nb celestine

I,ll post this because I still cant get the sod to work. Pioneer radio with mp3 player worked great till the girlfriend tripped over the black rubber aerial on the roof and snapped it off. Replaced the aerial and nothing. Tried different aerials and different cables. Still nothing. Been into several car parts places and they all say that the aerial screw at the bottom musnt touch the shell but the toothed part of the lead must have a good connection to make the circut. Still nothing. Others have said it shouldnt be earthed so I put a rubber disc between toothed part and the shell and still nothing. Wrapped the lot in insulating tape and still nothing. Another said run a length of cable from the toothed part to the back of the radio to earth it. Nothing. This has gone on for 10 months. I,m sick of buying cables and aerials. The last place I went in said he is replacing a lot of radios with digital ones as the fm frequency is dying but this is too much of a coincidence; the missus snapping the aerial just as the frequency,s dying. I dont want to start collecting radio,s as well. Any other idea,s?

Thats exactly what I do Blackrose. Fill the washer through the soap drawer with a kettle and pan of hot water and when the things gone onto rinse and spin I flick either the battery charger on or the hoover.

To tell you the truth Henk, I dont bother to purge them anymore. With the warm weather you have to keep them cool and change the water regular to keep them alive and you still had to cut the cord out, so now I take them out of the trap and straight in the boiling water then cut the cord out. They dont taste any different; maybe a touch earthier, but it saves all the mess about. And I,m not dead yet.

What, boil the bodies in garlic and butter? Then what,strain it all then eat as a soup? I can do that. Have you done it or are you guessing? That sounds ok, I know it says shellfish stock, but I could still eat it as a soup I suppose, or put some chunky pieces of fish in aswell. Ta.

Hi, I,ve just pulled up over 30 crayfish on the Kennet and Avon but I get relly bored shelling them. When you see the small amount of tails in the dish and then the carrier bag full of bodies, there must be some recipe for them. I seem to remember some sort of recipe where the tails were simmered and then some cream bunged in. Could be wrong though. Apologies if there,s a recipe in the search, I couldn,t find it. Regards, Paul.

My throttle cable snapped today as I was hanging about waiting for forum member GSER to moor his pair of boats. A right mess he made of it, by the way. Anyway I,m mow trying to find a new cable somewhere. Its off a Beta marine 38hp, 1505 engine. The cable length is 2760mm, or 9ft 1/2 inch. I dont know if I need to find out any more spec. So does anyone know where I can pick one up on the net? I,m at Pewsey on the Kennet and Avon. Regards, Paul

I,ve been told that every now and again I should give the engine a good blast of say, 20mins, when out cruising. This is good for the engine. Is that right? The engine is a Beta 38, 7 year old with 2000 hours on the clock. All servicing done at the proper intervals.

Thanks Richard. I,ve had the pump off and cleaned evertwhere. The rubber grimmet at the outlet hasn,t got a flap on it. Dont know if it ever did. Going to fit a manual switch on it today. I,ll email the company to see if they will send a new pump. I,ve a funny feeling the switch terminals inside need a good clean but as its a sealed unit I cant get in to clean them. Regards, Smelly Paul.

I have an Attwood Sahara shower pump which has worked fine for the 2 years I,ve had the boat but it has been playing up. It will pump out but not turn off. Looking through the installation manual it says there is a check valve, which I imagine is a non return valve, situated at the outlet nozzle. There isnt one. I dont know if its deteriated and then washed out the outlet or what. When I fill the box manually the water pumps away then wont click off so I disconnect a lead a small amount of water flows back into the box. I,m wondering if the pump wants to click off but cant because the water is returning. The check valve part number is 911404 but I cant find any sign of one on the internet. I,d like to find one of these before spending close on £100 for a new pump which may not be needed. Any advice gratefully received.

Thanhs for the info everyone. I,ve got a sterling advanced digital 4 step switch mode charger , what ever that all means. I,m sorry if I didnt make myself clear. Most of my charging is done by the engine,s 100 amp alternator but once a week or so I bung the genny on to do my washing and hoovering.( I know, but I,ve got a new springer pup) The battery bank is 440 and after about 2 hours cruising its down to about 3amps going in, then if the genny go,s on, it gets below 2 then onto float. I do sometimes flick the charger off then on and I do get a bit more going in. My main power usage is a 240 telly on freesat. I,m thinking about changing to 12v but would need a freeview tv and new aerial unless I go down the 12v freesat tv which is around £400, I think. My tv at the minute takes about 4 1/2 amps including the inverter. Cheers, Paul.

About once a week I get the genny running and give the batteries a long absorbtion charge and get them up to float as this is supposed to help prevent sulphation. Once they are up to float, I usually take them off charge as I thought they couldnt take any more, or it is pointless giving them any more. Is this correct? Should I give them longer on float and if so how much longer? I have a victron bmv battery monitor to show me whats going on. Paul.

Just put the new cable on. Just the same. Any other ideas? Going to try a coat hanger up there now

Thanks for all the replies guys. I never thought a radio could be so complecated. On the building site we used to make up a box with a car battery in it, cut out a slot and put a radio in it and then couple it up to a wall tie or connect to the scaffold. I,ve got the new cable so I,ll put that on after playing with my multimeter and see if I can understand that. I dont think the old aerial had a amplifier; it just looked like a basic one. Liked the quip about the girlfriend; she,s back in Cornwall now. mind you, she has blew the engine on the car since the aerial.

About a year ago, the girlfriend was clambering about the roof and kicked my radio aerial, one of those black rubber ones, about a foot long. Up until then reception had been great. Its a quite new pioneer car radio with mp3 input, so quite modern. You could put it on scan and you could pick up loads of channels. She had snapped it where the black rubber piece screws into the roof mounting bit. So, never mind, I said, I,ll just get a new aerial pack and screw the new black bit into the roof fitting thats still up there and away we go. Wrong. The fitting was different so I put all the new aerial up but kept the old cable from radio to roof fitting because it was fine. So I filed off the old paint under the aerial fitting and screwed it down tight. Reception is crap and has been for a year; I even bought a better quality rubber one and that is the same. The radio has been pulled out and the aerial cable is plugged in ok. How can I go from fantastic reception to a point where I have to scan manually to pick up the weakest signal, just because she booted the thing off the roof. Any ideas. I miss pop master with Ken Bruce.

This is just a harmless query, honest, because I,m sitting here bored. I was just wondering if anybody knows of anyone who has been pulled up for not declaring an adequate amount of split on their diesel. I,m not bothered about the arguments as to how much you should or shouldn't declare. I,m just thinking that the scheme has being going for some time now and if someone has been taking the mick, then at least one person would have been pulled up. I haven't heard of anyone, have you? Regards, Bored Paul.

Looking in Asda yesterday there was a Luxor Lux 19in LED TV for sale for £109. I didn't have a long look at it but if it has one of those transformer boxes on it, I thought I could whip it off and have a cheap 12v telly. It comes with freeview and a DVD player but looking at the spec on the Asda website, I couldn't find out the power usage. Any thoughts on it. Sorry I dont know how to do those linky things. My teenage lad isn't around. Cheers, Paul.

I,m a bit puzzled though Tony. When I start the engine on an evening to charge, the batteries are about 12.3 to 12.4ish. After about 2 hrs charging the amps coming in is showing about 2.5amps. I thought that the lower I can get that figure the more the batteries are charged. The SOC has already said 100% about 1/2 hr earlier but I dont bother with that now, just the amps coming in. When the alternator was working properly a few days ago, even with the fridge and telly on, it still got down to 3 amps coming in after 2 hrs charging, even though yesterday someone said having that much of of a power draw with the engine on tickover was about as much use as a ashtray on a motorbike, or similar. I,m a bit puzzled.

Sorry Tony, I didnt explain properly. I only blipped the revs to 2000 to get the light working again and then put it to 1000 and then I typed wrong. I should have typed 14.2 instead of 12.4. My apologies.

Just a quick update people. Battery monitor this morning showing 12.42 after last nights charge with the genny even after watching 240 tv till 12.30. Batteries 1 year old. Got my dirty gear on and voltmeter in hand, headed towards engine. Fired up and alternator light still on so revved to 2000rpm and light now off. Batteries charging at 12.41. I thought I was in for a long and expensive day. Thanks all. The forum at its best.!