Any students living aboard?

[Beulah-Ellen]

Hello All,

 

Many thanks for your responses; it is interesting to hear of your experiences! I'll try and answer in chronological order.

 

TheWilk: Sorry to hear you didn't enjoy your time at Lancaster Uni - I have been a Union Officer for the last 2 years and can't say I'm without my own grumbles but on the whole, my time there has been enjoyable. You may be interested to learn that very soon, Lancaster and Liverpool Universities will be one and the same if the plans are finally agreed.

 

rgreg: I do have a secure berth at Galgate Marina, although I would have liked to be somewhere in the countryside! I haven't yet found both unfortunately!

 

grannykins: Thanks for your question - I get asked this quite a lot and I plan on putting together a website bringing together all my findings and experiences along the way. In short, it works out significantly cheaper and of course, you have the boat at the end of it all should you decide to sell up. In my case, I plan on working self-employed and taking the boat with me wherever I end up! Students do not pay council tax, thank goodness!

 

Chris Pink: Thanks Chris, I suppose I'll have to be careful here if I am to keep out of the bad books! That said, I'm sure the moderator will be happy if more of his boaters are online and chatting For those of us on narrowboats, the steel bathtub with windows plays havoc attenuating cellular signals and I have seen all manner of dongles in (and out of) windows hanging precariously on varying lengths of USB cable! Essentially, I have put together a package that creates a private wireless hotspot inside your boat, treating your mobile broadband connection as if it were a conventional ADSL backhaul on the public side of your household router. By mounting a high-gain omni-directional external antenna to your boat, we can significantly enhance your mobile broadband reception, connected to an ultra low-loss cable to the back of one of our routers - into which your SIM is inserted. Generally speaking, this results in improved uplink/downlink speeds and allows you to add multiple devices to your network - much like you would a home router.

 

Part of the problem at the moment is that sourcing these components individually can be considerably costly and with varying degrees in performance from one device to the next. Through experiences, I have finally selected a suitable hardware vendor and I am currently trying to bring the cost of these components down in order to assemble a 'DIY' kit, reducing the cost for boaters to get up and running on the improved system. I would of course configure your box ready to go with whichever Mobile Operator you are using. Apologies to those readers with a technical background - I have tried to avoid jargon as much as possible here!

 

If permitted, I will keep you updated on my progress. I am also pioneering a new wireless infrastructure for use exclusively on the Inland Waterways, but I am quite some time away from rolling out a test network as of yet. The Lancaster Canal would see this technology first, however.

 

rgreg: My calculations do take in to consideration the (ever increasing) mooring fees from BWML!

 

Lady Muck: I couldn't agree more - unfortunately, I'm not sure if I am at liberty to disclose the University's accommodation fees but I can confirm they are astronomical! You can also forget getting any of your deposit back, no matter how much of a Saint you are! A shoe-box sized room with a corner taken off for your "superior en-suite".

 

Apologies if I have missed anybody out. Look forward to hearing more of your responses.

 

Cheers,

 

"Geordie" Paul.

[rgreg]

Paul, glad you found a mooring at Galgate; moorings close to Lancaster are pretty scarce. Did you cross the Ribble with us on Oct 11th last year?

Rich

[Ally]

Ah, that's what we do for our internet already Paul, and have done on some of our new builds...works well, but yes, be nice to get the costs down, though we didn't find it too horrendous. A company called Boaters Tech came up with and marketed it too, but gave up as it was too 'do-able' individually, and not worth putting together commercially. All the best though, if you can get the costs down!

[cotswoldsman]

Paul, glad you found a mooring at Galgate; moorings close to Lancaster are pretty scarce. Did you cross the Ribble with us on Oct 11th last year?

Rich

 

I guess Paul rather blew your prejudice out of the water so to speak!!!!!!!!!

[Barry]

 

 

Apologies to those readers with a technical background - I have tried to avoid jargon as much as possible here!

 

 

 

Worked for me Paul. I am a bit of a technophobe and I very nearly understood what you said. Any jargon at all would have lost me completely.

[rgreg]

I guess Paul rather blew your prejudice out of the water so to speak!!!!!!!!!

Tut tut. Prejudice? Not at all.

[Beulah-Ellen]

Thanks Ally, I actually wasn't aware of any other Company having attempted this so thank you for bringing it to my attention. The hardware I'm using does however support the higher (theoretical) rate of 21Mbps and we offer conventional telephone 'look alikes' to go with our VoIP service. What I would like to achieve is an even playing field on the water where broadband, phone and TV is as competitive as on land.

 

Nonetheless, the independent wireless system I'm working on will achieve Ethernet transit rates and uses a standard defined by the IEEE instead of the 3GPP - thankfully! Sadly however, I'm full of ideas I just never get round to seeing them through!

 

rgreg: Unfortunately because I was short of time I was unable to do the Ribble and had to have her brought up on low loader, being lowered in at Glasson Dock initially.

[Ally]

Keep at it...looks like you will be a little more far reaching with your aim on this...please would you keep us up to speed on your progress? Mobile internet quality is quite a high issue for many boaters, especially liveaboards running businesses!

[Chris Pink]

Paul, glad you found a mooring at Galgate; moorings close to Lancaster are pretty scarce. Did you cross the Ribble with us on Oct 11th last year?

Rich

 

I guess that's the nearest he's going to get to an apology.

[cotswoldsman]

I guess that's the nearest he's going to get to an apology.

 

Seems like it

[Chris Pink]

..gone to a new topic

Edited February 1, 2012 by Chris Pink

[rgreg]

I guess that's the nearest he's going to get to an apology.

I make no apologies for ensuring that any prospective boaters, students or otherwise, are aware of the costs and obligations. If you read my posts you will see that I pointed out that I was not saying that anyone posting here was breaking the rules, it's just your choice to interpret them as an attack on CCs or students. Well I happen to like genuine CCs (and students for that matter)!

[Arge]

Hi all

I have met quite a few CCers up the top end of the Lancaster canal, and they are all very nice people.

 

Arge.

[FidoDido]

I'm a Professor living aboard... Des that count

Boat currently 80 miles away( bought her just before Xmas in cambridgeshire). Waiting for the stoppages to cease and the canals to melt before I can get the boat up to Nottingham...

 

Have fun

 

 

In fact quite new to this...

[Dave_P]

I'm a student at Birmingham University. I lived on a boat before I became a student. I moor at Gas Street Basin in Brum so very handy for getting to uni.

[mickspangle]

Mrs Spangle is currently a student, but did her first degree while most of the students on her current course were in nappies... By the time she's finished she'll be MEng, MSc, PhD and PGCE... :-o

[Black Ibis]

We are both students - FTS is training to be a teacher and I'm doing a PhD in London. We've got a residential mooring in Cambridge and we even get a student discount on it!