Tag: boat

Internet on the Boat

Kathy and I spent the weekend on the boat on the moorings. We couldn’t go any where because the canal is closed due to a breach on one of the embankments and so they’ve closed all the locks to stop boats moving and hopefully to keep the water levels up until they can get some pumps in to pump water round the section they have had to drain.

My G1 is still away for repair and so I’ve been using Kathy’s old LG Viewty which has some very odd quirks to it and I’m glad its not my normal phone.

There is one good thing with the Viewty in that Linux just recognises it when I plug it in and I can use its 3G modem without installing any software (unlike Windows where you have to install the unbelievably crap LG communications suite.)

When I tried it at home it had crawled because we live in a 3G dead spot, but out on the boat moorings it really flew.

3G speedtest on the boat.
3G speedtest on the boat.

Yes, that really is a 665Kbps download speed. I think if I try it at home I get something like 86Kbits.

So I configured my laptop to share its internet connection and we actually were both surfing the net at the same time. The only down side is that the 3G stack seems to choke if you ask it to do more than a couple of things at once.

A pleasant weekend

Well that was a quite enjoyable and pleasant weekend. I picked Nick up just before 7pm on Friday and we loaded the new fridge into the back of the car and headed off to the boat. The roads were strangely quiet and we got to the boat at about 8:20. We plugged in the power line and I battled with the central heating but eventually got it lit and we headed off to the pub for a couple of beers and to discuss the plan of action for Saturday morning.

Saturday we got up, got the engine started and went up to the winding hole by Betton Mill and turned and pulled onto the water point. Whilst Nick got the water hose out I wandered over to the boat yard and arranged a pump out and a new gas cylinder. Then I wandered back to the car and drove it to the bridge and we unloaded the fridge. I then took the car back to the marina and walked back and we got the fridge into the boat, and yes we did measure it first to make sure it would not only fit through the front door but that it would also fit in the kitchen

We turned the boat again and got it pumped out, and being the first pump-out of the season it was a bit rank. Then we turned the boat again and headed back to the moorings where Neil turned up just as we manoeuvred the boat back into the mooring. We had a coffee and we powered the fridge up and then Jon turned up and we headed out to the pub. We had a very relaxing time and we did quite a few pubs, including two we had never done before before heading for a curry at The Jaipur. Then a few couple more beers and a couple of games of pool and back to the boat. When we got back to the boat the inverter was beeping at us and the lights were a bit dim but the fridge was still cold. We powered up the battery charger and put the fridge onto the land line. The whole idea of doing what we did was to see how long the batteries could support the fridge but we need to do some more tests to see how long it lasts when the fridge is already cold. I do have to say however that the chiller blocks from the cool box were still frozen solid on Sunday morning so it had obviously worked quite well. Nick and I now have some ideas on what we need to do for the fridge to make running it easy and we are also going to pick up an external fridge thermometer so we can see just how cold it is getting/staying when its running on batteries.

The next job is to get on the boat and remove the gas fridge and its piping and ft the new fridge into the old place. The new fridge is quite a lot bigger than the old one which is not a bad thing because we did sometimes find that things got a little tight in there at times.