Telematics box

So, I’ve got this new Telematics Box. Because I’ve been out of the country so long, the insurers don’t want to deal with me. The best way of bringing my premium down was to agree to the installation of one of these ‘Telematics boxes’.

Telematics

Telematics basically referrers to the transfer of information using Telemetry, similar to mobile phone technology. You can’t expect the unit to transmit in a tunnel, high on a mountain, or anywhere else where you can’t receive a mobile signal. Continue reading “Telematics box”

Burton Brewery Museum

Went here the other day.

Where I’m currently moored has a history of brewing, particularly of ales. When I went into town, I was constantly reminded of this, so decided to do some investigation; in the first instance by visiting the local brewery museum.

It used to be owned by Bass, which incidentally registered the first trademark, and incidentally again was used as part of one of the website logos that I designed.

Isn’t that a coincidence…

National brewery museum

Now the museum is called the National Brewery Museum and cost £10 to enter.

We parked the boat at Shobnall marina, and were going to walk in. It’s not a pleasant walk, it’s mostly main road

Instead, took a taxi the driver giving us a history of Burton since 1960 en-route.

The museum itself is full of machinery, vats and paraphernalia associated with a malt based brewing process.

Kids find these large pieces of machinery very interesting.

Scammell Trivan - Three wheel brewing truck
Three wheel brewing truck
Barrel shaped brewing van
Barrel shaped transport van

They used to drive around in this giant barrel dropping off kegs.

The kids jumped on these, and were fiddling around. Continue reading “Burton Brewery Museum”

Job of the Day: Prepping and priming the decks

The decks on the boat are particularly damaged, and require completely stripping.

Today, the weather was good enough to get a full day in.

At 9 o’clock in the morning, I set out with screwdriver in hand and scrubbing brush in other, 1st job – to remove the fittings and sugar-soap the existing paintwork.

Prepping

Sugar-soaping gets rid of the film of grime and makes the surface more adherent to future paint.

It also revealed the full extent of the rust.

Narrowboat - cruiser stern
Cruiser stern before

Here’s what the stern looked like.

It’s quite heavily corroded, the brown areas are areas of rust.

Rather than mess around with this in any way, I decided to simply get rid of all the paint and start from scratch. Continue reading “Job of the Day: Prepping and priming the decks”

ZTE MF730M Dongle

Internet Dongle for Narrowboat users

Getting slightly bored of only being able to use the internet in one room, I’ve invested in this THREE dongle.

It basically allows me to connect anywhere, at least anywhere where there is THREE network.

Currently, it allows me to connect at 3G speeds, which are fairly good, THREE have the best 3G network in the UK. I did some research on the subject, and it seems that they invested heavily in it. Whilst EE rushed out the 4G.

EE 4g Claims

Although EE claim to offer 4G here, I purchased a SIM to try out these claims.

Turns out their service was patchy at best, nothing like what their website claimed, (full coverage at 4G speeds), as pictured.

ee coverage
This is what it says for DE13 8DZ….

Continue reading “ZTE MF730M Dongle”