Denis R

I think I'll take a run up the cut tomorrow evening and see if I can engineer a decent picture out on Puddle Banks. I'll repeat the tuning process and play with the gain and see what it's like. I'll not be holding my breath.... Thanks for the input all. I think what I've got is what I'll get.....

Funny you should say that Yoda. This is the second installation and has been fitted under warranty. Right from new the first one would pull down the LED on the amplifier everytime you plugged the lead into the TV.... Midland C's said they'd never heard of that happening before and handed over a new amplifier and antenna complete. At least the LED stays lit now and there is some semblance of a picture.... I've had another go at twiddling the gain up and down and it seems to be making a slight difference - the ghosting decreases with increasing gain, but you can't get shot of it completely. I've just done an auto scan of the channels and it's found them OK. Fine tuning doesn't improve the picture quality at all. Hi Alan, Mine is an Omnimax Maxview. The instructions are the same as yours... except my instructions have no step 7. My step 7 is your step 8....

Well chaps, thanks for your input, but I have to announce myself totally scunnered. The antenna unit doesn't have an LED. The cable run is short and direct. Amplifier to connection box for the aerial on the outside of front bulkhead and amplifier direct to TV connection socket in the cabin. Red LED on the amplifier is lit. There is no excess shielding that could cause a short and the various connectors have been made off well. The picture does improve if I move out of my mooring and into open territory, but at no time is the picture what I would class as 'good'. It's viewable down on Puddle Banks but not really crisp and sharp, still somewhat grainy..... And as I mentioned before, at Napton over the weekend everybody else seemed to have a cracking picture without the benefit of a mast, mine was lousy....

I've re-checked the co-ax feeding to the antenna head from the amplifier and it's fine - no shorts. However, all the 'eggbeater' array of wire is connected to the threaded outer section of the connector on the antenna head. The centre post shows no continuity with the wire array. On my antenna, there's no LED indicator. I can't get inside the antenna head to work out what's in there....

Hi Yoda, It's a new installation. Checking all the cables with my multimeter shows no shorts. The co-ax feeding the masthead is reading about 9 volts. The aluminium pole is grounded to the boat roof through the mounting socket. The masthead is isolated from the pole via its plastic body. All the connections seem to have been well made. (The electro-mechanical guy at the boat builder has a pretty damn good standard of workmanship). The TV will auto tune through its full range and finde about three positions for each channel, varying from mediocre to abysmal.... Had fun checking that lot this evening! Oh, I forgot - the array on the masthead shows continuity with the shielding on the co-ax....

I've got one of those Omnimax 'egg whisk' TV antennas on a 10ft pole at the front of the boat feeding through an Omnimax 21dB amplifier. No matter where I am the picture's crap, sometimes it's crappier than others, sometimes reasonable but never really crisp. To add insult to injury, last night I was walking past a line of moored boats at Napton and everyone had a cracking picture - even those with the pesky egg whisk sat on the roof. Mine was still crap..... The 21dB amplifier's gain adjust doesn't seem to do anything. Doesn't matter how many times you turn it in either direction, through the 'click' or not, it doesn't make any difference. Anybody got any tips for getting this system to work before I chuck it away in disgust and try something else? The TV's a 240 volt LCD, but I can't imagine the TV would affect it?

Welcome aboard, Have a look at www.steelboats.com for some ideas on sizes, fit-outs and prices for boats that are more than capable of crossing the channel. You might get some useful ideas. Your advantagewill be that you can install a sizeable battery bank and will have enough roof area for decent solar panels. A Rutland 913 or whatever would wind-charge your batteries, but in the end it'll be all down to how much power you consume and therefore have to put back in. You might need a genny too. There are plenty of contributors to this site who have experience of these matters and will probably add their thoughts. 80K sounds a bit light for a new build, but you'd probably find something used that fits the bill. Have fun developing your project.

Last week, waiting for the OK from the lock keeper to enter the flight, had to breast up at the bottom of Foxton locks alongside a hire boat moored facing away from the locks but almost blocking the entrance, crewed by the most affable bunch of individuals. They'd moored there, right by the entrance overnight and seemed in no hurry to move on. In this case it didn't worry me unduly as they were so friendly. Breasted up, one of their crew even fished the kids' friend's puppy out the cut for us when it fell in and I'm sure they'd have merrily hung around chatting for most of the day had the lock keeper not pointed out the flaw in their mooring arrangement.... I didn't have the heart to be a busy-body and tell them myself!

Ah! So my lighthearted suggestion for a canal dating forum over in the Pub many threads back has merit!!

"clean it up when you stop using it next spring/summer" Yes, I thought that too, especially with the hot spell last month. The stove's seen plenty of action this last week....... ....and it's covered in yukky marks which have ruined the beautiful shine. Won't be so precious about polishing it so hard in the future!

Of course if we perceive that the organisation that purports to represent our interests doesn't and we feel strongly enough about it, we can always join in and lobby for a change in policy from within, rather than dilute our efforts by forming or joining a 'fringe' group on the outside?

Seems there might be an epidemic spreading. Exactly what is BW's position on 'No Mooring' signs? I meant to add that in the Rights of Way debate, a group called Trail Riders Fellowship have a sticker which says something along the lines of 'this is an unofficial sign and is not legally enforceable' which they place over home-made 'no vehicles' signs on unclassified roads and byways....

For mobile phone use, don't waste your money on Vodafone in the Braunston area like I did. The reception is non-existant. T-Mobile or Virgin (which use the same system) seems to work a treat though....

This is not a new problem. I remember this happening 25 years back at Church Minshull - a fake sign there with a painted BWB logo. At the time we were on a BWB hire boat - my first wife worked for BWB - so used the 'we're staff, hard luck' line and told the householder that their sign was fake and my wife would be reporting it as soon as she got back to Willow Grange. No idea if anything came of it. BTW where's Eugene? He should have the party line on this.

Time to move over to the pub and start a towpath dating directory?

Fair point Steve, I guess I was attempting a theory on why 80% of boaters are over 50 and suggesting it was lifestyle related. Based on what I've seen, I won't be looking for a young girlfriend here either!!

I think it's a desirability issue rather than an just an age issue. There are plenty of people in my business circle in their 30's and 40's who have bought second homes for hols or a 'big boy's toy' of some description who aren't the slightest bit interested in boats. There's another group who are interested in boats - sailing boats - and most of them cost easily the price of a decent narrow boat plus some. These individuals aren't 'rich' people - a lot have bought their 'toys' on finance deals rather than climbing higher up the property ladder by mortgaging themselves further....

Amen to that Min, but I guess as in any community, on a forum you'll experience the full pallette of 'manner and delivery' styles, some of which my be a little more forthright than others....

Well it seems the median age of boaters around here is somewhere between 65 and deceased.... In order to redress the balance my eldest daughter has announced that she's leaving home at 16 to live on a boat with a friend. "Something traditional dad, with a 'thump-thump' engine, not a Japanese mangle like yours." Of course when you're 14, money grows on trees - and dad's responsible for the orchard! BTW I'm 48, hopefully going on 18. Dream on....

That German built tug is a super little boat Charles. Too good to chop about. Cor, I wish I could play with it for a while. Ah well, luckily it's a bit too much of a commitment for an impulse purchase!!

Just to close the loop - mine's been up and running since the beginning of March, used daily as I live on board. The Thermo Top C I've got may not be derived from anything used by the military, but the general philosophy behind their combustion system design is similar I guess - only an anecdotal observation really - if NATO Land Rovers used them, I assumed they'd run on pretty much anything. Saying that, my unit has its own fuel filter in the feed. When I originally discussed heating with Peter Nicholls, his reply to the Eber question was "Ooh, you don't want one of them" end of discussion, it's a Webasto for you my boy, new topic....

'Whirlwind' has a permanently heated radiator in the bath room which is on whenever the Webasto is on. Peter Nicholls told me that he always does it so, so that the heater is always running under some load. Apparently there can be problems if the thing is semi-permanently running on 'tick-over'....

My Webasto is running OK so far. There is a lot of acoustic vibration in the inlet pipe on start up, which can be muted somewhat by tuning the inlet's shape and orientation, but even so I'd not put it close to a bedroom like mine is. It's an efficient alarm clock. I believe that Webastos should be more tolerant of 'red' because they're used a lot by the military, who don't always have the luxury of DERV. I was told that the trick is not to fit one that's too big. I've got a 4KW feeding three radiators and the calorifier. Only real moan is that the Webasto programmer unit has three switch on time settings but no switch off. You have to do that manually. It also stops/purges/re-starts automatically every 75 minutes which is a bit disconcerting until you get used to it.