The Journey -
Help Wanted on Rosy

HELP WANTED ON ROSY

My main use of the satellite TV system on Rosy is to listen to BBC talk radio - especially Radio 4, usually FM, but also Long Wave (for the cricket). If anyone has any first hand experience of using the new portable Satellite radios outside the UK - and especially in Northern France and Belgium - and can thus state from their own experience as to whether or not these two channels can be picked up, I would be most grateful for an e-mail please (to: website@billybubbles.demon.co.uk)

SATELLITE TV AFLOAT

In return, here are some hints about the possibility of getting UK, satellite TV on the non-British side of the channel.

It is perfectly possible to do this, though illegal! Sky do not permit you to receive their programs outside the UK, as their commercial agreements prohibit them from so doing. However, many people within Europe ignore this, and watch Sky TV.

There are many excellent websites devoted to this topic, and I have no wish to compete with them. Some of them are:

www.bigdishsat.com
www.susat.co.uk
www.bradleywood.co.uk
www.uksatfrance.co.uk

Most of these sites want to sell you a system. They assume that you are living in a house, and that you want them to install and set up the system for you. On a boat or caravan, the system needs setting up after each move, so it's as well to learn how to do it yourself.

There are other sites that explain how to get your Sky box to receive non-Sky signals, and another that collates reception reports around Europe.

There are one or two wrinkles to be aware of.

Without a viewing card, the range of available programmes is limited.

Sky will not issue viewing cards to an overseas address. They will only supply them to a person in the UK, at an address that has a valid TV licence. So you may well need a friend to help you out.

The Free to View Card used to be free, but recently a fee of £20 - £30 was added (sorry, I can't remember the exact amount). Some of the system suppliers will offer to get the card for you, and some will even charge over £100 for it.

Of course, via your UK based friend, you can spend your hard earned cash, and take out a proper Sky contract, which will get you the full range of Sky programmes. Personally, I prefer to spend this money on liquid refreshments.

The main problem is setting up the sat dish so that it is pointing at the correct satellite. The way to do it is to get a Satellite Finder. This is a small meter that measures the strength of the satellite signal being received. There are metres that cost several hundreds of pounds. I don't have one of these. Mine cost about £20 from a caravan shop. It is a simple swing-needle meter, with an annoying beep that increases in volume as the signal strengthens. RoadPro (www.roadpro.co.uk) do a solid state one (with LEDs rather than a swing needle) for under £20.

You need to make arrangements to be able to insert the sat finder, in-line with the co-ax cable leading to the dish, and near to the dish. This is because you are going to be moving the dish around, looking for the strongest signal, and the meter (and its annoying beep) is going to tell you where that position is.

The direction of the satellite varies depending on where you are. The satellite itself is geo-stationary, but as you move, both its apparent direction and elevation change.

A word of warning here. Be aware that the digi-box sends a signal (at 12 volts, I think) up the co-ax cable to the LNB on the dish. If, whilst inserting or removing the sat finder, you inadvertently short out this signal, the digi-box will be instantly fried, requiring you to buy a new one. It is NOT sufficient just to turn the digi-box off - it is still live! Disconnect the digi-box from its electrical supply.

(Incidentally, on a boat, where electricity is always scarce, and hence needs careful management, it is always worth while switching things off - right off. Videos, hi-fi, digi-boxes, TVs, inverters etc etc nearly always go into 'standby' mode, when only the on-box switch is switched to off. There may only be a small current drain when the box is off - but on standby - but over a 24 hour period, this could be a significant drain on your precious batteries).

Some folk try to cut corners by not using a sat finder, but by relying upon the 'on screen' signal strength and quality meters built into the Sky system. This is a possibility, but there are two major problems.

PROBLEM 1 - how to arrange things such that you can see the TV screen whilst you are on the roof twiddling with the dish.

PROBLEM 2 - the on screen meter does not react instantaneously. There can be a considerable delay before the correct readings are displayed.

One of my (many) pet hates is to be moored next to boat when the sat dish is being set up. Sir inevitably is on the roof, doing complicated, technical things like swinging the dish about, and tightening up a butterfly nut. Ma'am is generally inside watching the on screen meter. They have to shout at each other to make themselves heard, and they inevitably end up using non-Biblical language to each other.

After I had had the 10 minute practical lesson on how to do it, I have . I usually managed to set things up quite satisfactorily on my own, Occasionally the satellite is hard to find, in which case I leave it alone and attend to other priorities (like cooking dinner) before returning to it. Inevitable, trickiness sets in:

a. When there is a program that one desperately wants to see.

b. At the end of a particularly long and tiring cruise.

c. When a large thunder cloud is rolling in towards the mooring

PLASTIC DRINKS BOTTLES.

I appreciate that this is not necessarily the most fascinating topic to discuss, but …….

Here in Belgium, the canals are littered with floating, empty plastic bottles. In The Netherlands they are like hen's teeth/rocking horse shit (depending on how 'Sunday Schoolish' you like your language). Could it be (he mused) that this might have something to do with the surcharge that one pays in The Netherlands when one buys a bottle of pop - and which is returned to you when you take the empty bottle back? Indeed, kids, and other poor people, scavenge the Dutch countryside for empty bottles to eke out their spending money.

THE VOYAGE (CONTINUED)

I left you whilst we were moored at Ampsin, in the shadow of a nuclear power station which (we were told) supplies 50% of Belgium's electricity. We were there for a touch over a week, waiting for the next lock to be repaired. Its top gate was (and is) the sort that disappears under the water, and it had successfully done this, allowing the uphill boats to exit BUT when the downhill boats got into to lock, the gate had an erection failure and refused to rise to the occasion.

We eventually got through the lock, and had a lovely cruise up the Meuse to Namur. In places the scenery was very dramatic, with massive cliffs rising out of the water. At one point there was a Commando Training Centre, and high up on the rocks there was a solitary Commando making his own, very lonely, climb to the top.

Namur itself is a pain! In the past, its City Fathers have endowed it with many hundreds of metres of quay-side. There is a yacht club which 'welcomes' visitors, but we have two problems with such places.

The first problem is that they are generally designed for boats up to about 10 metres maximum. Hence Rosy's 16 metres either bars her from entry, or makes her mooring somewhat insecure.

The second problem is that payment is required, and this is often based on length often one or two Euros per metre - including water and electricity. However, Rosy only needs water every week or so, and generates enough electricity during the cruising day to see us through until about mid-day the next day. So, to pay 16 Euros merely for the use of a couple of bollards seems a bit excessive.

Anyway, in Namur, all their moorings are segregated, with:

• a section for commercial vessels (i.e. barges) which was only about a tenth full when we arrived
• a section for trip boats which was 100% empty
• a section for pleasure craft (that's us!) which had one boat on it, whose owner assured us that 'they' came round to collect a mooring fee!!!!

There are other quays in Namur, but snotty little notices say that boats can only moor on those quays where there are notices permitting mooring.

So we cruised through Namur, and moored (with the lock keepers permission!) on the lay-by below the first lock on the river Sambre.

For the next three days we plonked up the Sambre. It's a rather depressing river. It is heavily engineered, so most of the time there are concrete banks on either side. It is particularly well endowed with floating empty plastic drinks bottles. Our highlight was the rescue of a bird in distress. I spotted it flollopping in the water, so Mike and June swooped in for the rescue. It was of the sand piper variety. It had a fish hook through its upper bill, and the nylon line was wrapped around its legs. At the next lock Mike and June sorted it out and released it. The next day, on two occasions, a similar bird circled the boats and whistled at them. Now!! Was that a coincidence - or was that a coincidence??

There have been two really low points during this whole adventure. One was the passage through Charleroi on our way to Poland, and the second was our passage through Charleroi on our way back. It really is a sink city from the water. Our approach was through a concrete channel, with out-of-sight roads on both sides together (I think) with pedestrian and cycle paths, but these latter are not used as the whole place is so utterly desolate. Things get even worse at the lock, where one is hemmed-in by massive, open fronted buildings with cranes inside them, unloading scrap metal from barges. Other buildings and conveyor belts look very dead and rusty, whilst from others there are emanations of gritty rain and nasty niffs. The water surface has a thick, oily skin, with grit and dust embedded it. Around the lock there seems to be a constant strong breeze, making control of the boat a touch tricky. It is stinking and smelly and extremely un-pleasant.

We didn't stop.

And so up to Seneffe, where we will stay for a couple of days. Michael Clarke keeps his rather smart R.W. Davis nb 'Sika' there. We saw it last year, with its coat of red oxide, and the insides in a state of 'being built'. Now the outside is complete and painted. Michael spends a lot of his time keeping an eye on the European Union, especially ensuring that its rules and regulations have a minimal negative impact on boating. He was, for example, instrumental in pointing out some of the absurdities of the 'Recreational Craft Directive' and ensuring that 'old engines' can still be put into new boats.

A day later …..

Today (Sunday 2nd October 2005), Mike and I (and Fanny the Woof) drove over to see the Ronquieres inclined plane. This massive structure takes boats up and down a 60 metre high slope by putting the boats into a water filled trough, and dragging the trough up (or down) the slope on railway lines. I had hoped to take Rosy up and down, but management and employees are in dispute, so the employees are only permitting 4 trips up and 4 trips down per day. Since there are plenty of commercial craft using the canal, and since commercial craft take precedence over pleasure craft, we could have a long wait.

We also did some country walking to find the old canal tunnel near Seneffe. This was in use before Ronquieres was built. We eventually found it. It is in water (though un-navigable), at is its northerly approach. At its southerly end, the canal has been in-filled with spoil taken from the massive cutting excavated for the newer canal. It is, I guess, possible to walk through the tunnel, as there is a cantilevered towing path over the water. Leastways, there is at each end - whether it is intact throughout the tunnel, I know not.

That's about it for now. Autumn is setting in. The days are shortening, and the temperature is dropping. Conkers and chestnuts are falling from the trees, as are the leaves. Blackberries have been a disaster this year, but the sloes were OK, and I have a bottle of sloe gin to see me through the next 12 months (I make it without sugar, and use it to colour and enliven dry martinis).

Toodle hic!!

Bill