dead ones in and drop them at my feet. One evening, as I was about to sit down to my tea of stew, he came in with an enormous expired rat and dropped it in front of me. It had obvioulsy put up a fierce struggle, 'cause he had got himself a tatty ear. Well, he turned round and stuck his face in his food bowl, and while he was doing that, I flung the rat and settled down to my dinner. Tiger came back, looked at the floor where he had dropped the rat, then looked at me. I had a face full of stew and was munching away contentedly. He looked again at the floor, then at me, and I swear he grew an inch with pride!!!! He marched out his cat flap with a look of great determination - and I didn't see him for 3 days! Reckon he was after a buffalo or giraffe, or something somewhat more challenging than a mere cat sized rat! He eventually returned home somewhat worse for wear, and humiliatingly empty handed. After a good feed and sleep in front of the fire, he got up and decided to take the short-cut out of the side hatch instead of going all the way to the back to use the cat-flap. Unfortunately I had turned the boat round while he was on his hunting escape, and he ended up taking a flying leap into the middle of the cut. He immediately came straight back in, gave up on the world and just decided to stay in bed for a few days. Yep, I DO miss them..............

Paid £1.400.00 for an Envirolet in 2004 - have had it six years and it has NEVER made any "proper" compost. Just gave up and dig whatever is in it out when it's full. Never again. In the process of trying to make it work, over and above the additional peat moss, hemp chaff and a zillion other compost "accelerators", I eventually ended up with 3 x 12v fans in the breather pipe - still no joy - I gave up! Next time will be quite different I can assure you. If you want a composting loo, best thing is a bucket from the pound shop - could have bought 1,400 of them for what I paid for the existing bucket.......

I have 2 x bulbs in parallel - ensures that the alternator gets enogh go to fire the excitor and if the main bulb fails, a quick look in the 'leccy cupboard shows if it's a bigger problem than just the main bulb.

Not near London Paddington Arm - have been monitoring 24/7 since the topic. Did expect at least something due to Cavalcade - Little Venice this weekend, but absolutely nothing water related - only a couple of builders. Absolutely zip on Ch. 16 C.B. also, barring our own little crowd.

An alternative view - are you sure 200 odd litres was put into the tank in the first place? I have a diesel fire and a 600 litre tank. Figured I had about 50 litres in the tank, was on my secured moorings and didn't go anywhere - definitely no "theft " from the tank. Put in 160 litres - all the supplier had - this is then over two hundred. At maximum clout on the fire I use 12 litres a day, so at least 14 days worth. Didn't go anywhere, didn't run the engine, and ran out of diesel in 4 day's. "Theft" wasn't from the tank - it wasn't put in in the first place! I just paid for it............

Wiiawaw, Thanks for clearing that up - I do agree that hold-up's as you suggest would indeed be "ships business", but would it be legal for a chandlery/boat yard to install a base station on land? I could imagine that a call for breakdown assistance could be construed as ships business, likewise, would it be legal to have one in a mobile mechanics vehicle? Obviously the port authorities do have land-based base stations, but would this be restricted to only the authorities, I wonder? Mitch. P.S. Further tests yesterday from a boat mounted radio/aerial to the 27 meg Maycom portable being carried into the high street were absolutely dismal. Approximately 500 yards through buildings, only fractionally better than standard 446 units. The Maycom worked surprisingly well along the tow-path to the same boat install, but in the built up area it was atrocious, am confident VHF would have way better penetration.

Thanks for your input Tidal. Judging from the various posts, it would appear that quite a few people don't really understand what I am proposing. If you want only personal comm's for locking through etc, or very short range, boat to boat within sight, then yes - PMR446 is the way to go. My proposal is not a long range replacement for internet/mobile phone, nor necessarily a replacement for PMR446. I am looking to over come some difficulties I have experienced living aboard. Our first problem was, to often frankly, turning up after an hours journey to the Elsan, only to find a nice little notice telling us it's currently out of order - there are no facilities at the moment for a local authorities office to inform all craft within a few miles of the office of things like this. I have, while cruising, turned up at a services for fuel/coal/gas, only to find that they are out of stock - many more examples of short-range - a few miles - can be given. The "network" I am proposing is only required to cover a few miles in the immediate vicinty - 4 miles on a boat is an hour away - that's more than enough. For myself personally, I would find it extremely useful if - wherever I was on the canal system - we had decided that we would move up to the facilities tomorrow but later that day my radio went off with an "all Call" from the local office informing us that the local facilities had a problem and would only be repaiared Monday". We could just stay put until the next message saying all was repaired. When waiting for the "coal boat" - how many occasions have we waited all day, and he turns up tommorow morning. He was only 2 miles away, but his delivery was late - a single call to his next stop to say he will only be coming tomorrow would save everybody hassle. Would it not be be nice, when turning up quite late on an unfamiliar visitor moorings, to be able to just "dial" for a take out shop that knows the moorings and has installed a radio specifically to gain boat clients? Quick and easy, make the contact, get his phone number in minutes, phone him and place your order? I think that 27 meg C.B. is ideal for such a system. The latest radio's are tiny, work off 12v and draw milliamps on standby so they never have to be switched off. Selective calling eliminates noise and chatter - you only get disturbed if some-one specifically "dials" you, or a group of boats. Any chandlery, service provider, waterways authority etc can just buy and install with no licence or red tape. Basically, the system could provide for all the things mobile phone/internet doesn't. Mitch..

Am not licensed myself, so would only be able to listen in, but for London, my next door boater neighbour has a V.H.F. Echolink station operating from his boat - M0GPQ. Am sure he wouldn't mind it being used for the weekly net - will ask if it would help. Mitch.

Excellent Martin - just remember to use Ch.8, ctcss 0.

I bought 20 x Energy 100 a/h, sealed for life - 88 quid each in 2007!!!! They were really lucky to give me 50 a/h each from new, and died to about 5 a/h each within a couple of month's. I have been living on a total of 100 a/hr's for the last two years - never again!!!! First set were Elecsols - 90 to 110 a/h advertised, gave me a reasonable 100 a/h each, cost £69.00 a piece in 2004 and lasted me over 3 years. Reckon I killed them, since I couldn't be bothered checking the water levels.......... Next time will be Rolls batteries, but only when I have enough charge to look after them - no point in decent batteries and then just murdering them by flattening them every day. Golden rules - never charge/discharge at more than 15% of the amp-hour capacity - 300 amps of alternators on 20 batt's and 1 x 3Kw inverter on 20 batts, 15 amp max charge and discharge per unit, never discharge more than 50% or so, (I think about 12.3 volts when measured AT THE BATTERY!) and keep the electrolyte levels topped up, your batteries will probably give you 4 or 5 years of good service - even el cheapo rubbish ones! Mitch.

Yes Nick, I am biased towards 27 Mhz - as far as I know, the Citizens Band Radio Service is the only group of 40 frequencies, 80 in the U.K.), which one can legally use for any purpose, on land or water, vitually un-restricted, licence free, no certificate required, where you are allowed 4 watts power, any equipment (hand-held, mobile, base), external aerial equipment from mobile to huge base aerials, etc, etc. PMR 446 is restricted to 300 Mw, no external aerial, 8 Ch.s only - (forget the DCS/CTCSS they are NOT Ch's, only masks). The authorities have been so lax regarding PMR 446 that now - in London anyway - it's almost un-usable. So many two-way radio dealers seem quite happy to provide 25 watt base-stations and mobiles programmed to the PMR 446 frequencies that the congestion is un-believable! Just drive round London with a mobile and aerial and you will soon see what I mean. I firmly believe that the C.B. service allows far more options than any other license free band, hence my bias. Done properly, 4 watts at 27 Mhz can produce very satifactory results - I know, I ran a car-phone service on it In South Africa before mobile phone!!! Genuine!!! Mitch.

Nick, Have played with the Maycom - yea, a bit big when hooking up the "charge adaptor" and batt. pack. Range was well above expectation, hand-held to a boat install with a springer mag-mount was about 60% of that achieved from two installs, both with springers. (Springer is a metre long whip with "air" coil base load). Maycom was on re-chargeables, so power output was down, but the comm's were bi-directional, ( Maycom weak to the boat, vice-versa was true), so I put it down to the aerial. Size-wise no comparison to PMR 446 - a real brick if you want to compare, but not bad for a 27 Mhz unit. Nice bit is that one can strip off the batt. pack and aerial etc, plug it into 12v and a proper aerial, and you have a full-blown 4 watt radio with equivalent range, which is not (legally) do-able on 446. Regarding selective calling, am having quite a bit of trouble with R.F. bailing into the DTMF mic's when hooking the radio up to a rubbish mag-mount. Works fine on a proper fixed mount install, but a mag-mount just corrupts the tones and hangs the PTT on - all sorts of mayhem. Am struggling to suppress the mic's, might even have to go for more expensive, better quality - but we shall see.... So far, the decoders are working a treat, right down to .3 uv, a pretty noisy signal on C.B.! We are doing a load more work on the decoder software and should have a really neat unit in a couple of weeks time, different alerts for individual and group calls, PTT reset of call alerts and led etc, etc. Six demo units are out and about around London currently, but will hold back on doing any more until the new software comes and have sorted out the mic problems. Regards, Mitch.

Sorry Roger and everyone else - all the above is true, but I only qouted the prices to show that you don't have to pay over the top. I fully support PMR446 as well. Yes, I am dealing in radio, but this is honestly not a sales pitch for myself - I genuinely would like to see a useful radio system get going for the canals, but as you say, the threads do seem to attract only radio buff's - this is totally not what I intended. I do apologise - certainly no offense intended, so I will now withdraw from posting in the general section on this topic. Radio enthusiasts - please P.M. me or email directly soma.home@i12.com and I will happily continue discussions away from the forums. The same goes for anyone wishing to supply and install radio's, I will gladly provide whole-salers details - you can deal with them directly. I am not doing this as a get rich quick scheme, much more important to me is to get a system actually working for the benefit of all. Thanks for all the input so far, Mitch.

O.K., o.k. I haven't got it yet, but the size of the Maycom, looking at the pic, appears to be really small compared to the old bricks you used to get as a "hand-held" 27 meg. The aerial is really small, but I did have experience of something called a Hygen 55 a good while back and was surprised at how well the aerial worked in comparison to the "rubber duck" type aerials commonly supplied then. The aerial on the Maycom looks remarkably similar, so am holding thumbs. If you take the battery pack off the Maycom and plug it into 12v, and connect an external aerial, the thing becomes the size of a large microphone, and will still have the range of a fixed 4 watt radio. The Maycom is also both E.C. and U.K. frequencies, or 80 ch. I can let you have a Maycom for £70.00 inclusive of V.A.T. A straight forward TTI TCB550 multi-band radio and reasonably good mag-mount aerial for £70.00 and a full DTMF mic, DTMF decoder installed radio and aerial for £180.00. Yes, I still make a small profit - it's not neccessary to pay the much higher prices qouted by some retailers. P.S. London is starting to go - will have the 9 th full blown DTMF radio installed by next week. For those who know the London area, range tests so far from Scrubs Lane, (close to the Kensal Vistor Moorings) - boat to boat - have worked to Little Venice and the Junction Arms pub in the opposite direction - about 2 to 3 miles either way. The noise floor at Scrubs Lane is around 12 Micro-volts, 24 times above the sensitivity of the average reciever tested - so to hear anything at all here the recieved signal has to be at least 20 times stronger than if there was no noise at all. I don't know if this is perculier only to my location, (5000 cars in stock over the fence, all with alarm systems), or if it is the general noise floor for London - or even the U.K. - further investigation is required! Mitch.

Have just ordered a Maycom hand-held, looks to be the dogs b*****s as a "walkie-talkie" - at 4 watts and 27 meg, should make PMR446 look like the kiddie's toy's that they are! Will come back to you once proper tests have been done. Mitch.

Quite right - outlawed and grabbed for mobile phone. Also the radio's were well expensive on account of that there was no international market, so were only made/sold in small quantities. PMR446 is great, but I did try it on our moorings - gave everyone one for xmas a few years ago. Problem was getting people to keep them charged and on. All just died as an inter-mooring comm's system, but they do dig 'em out when cruising - which I suppose is when they are most useful. Definitely 8-0 for me now at all times. Proper testing of 27 Mhz C.B. has proven somewhat disappointing in central London - we got about 2 miles, with loads of "dead" spots in between. We were running reasonable aerials, probably a bit too long for cruising. Sure, the C.B. outpaced the PMR446 by about 4 to 1, but if you don't mind a bit of "dodgy" stuff, one could always "modify" the PMR and hook up an outside aerial! Haven't tried it yet myself, but I do expect range would be substantially increased.

Heh, heh, - point taken. Actually the sel-call is mainly to stop non-radio buff's turning thier equipment off if things get a bit busy - and hopefully they will. On one the other threads someone obviously didn't get his head round it. His comment, when discussing general calls form the authorities regarding unepected local stoppges was - " They would have to broadcast it every half-hour - say I stop for lunch a mile from the lock, and the gate is broken, but because I fancy a bit of peace and quiet, I turn the darn thing off - well I wouldn't get the info unless it's re-broadcast when I get going again". This is precisely what the selective calling is for - don't turn it off, hit the mute button. When muted, you wont hear anything unless your radio is paged - same as a phone - only diference is that B.W. could dial all "phones" or radio's, simultaneously to pass a general broadcast. Likewise if you are watching the match and don't want to listen to all the chatter - hit the mute button. If your mate really wants to talk to you, he can dial your six digit number to wake-up your radio. He has to know your number, same as he would have to know your phone number. If you are bored and fancy having a listen to what's going on, un-mute the radio and it's a normal C.B. The sel-call unit is of course optional, and the cheaper, middle way, is just to hook up a DTMF mic. that means you don't have sel-call yourself, but are able to access people who do. Yes, the CEPT frequencies is what we originally chose, but due to the fact that quite a few people dug out "old" 27/81 stuff, and the fact that the noise floor goes through the roof regularly due to skip from the continent, we have now opted for the U.K. specific channels. The U.K. specific channels are not going to be disbanded anytime soon - "for the useful life of the equipment" original rigs are 20 odd years old - I use one myself - and since brand new equipment can be bought today with those frequencies, the "useful life" could be another 20 odd years!! (Though the quality today is probably more like 4 or 5 years, as with all things......) If anyone visits London this season, please give Soma a call on Ch. 16 - sel-call 067896, would be nice to hear from you, Mitch.

Sorry Graham, I didn't mention that the frequencies are the same, but not the modulation method. However, the "multi-country" radio's have the ability to switch between A.M. and F.M. depending on whether both modulation methods are legal in that country. It is perfectly feasable to switch your radio to, say, "Spain" and you will be able to select either A.M. or F.M., but using the A.M. would be illegal in the U.K. Selecting U.K. or U.K./EU dis-ables the A.M./F.M. switching function, allowing only F.M. use - so can be used legally in the U.K.

Sure Roger - new is IN, but which service provider is going to sell me a phone - even for £200.00, let alone £50.00 - and give us free service country wide forever? I myself have internet, a Skype phone - (always on-line on Skype and contactable) - and the rest. Why is it imperative that we A - rely on some "service provider" to enable us to communicate. They can install/remove cells as they fancy, possibly even go bust. B - Why is it essential we "pay" them continuesly? When I don't have the 30 quid one month - am on pre-pay 15 quid a month each for internet and phone - nothing I have is any use to me, it doesn't work! My C.B. still does though........... My radio is not intended to replace existing technology, it simply does things that existing tech doesn't.

The "we" are two other boaters and myself who are also interested in radio. Trying to get concesus out of over 77,000 boaters would be impossible - there would never be agreement to the point of a system actually being adopted. Ch. 14 was odopted only in the U.K. the global concensus was Ch. 19 for calling - hence most C.B.'s sold today have an instant Ch. 19 switch. If non-canal users could just adopt a channel ad-hoc, why should boaters not do the same? C.B. use today is so minimul that the odds of every one of the 37 available channels being occupied simultaneously is rather low. I am quite sure that no-one will have to use Ch. 16 to hold a conversation. Regarding purchase, yes virtually all radio's now sold in the U.K. have 80 channels - the original U.K. 40 AND the now legalised CEPT, or original American channels. Some radio's, like the TTI TCB550 actually have facilities for all frequencies including Poland and Germany. You select the country you are using the radio in by setting it from the front panel, and the radio operates in accordance with the laws in that country. Be careful when buying on-line, some radio's being offered have the new cept ch.'s only, though not very many. (I have only found one in fact, and it was clearly stated that the unit could not talk to U.K. only radio's).

For those of us interested, some changes which we have decided on: 1 Ch. 9 is NOT legally deignated as emergency, but we will continue with the conventional use as emergency. 2 We will use the original 27/81 U.K. frequencies. This will avoid the problem of cross-channel skip causing undue interference. It also allows use of original C.B. equipment. Contrary to popular opinion, these channels are NOT about to be withdrawn anytime soon - you may use them for the "useful life of the equipment" and since new radio's are being sold with these frequencies, that is a long, long time! 3 We will use Ch. 16 as a boat calling channel. 16 lies midway between the original Ch. 14 and 19 and so will not cause them much problem. Ch. 16 is Marine V.H.F. calling, so fit's nicely with boating and if you hear someone calling on 16, it will most likely be a fellow boater. 4 The Selective Calling facility, which allows you to have your own "phone number" ,will be available as a stand alone "box" which can be plugged into any shape or size of C.B. radio. So YES, those of you who still have old C.B.'s shoved away in the attic or bilge, dig 'em out! Those who would like to get on the network, visit your local Maplins or truck-stop, probably cheaper to buy on e-bay though. Hope to hear you soon on Ch.16. Mitch.

O.K. I wish to make "my" life easier. wouldn't it be great (since I am based in London), to rock up in Milton Keynes, on a visitor mooring, and instantly get hold of a Chinese??? I happen to like Chinese take-away, and to just "dial" for take-away's who are part of the network? For sure I am not going to give him my bank detail's, that's daft., but I am going to ask for his phone number, and I know his guy's will know how to get to me - he is part of the crowd, or he wouldn't have a Canal Boat Radio in his shop in the first place. So, instantly sorted - no special license, no forms, no "contract" - in fact it's easier than buying a Telly - C.b. radios can be bought anywhere - look on E-Bay - Back to C. anal B. oat radio - forget the old stigma - Citizens Band was originaly designed to be useful - it's now totally under-utised or ignored - let's "squat" the facility and prove that it CAN be useful. After a good friend made some proposals well different to my own, he has some exceptionally good points. 1 Calling Channell is 16 - one -six is far enough away from 19 and 14 not to bother others. 2 It is the Marine V.H.F. calling channel. so fit's well wth us. - Ch.16 is Canal Boat Call channel. 3 We stay with U.K. specific C.B. band - it gives less chance of cross-channel interference under skip conditions, dig out the old Charlie Bravo - you can use it.. 4 Although not bound by law - ch. 9 is EMERGENCY ch. only. 5 So far, the first digit chart is O.K. - caveat is that it can be up-dated/modified according to majority wishes. Go'wan, get yerself a Canal Boat Radio - Maplins got 'em in stock right now!!! (But try Argus - Argos, or LIDL - the German supermarket crowd - anyone, just, please, join us.) Look forward to catching Perseus call as he enters Maidehill Tunnel - ( Maggie's Passenger Carriers could do without all us Muppets barging in from the "other side"!!!!!!) Don't forget Cavalcade - li''le Venice - first weekend in May. Haven't booked? Who cares, look for nb. Soma - we can double -up, triple -up - wash th' Dog, feed th' Cat - who know's? Pr'haps we can convince James to play his Violin for us? Cavalcade in London is THE Canal and Inland Waterways occassion - oh, sorry, haven't I paid my membership yet?? C'mon IWA/NABO/RBOA/ anyone else interested in OUR waterways? - www.bridge19-40.org.uk

You wait up at the lock - since we sorted that out on PMR446 - and we exchange phone numbers while waiting for the lock to fill

Dunno where you are Ollie, but if a London postal address would help, we are on a "squat" moorings - complete with post and am my-self on Income Support. Not for much longer if I can help it though! Housing is having a hell of a problem, they don't pay license fees, therefore they can't pay my end-of-garden permit, so they made me a "house-boat", that came back with a few years of back dated council tax, which housing can't pay because they can't pay the license - s'pose you get the drift................ 2 years later and am looking forward to episode 45........... Have been, and am going through, the mill mate will help if I can. Mitch.