Semitrad

We had a mooring at Pyrford Marina for about 2 years but moved on 3 years ago. The elsan facility was regularly out of order which was a great disappointment given the fees charged. (£4K + at the time) The Wey Navigation, although very scenic, has limited mooring spots and we found the locks to be difficult to operate. On the plus side, the licence is (or was) just over £100 but of course you are limited to the navigation, trips on the Thames are extra!

After many years of repairing electronic equipment I can say that one of the worst faults is an intermittent one. Something that works fine for hours or even days on test can fail within minutes of return to the customer, leading to accusations and recriminations all round. The effects of a soaking with water, or worse, seawater, can be terminal. Perhaps this is where the real blame lies.

PM your address details and I'll send it.

I have an Amperor "DC Vehicle Adaptor" that is no longer required and would be willing to sell if it suits your needs. Specs are input 10 - 28 VDC, output 12.8 VDC 5.6A 70W Never used. £15 plus postage of your choice and it's yours.

Something to look out for if you haven't been on the South Oxford before (and even if you have) are the blind bends, in particular those at bridges 131 and 133. a slow approach and use of the horn is advised.

Our previous boat, a share boat, had a TP fitted to a Beta 43. When it worked it was wonderful, boiled a kettle, ran a powerful vac or any other appliance we wanted. The main problem was getting the thing to start! Something to do with lack of remnant magnetism apparently, probably the teenage designers had never heard of it. The death knell of the TP was sounded by the catastrophic and expensive failure of the crankshaft - again poor design was responsible, it seems no-one realised the forces involved when an extra pulley is just tacked on the front of existing ones. So that has been our experience of a travel power, a good idea spoiled by poor design and fitting. If these problems could be overcome, however, we would have another.

This 12V temp controller might be of interest - ebay number 321810299323 (from a previous thread)

During a visit to a garden centre / nursery yesterday I was intrigued to see several "hand decorated" Buckby cans for sale including a water can, log holder, and several types of coal scuttles / umbrella stands. I didn't have time to see where they were made but there does seem to be a market out there.

This rather specialised item from Axminster Tools is overkill for my level of woodwork but may be of use to some. http://www.axminster.co.uk/axminster-rider-reversa/

Sadly all the good advice given in this thread is likely to be ignored if a "dream" is involved. Can the O.P, with no experience, run a startup business any better than the existing businesses? Why would customers go to him rather than another- first reason could be price, but that brings it's own problems. I began our own repair business after redundancy and from the start were purposefully more expensive than other local competitors, but we gave our customers better service, fast turnaround and truthful answers, also even faster corrections to problems that arose.

We also have two weedhatches on the bowthruster tube which can leak under pressure and of course are 60 odd feet from the operator and easily forgotten. But of course it's never used.

Some years ago I took my VHF exam using an examiner accredited by the RYA, Having passed and paid for the test I waited for the licence to arrive but it never did. On contacting the RYA I was told the forms had not been sent in by the examiner and there was nothing they could do! He had disappeared with my money, never to be seen again. It was about £25 I think, not a fortune but it still hurt. Never did take another test.

In a previous boat we had a cocooned Beta 43 under a semitrad deck with sound insulation and hospital silencer. It was quiet but not silent. Still difficult to converse on deck at normal speaking volume due to rattles and various noises, although strangely it could hardly be heard on the towpath. The airflow from the cooling fan was ducted on to the deck below the steering position, in cold weather this could provide a warm breeze straight up a trouser leg, one of it's best features!

I think there is a water saving device on the top locks but I don't know if it is in use at present.

Can't remember all of it, the white crosshatch was used to converge the three colour guns, the greyscale setup used the vertical bars left of picture, the video and general response of the receiver by the bars right of picture, the linearity by the diagonal stripes in the corners, the picture size by the white arrows at the edges and of course the colour registration by the centre picture, the girl's skin tone was what the engineer attempted to replicate. Forgot, the black inside white "letterbox" above the picture would show up video stage problems.