Monday, January 10, 2011

Movement on the network?

There seems to be some cautious activity on the canals as the ice starts to recede. Sue and Vic on NB No Problem have moved out from their hibernation at Nantwich, and Bruce on NB Sanity Again reports boat movement on the Trent and Mersey at Great Haywood.

It’s not all easy going, though. Del and Al are having it a bit rough, what with frost damaged heating, colds and thick ice. They attempted to head south the other day, but had to call it quits at Glascote. Still, the thaw continues, and the forecast for the rest of the week is for above zero temperatures.

We, the crews of Seyella, Moore2Life and Rock’n’Roll, are having a “council of war” tonight to consider the next step. We’re probably all going to be going in the same direction, at least initially.

We had to move a little today, anyway. The BW dredging team have steadily made their way towards us over the last couple of weeks. They’ve cleared the channel and approaches to the two locks down from us, and were ready today to have a go at Gailey Lock.

They’d advised us on Friday that they’d be moving up today, so first thing we shifted all three boats back about 100 yards.

People Power. It’s not worth using the engine.

We made working space for these guys.

Tomorrow or Wednesday we might actually move on, can’t wait!

I left you the other day wondering about a “new internet gadget” I’d to collect. Well we got it and it works like a dream. Since kicking Vodafone into touch and replacing them with a dongle based connection provided by 3, I’ve had far better connection speeds, always 3G, often HSDPA.They were offering 15GB a month for £15.99, so I rang to take advantage of the deal. The upshot was they sent me a free wireless dongle, so I don’t even have to plug it in!

Wireless dongle.

It works up to 10 meters away from the laptop, so I’ve far more flexibility over where to put it to get the best signal. And still got my 15GB for £15.99. Good stuff. I just hope it’s as reliable elsewhere on the waterways. Time will tell….

Oh, and you’ll have noticed I sorted out the paragraph spacing problem I had on the last post.

3 comments:

Mike (nb Duxllandyn) said...

The black Huawei dongle (pictured) has a fantastic wireless range and can support a laptop and several iPhones at the same time. I've used mine right through this year and have been really pleased with it. The Three network manages to give a pretty good signal even in remote areas where O2 and Vodaphone are non existent. Our home mooring is on the GUC Leicester Line and the dongle can pull in a serviceable mobile signal even in the most remote areas.

Mike

Ann/Kev said...

Hi Geoff/Mags,
We've used a 3 dongle on the cut for the last 2½ years and it has never let us down, is it possible for the wireless dongle to be used by someone else nearby or can you put a password on it? Hope you manage to break away from your present mooring soon, we are still stuck at Warwick but hoping to be away in the next couple of days
All the best, Kev & Ann (4evermoore)

Geoff and Mags said...

Thanks for the feedback, guys. It's looking good so far....
Oh, and it is password protected... I think!
Kev and Ann, we're away as you will see on today's post. Hope you manage it soon too.
Mike, keep an eye on the blog and drop us a line when we're near you. You're welcome for a brew (or something a little stronger?)
Cheers guys,
Geoff