Bobbybass

I don't have GPS...but I do have a gadget I bought in Maplins so I wouldn't lose the boat. My wife and I become terribly convinced of our sense of direction and have often walked miles the wrong way. We bought a little key ring thingy that you press the button when you get off the boat and it records the GPS position. When you walk away a series of arrows light up around the edge to point where the boat is. Which is more usless...this gadget...or is it....US !!

I have a '3' dongle (unlocked) I bought cheap on Ebay. Purchase a 'top up' and once its activated register yourself on the 3 mobile site. Register a credit card on the site for future top ups (takes about a week to authorise initially) When your first top up is nearly ended...log onto the site....go to 'purchase add ons' Purchase internet add on for £5 / month. That gives you fair usage internet ( I have used over 3 gig and it seems to be OK) Keep an eye on your account and purchase another top-up before your old one expires. It automatically queues it ready to go. Voila...3 gig internet for £5 month...and no contract !! Happy surfing. Bob

Thanks Gibbo...but no. There is only my wife and myself on board and we were well aware of what would happen if we EVER used such products..... We don't even have toilet Duck etc onboard. The only thing that ever went down the loo was Leesans' own recommended products and thats all we have on board. Bob

Hi again.. I'm going to answer my own question here...as it may be to the benefit of other 'sufferers'. I made myself a smellometer ( 18 inch piece of ordinary 15mm plastic pipe so I could sniff about an locate the niff) It wasn't coming from any of the joints it was definately the LeeSan felxible pipe. I wrapped the LeeSan (low odour by the way !!) flexible pipe tightly in thick aluminium foil/tape l and the smell was all but gone. I then peeled a bit right in the middle of a flexible pipe run and sniffed...and yuk.... So it is definately the Leesan flexible pipe...so thank you LeeSan...I will take it all out at the end of the season and replace with ordinary solvent weld plumbing pipe !! Hope this helps other sufferers and saves an abortive installation. Bob

Hi all. This is a 'loo' topic.....sorry. My pump out system was purchased from Lee San and fitted a year ago. It is a macerator which goes to a holding tank under the bed. There is a strange smell from it that builds up over several days ..under the bed...and becomes quite unpleasant. It is not a 'sulphurous' smell...whcih has happened a few times and comes from the breather vent..rather...it is a sort of mustady smell...which leads me to think that its not gas escaping from joints. I assume if gas was escaping from joints it would smell sulphurous as well ? All joints have double clips and I have also built up silicon seal around them in case they are leaking. All atempts to locate the 'smell' point have proved negative....its as if...the smell is coming off the flexible pipes themselves. I'm really running out of ideas now.... Is it possible for flexible hoses to give off this type of smell ? Thanks. Bob

The reason that Sky want you to have the box plugged into the phone line, is because thats how they get paid ! Have you ever wondered how all those channels are on there vying for viewers ? When you change channels and watch something, the Sky box stores that and uses your phone line to pass that info to Sky. Thus..if you have no phone line that all goes wrong...so in the cases where they can't do that...they charge you a 'blanket fee' (activation fee ?)which is apportioned to all the channels wether watched or not. Are argued this and said I would put this into the public domain (maybe data issues that they know exactly what/when you watch) and they didn't charge me ! I forgot to say..thre is another issue here as well. When you activate your Sky card on a phone line...it activates it for one particular Sky box...so you cannot take it to the pub and put it into their Sky box. When you activate without the phone line...they cannot do this...the card number protection has to be switched off.. and your card can then be used in any Sky box without authoristaion.

These are only our experiences and thoughts that may give you some ideas. We sold our house and could have had any boat built or secondhand. In the end we went secondhand...12 years old... and don't regret it. We 'did' Crick last year...and it is tempting.. those light interiors and chrome/ glass etc. Our boat is on a Reeves hull and has a nice 1.5 inches of spray foam. It has good quality 18mm tongue and groove boarding over that and the upshot is that it keeps really snug in winter and there is zero condensation...according to our surveyor...a real plus over some hardboard lined. One or two things didn't fit with us..interior wise...but boats are all built of simple hardboard/ MDF etc...and things are easily changed. A downside of our boat is that exterior wise it looks lovely..having had the full £6k paint job....and sporting a satellite dome. Because of that it attracts attention and has had an attempted breaking because of it. Some local 'lads' told me they spotted it as soon as we came along...they said ' if it looks like a nice boat...it must have nice things in it'. My wife and I agree that a less shiny nice boat would have better...more peace of mind when leaving it on a quiet tow path. We now consider the boat to be primarily a 'life support' system and the aesthetics are secondary. Its OK being surrounded by panelling and top of the range hardwood floor but if ...at the end of the day....you sit and relax and your feet are cold...or you want a nice shower and it all looks modern and 'chromey' but the shower jet doesn't have any 'oomph'..then its no fun. I guess with a new boat there are thoughts of reliabilty , but we met people on a shared boat who were considering re-engining after the boat was only 2 years old and also some poor devils hand pulling a boat through Hillmorten locks...only 1 year old and the engine siezed. Overall we are pleased we didn't waste money in those early stages, because we didn't understand the importance of some things. We would have had something glitzy...with no sensible storage...no where to hang several levels of wet coats where the drops wouldn't distort the wood floor..and not enough mooring pins and chains. These are only our experiences...not the law..and I hope they are of interest. Bob

Hi... I don't tell them I have an address...and I use this : http://www.postoffice.co.uk/portal/po/cont...ediaId=19100259 My little local post office at Brinklow is also happy for any mail to be sent for me 'care of the post office' Bob

Only thing I would say...sorry if its obvious...is to check the stuff connected to it...and the circuitry with a test meter...in case it was short from something else. Bob

A trier he may be but if you click onto 'purchases' you will see that 3 people have already hit the 'Buy it now' at £124.99 !!!

Hi. I keep severel different PAYG cards and I bought a little cradle 'thing' on Ebay that the phone sits in and it has a wire so you can put the aerial outside. Cost about £10 including postage from China.....it all works very well. If the signal isn't there on Orange or O2 I put a T-mobile in. One of them usually works. Bob

Glad it was of assistance....but do make sure its a UK spec unit as foreign frequencies can differ. I also mentioned that I get '3' for £5 / month...but noone ever seems to read that bit ? If you get a 3 PAYG sim card.....once you top it up with...say £10...you can register on the 3 website...and then register a credit card for payment. This takes about 7 days.......for the credit card to be approved. You can then put some money onto your 3 account.... Keep an eye on your account and when it gets within...say 10 days of your card running out...go to the 3 website...and go to 'purchase add ons'. There is a fair usage internet addon ( I use over 3 gig) ...for £5 / month. Purchase that....early...and it will queue it so that when your original one runs out...it just carries on. Don't let it actually expire though or they make large charges. Fair use...3 gig for £5 / month... Beats the hell out of evryones contracts ! Hope this helps again. Bob

Internet is important to my wife and I, and so I took the expensive option. I purchased a full 3G amplifier unit on Ebay...£250..( make sure this is UK/ provider spec / frequency if you consider it) Its proved an 'awesome' bit of kit. I have a receiving aerial in the cupboard in the lounge near where we sit. This picks up signals from the dongle.. There is then an amplifier unit and externally I put up my television pole which has a special flat panel aerial...about 6 inches square. I'm currently travelling from Rugby down to Paddington and there have been places in the country with zero signal without the unit being on. When I put it on...it pulls in a full band signal.... Amazingly effective...but you need to decide how much you need it. I use a 3 dongle on pay as you go, and I have 3 Gig monthly download / fair usage which I top up for £5 / month. Prior to this I tried the external mag-base aerial plugged into a socket on the 3 dongle, but it didn't do very much. Hope this helps. Bob

This isn't an 'earth shattering ' topic. When I bought my boat there was a strange coarse matting 'thing' under the matress. I have found out that its is coconut matting with a rubber coating. I nearly slung it out but someone said ' its important for airing the matress'. Its about 6mm thick and sits upon the bed support which is MDF board which has 15mm holes in it ( so it airs anyway ) . Do people think these are really any use ?. The reason I ask..is that it 'honks' especially with the hotter weather !!. The bedroom takes on a very strange hot rubber smell and I think people are starting to avoid me in the street. What do you think ?. Cheers. Bob

Many 'moons' ago I had a shop and we sold Scart leads. ...just an idea.....but some of the cheaper leads do not have all the pins connected....just the critical playback ones....especialy if these leads were 'thrown in' with a video/ satellite etc.... It may be worth making sure you have an 'all pins connected' lead. Cheers. Bob Hi... There is a Maplins shop very near the cathedral...can't recall the road name..? It is a road that runs downhill from the cathedral park Bob

Hi...yes...thats exactly what mine does.....but you have to watch out because if they develop faults they can carry on working...try and deliver power when there is not enough available.. and damage the unit. Check from time to time that the remote light goes out if there is demand and the revs drop.

Hi....thought I'd be a helpful guy and give you details of what to do if your travelpower breaks. Mine is attached to a Beta 43 and has a hard life with powering tools, battery charger, washing machine and vacuum. After 14 years the alternator was cooked, maybe because the big thick cable had 'had it' and blown the alternator ( I took it apart...cooked !!) I took it to : Cox automotive- electrics at 10 Abeles Way, Holly Lane Industrial Estate, Atherstone, Warks. CV9 2QZ Telephone : (01827) 712097 / 718484 They were amazingly helpful and it was returned rewound, painted a nice gray , the control unit was like new and was rebuilt. They also provided a new improved thick connection cable ( made up to length as I asked)...and guaranteed it for a year. Total cost was £521.58 a lot I know....but nowhere near the price of a new unit. I hope this is of use as its hard to find people to work on these. Cheers. Bob

Heating anything from battery power is the closest thing to insanity that it is possible to get on a boat. Apart from our beloved heated towel rail which we got on Ebay and is 240 volt / 36 watt. Bob

Hi. I'm not really sure how high the coolant level should be on my Beta 43 engine, which seems to have a coolant tank as part of the exhaust manifold ?. In my old 'car days'...I topped up to about an inch below the neck of the filling cap. I started doing that on the boat, but it would lose coolant and I discovered it going into the bilge. It is being blown out from the spring pressure release mechanism on the cap which I have just replaced, 13 PSI (95 Kps) as per the original cap. I have run the 'overflow' hose into a plastic bottle and collected about 2/3 of a litre. The boat has a skin tank and the water/ antifreeze was replaced by an engineer 100 hours ago. The coolant seems to find its own level, but it seems a long way down the cooling tank to me...maybe 4 inches below the neck of the filler. The temperature guage seems to read OK when I travel along. Am I just simply overfilling it ?. Thanks. Bob

Hi... I have used 3...pay as you go... for the past 18 months and pay £5/month fair usage (about 3 gig) Its a bit of a secret...but I'll tell my fellow boaters. You get a 3 data pay as you go sim and top up £10 at a shop. You then sign onto 3 website and register a credit card for top ups..takes about a week. You then put some money on your account...I keep about £20 there As the end of your month nears...you log onto the website...and go to purchase add-ons... internet top up. You will see it says various daily / weekly options and a monthly option of £5 Purchase that...and away you go. Very important...do not let it run out..they start charging per meg if you do !!. .BUT you can purchase another top up several weeks before and it will 'queue' ready for when the first runs out. I hope you enjoy this well kept 3 secret. Bob

Hi fellow boaters. My wife and I are planning a long summer trip from our mooring near Rugby. The plan is to travel down the Grand Union, onto the Thames at Brentford...progressing upstream and finally returning on the Oxford. We are hoping to spend maybe...a month...on the Thames itself. I know we have to purchase a license for that...and I have marine VHF / license. My main question is mooring on the Thames. We took a walk down near Richmond lock a while back...and it was evident that you couldn't just 'turn up'..and park. There were also no banks you could tie to and then was the 'small matter'...of the tide !!. Could any of you kind people give advice on this ?. Should we phone/ book ahead each time we move ?. I wouldn't like to get stuck one night with nowhere to go. Thank you for your ...anticipated..kind responses. Bob.

I use 3 mobile dongle on Pay as you go. If you register a credit card on the 3 site (takes about a week) you can 'top up your account'. I tend to put about £20 on it. If you then go to 'purchase add ons'...you can purchase a 1 month unlimited/fair usage top up for £5 . Towards the end of your month purchase another add on for £5 and it will be queued. Unlimited for £5/ month...but they don't tell a lot of peole about it !!.Bob

Hi. Please forgive my ignorance here, but I'm new to canal boating. I have a Travelpower unit on my boat and someone told me that "that's useful...you can run the battery charger while you go along and boost what you get from the alternator. I also have 200w solar power via a controller. Is it true that all of these sources can run at the same time ?. It blows my mind to think about it all...but will it blow everything else as well...?....Thanks. Bob