RobL's world of wonder

Sometimes it’s better just to arrive!!

 Well I’ve been on my travels again…, bit of a mixed bag this time and that wasn’t just the contents of my dirty laundry bag!!  This was to be a two day jaunt to Brussels for two more surveys and to survey a building I didn’t get told formed part of the portfolio last time.  Apparently the selling agent didn’t tell us about it because he’s not the managing agent and didn’t know whom to call!
 
I was to have assistance this time from Clare (the bosses wife) who is also a building surveyor…, and has a company credit card!  Brussels Airlines used to fly out of Bristol on a Sunday evening but have now changed it to the afternoon which would have meant leaving home at lunchtime so neither of us wanted to do that.  It was left I’d collect Clare just after 3.30am (oh yes) to travel up to Bristol for the 6.50am flight (see previous posting).
 
I set my wonderful Nokia phone to wake me at 2.45am and turned in at 9pm, woke up at 11.59pm, then again wondering what time it was, 3.15am and the phone had switched itself off despite having been charged up on Friday and Sunday.  Some slight panic ensued and I left Plymouth with lightning arcing out of the sky to arrive at Clare’s house at 3.45am.  There was a light on but no answer at the door so I switched my work phone on to find 2 missed calls, two texts and a voice mail, all from Clare to say she was travelling up Sunday evening and would meet me at the airport.  Hmm thanks then, how many times has Adrian rung me on my home phone thinking it was my work number yet this time they only used my work number which I always leave switched off at the weekend.  Not to worry.

Always liked this!

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
  Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
  And the mome raths outgrabe.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
  The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
  The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
  Long time the manxome foe he sought --
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
  And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
  The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
  And burbled as it came! One, two! One, two!

And through and through
  The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
  He went galumphing back.

"And, has thou slain the Jabberwock?
  Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'
  He chortled in his joy.

Kindred spirit!

 For those of a certain age who remember 'Roobarb and Custard' (green dog, pink cat, fabulously irritating music!) we suddenly realised there was a distinct likeness with a certain family member!!

Travelling Again!

You have to be careful what you wish for as I have recently found out when the question of working in the EU came up at a recent office meeting.  The last time I worked abroad was about three years ago in Brussels and our ‘Belgian connection’ came up trumps again when yours truly was asked to go to the land of paté and pine trees once more.  This time it was to carry out due diligence building inspections of some distribution logistics premises (what used to be known as warehouses!!)
 
All of this fell in the week of the Whitsun Bank Holiday and meant travelling up to Bristol the Monday evening to catch ‘the red eye flight’ at 6.50am the next morning.  The good bit is you at least get in to Brussels reasonably early (though the queue for a taxi was horrendous taking about half an hour!) and then to cap it all the taxi driver didn’t know where I was going and had to keep referring to a map!  Whatever happened to ‘the knowledge’?  Well at least it was a nearly new and leather lined Mercedes which is just as well as we nearly had an altercation with a very large Belgian lorry, I could see what was going on from the back so I wonder about the capabilities of the driver.  He did seem to huff and puff a bit when I asked for a receipt and he didn’t get a tip!!!!  Never mind eh?
 
While I was away the UK weather was apparently really good, yeah cheers, apart from the occasional sunny spell it poured with rain and was cold while I was there.  Anyway all necessary surveying was done, including on day 2 four buildings (at the town of Genk, close to the Dutch border) ranging in size from 10,000sq.m to a thumping great 100,000sq.m.  I was informed on arrival that despite having allocated two days to this I only had the Wednesday and please could I press on somewhat!  No pressure then!?!  Well quite a bit of shoe leather and some 560 photos later all done, though I did spend some time back at the hotel writing up!  The big warehouse had a huge car park almost full of 2000 new Ford C-max cars (the factory is nearby).  Nice looking car but apparently some of the factory staff would be bringing diagnostic equipment to the site in the next few days as they ALL have a computer fault to be fixed, ouch!!
 
The attitude to public transport and for that matter to ‘foreigners’ is different over there,

1. the trains run on time
   
2. people accept that you may need some help to get where you are going despite not speaking the language.

For some funny reason the Belgians (and the Dutch) don’t start to talk louder and ‘over enunciate’ when you don’t understand them!!  Bit different to the British approach to foreign visitors then? 
 
A funny thing happened on the way back from Genk!!  I was all set to get a cab but the local M&E engineer a large man with an equally grandé name offered to give me a lift.  The morning taxi ride had taken about 15 minutes so after a half hour and despite the fact that we were still passing signs for Genk I tried to point out (in menu Italian!) that I wanted Genk centre, some slight panic later he turned the BMW around and back we went, turns out he was taking me to Brussels.  If I do much more of this sort of thing I’d better have a crack at learning French again!!
 
As I write this I am sat upstairs on a double deck railway train travelling quickly, comfortably and fairly quietly through part of the Ardennes Forest heading back to Brussels.  The one unfortunate thing with working somewhere different is that there is seldom the time to see a great deal of the country, that said however its raining again so a walk in the forest may not be such a good idea.  Apparently there is some more survey work coming up so looks like I’ll be back this way sometime soon.  It’d be nice to get an assignment somewhere sunny though…..,

Radio ga-ga!

Right-oh its radio update time – mainly for the benefit of those enlightened individuals who have arrived at this site via my link on QRZ.com.
 
The last couple of months have been an interesting time with the completion of my radio amateur intermediate training and trading my old callsign of M3RZD for the new and shiny 2E0RZD (or 2EØRZD).  This has had some use already with the subtle increase in output power from 10 to 50watts being used to good effect on 20 and 80 metres.
 

I was roped in to help out at the recent Tavistock radio rally by Rob & Anna (2EØONO & 2EØOSO), the good thing with helping lifting shifting and marshalling is that you get first dibs before the doors open.  The result of this was a big old lump of a 2metre multimode (FDK multi 2700) which turned out to be pants, in need of more than the ‘TLC’ as indicated by the seller and was ultimately subject (mercifully) of a refund.  I was also lucky enough to find a clean and tidy Yaesu FT707 (with top band mod) for a decent price and has already provided some very good HF contacts (see below).  The ‘best buy of the day award’ though has to go to the Nevada 10m end fed aluminium dipole complete with co-ax, brackets etc. which I obtained for the princely sum of….., £3.50!!!!!!

 
The dipole is now in service as the ‘portable’ antenna of choice (see photo), being secured to a steel channel driven into the ground and secured to the tow hitch on the back of the Benz, firmly guyed and adjusted to suit the band required.  I can actually get a decent SWR on 10, 12, 15, 17 and 20 and with a suitable reduction in power (to about 20watts) it will just about co-operate on 40.  That’s not too bad for the price of a sandwich and a tin of IRN-BRU!!  First use in anger so to speak was from Cold East Cross above Ashburton the day before the office walk (see previous posting) and using the ‘new’ FT707.  Having given the ‘great white hound’ a run on the moor as a timed (partial) route check for the following days walk we settled down to explore the possibilities that 17metres had to offer!
 
I’ve not used 18MHz before though have always wanted to try it, not too different to 20metres but a much narrower band (18.113 to 18.168MHz for phone) and a whole lot quieter.  Well there was a healthy tally of QSO’s in the log by the time I packed up at about 8pm but the best had to include W2QN Bert in Cornwall Pennsylvania (!!!) but best of all and having completed a QSO with EA5BRE being called by a very distant station who sounded English.  Was this a like minded chum calling in from the far flung parts of Devon just to say hi??  No!!  It was 5U7MA Mike in Niger but normally living in Australia (as VK8ZMA).  Best 73 and good DX to each of you and thanks for making it an enjoyable day.  Now what’s the highest bit of the moor I can get a Merc to without breaking it?
 
73 de Rob 2EØRZD

What to write about this month?!

Probably a bit of a ramble this time around, there being no specific agenda or subject but in the best traditions of contributions to any such publication (with all due respect to the editor) including editorials it can be good to ‘ragchew’.
 
The bands have been a little quiet lately but there is still no shortage of interest if you are lucky enough to be looking in the right place at the right time.  A few weeks ago I was SWL at home late one evening listening to 40 metres and a station in Iceland was putting out a tremendous signal but with a significant pile up trying to work him.  The temptation to run outside and fire the rig up in the car (flat dweller with no workable HF antenna at home) was tremendous but resisted due to the lateness of the hour (and the ambient temperature!).  I was therefore somewhat pleased a few days later to be tuning around 20 metres one morning when up popped the same station in Reykjavik, Iceland!  It was only sensible of course to put out a call and lo and behold a reasonable length conversation followed, r5s7 each way!!
 
2 metres has had its moments as well with March seeing some interesting ‘lifts’ with various French stations being audible, contact possible in some instances to further flung UK repeaters and it was good to hear a station north of Exeter working SSB well into Europe, a decent beam and quite a bit of power required no doubt but it just shows what can be done with the effort and dedication.
 
Talking of 2 metres we recently went away camping in Dorset and the first thing of particular note was how quiet the local repeaters are and how many people are using simplex, the FM calling channel was particularly busy at any time of day too.  There is bound to be a degree of reticence in some quarters due to the inherently limited range of VHF but for local chats/ragchews/technical tests doesn’t it make sense?  I’ll leave that thought with you!

Committed to Dartmoor!!

“I’ve had a great idea”, said Adrian, lets have a walk on the moors one weekend!!
 
So began a feat of organisation, determination, resilience and human endeavour the like of which has not been seen at CBW’s Plymouth office since Jen organised the skittles evening a couple of weeks beforehand!
 
Sunday 21^st May 2006
   
We met up on the moor above Ashburton at Cold East Cross at 10am (O/S grid reference SX741743).  The portents for the walk were not too good, it had been raining almost continuously since the previous Wednesday, Saturday had cleared a bit but Sunday morning was apparently going to make up for it!!
 
The die hard few who turned up and were all set for a walk in the rain though  (rain type #243 ‘bucketing it down’) comprised Liz and Dave, Peter and Sharon, Rob and Mel, Jenni and Wayne and Rob with Debs son Aaron and ‘the great white hound’ (also known as Saxon).
 
From Cold East Cross we walked across open moorland following a track across Blackslade Down, crossing (carefully) a moorland stream almost to the foot of Hollow Tor.  The walk up to Top Tor was ruled out due to the conditions and the lack of any view at all.  At this point Jenni and Wayne who were admittedly drenched conceded defeat and headed back to their car. 
 
From here we headed south and then east for a short but steep climb and a cut across Pudsham Down where we reached the road which then continues for a little over a mile downhill through the hamlet of Venton and ultimately to The Old Inn in the middle of Widecombe in the Moor.  Having shortened the walk slightly and made good time we were a little too early for the Pub so instead went in search of coffee and tea at a nearby tearoom before meeting up with Jenni & Wayne, Julian, Val & Katya and Debs at the Old Inn for Sunday lunch where we were very well catered for.

Archery a go-go!

I've not done any shooting for months so it was quite nice just recently to get the bow out again (for this who care: green and gold Portland 2000 take down recurve, carbon stabiliser and V-bars, shibuya sight, carbon 3L18 arrows with curly vanes).  Had a few ends with Dan in Mum and Dad's back garden, only 15 yards (for Dan's sake really ;-) but was well pleased with some nice tight groups, (10, 10, 10, 9, 9, 8 for instance).  Dan did really well too but there was one hairy moment when one of his aluminiums hit the frame at the top of the target butt and ricochet'd off through the hedge and into next doors garden!!!!  Fortunately no fatalities or injuries but a little more care next time!

A nice bird at Easter!!

 Well we finally made it.  The falconry day up near Crediton was absolutely great and I/we wouldn't have missed it for the world.  The day included handling various birds of prey (kestrels, hawks, owls etc.) and even having birds fly to the glove (which is absolutely wonderful!) and helping train a small barn owl to fly to the glove from a rest (she was on a tether in case she suddenly found something else more interesting - its okay, its not cruel, its all part of the training and is in their interest too!)  We ended up heading out for a walk through the fields with a Harris Hawk called Gypsy and the sight of her flying along past our small group from tree to tree, waiting for us to catch up and go past and then she'd fly on again was just magical!  Do I seem slightly moist eyed about the whole thing....?  Oh yes!!  Just wondering where I can build an aviary for a hawk and a tawny owl now but I will need a volunteer to walk them anytime I'm away!! :-)

Train trip....!

Its fair to say I have always enjoyed train travel (mostly!) and more often than not enjoy visiting our great capital.  The other day I combined the two by visiting London to do a due diligence survey on a 1920's hotel.  All good stuff even though it was bitterly cold and snowing!!  The problem came with the transport there and back, 45 minutes delay in the morning and guess what...?  45 minutes delay on the way back.  Sum result being I left home at 5.30am and didn't get home much before 10pm!!!

The worst bit (though I couldn't help but laugh!) was leaving Paddington at 6pm there is the usual rush hour scuffle for seats or risk standing to at least Reading and possibly even Taunton.  I was able to get a seat but soon discovered that I was sat next to a student who it turned out was more camp than the caravan club!!  He spent almost all of the trip back to Plymouth on his violet mobile phone to Adam, thumbing through the pages of Vogue and applying his lip moisturiser and facial powder from a compact mirror with a brush.  Apparently he thought Tunbridge Wells was in France!  Debs reckoned he was in touch with his feminine side!!  I've no wish to appear homophobic but if he touched me with his feminine side it would have taken special equipment to remove him from the gap behind the seats opposite!!

Next time I may take the sleeper where you get a cabin of your own!!