Improvements to My Mug Cooker

/ Outdoor Gear /

I have had a new stand made for my titanium stove/mug cooker set. It is a slice of copper tube that holds the mug high enough to get the flames to heat the mug efficiently. I had struggled with this cook set whilst at Scarvorough a couple of weeks ago as the mug was too low to allow the meths to burn efficiently. In kitchen tests it worked well – the next test will be in the field next weekend when I use it for my lunch time brew whilst practice walking for the West Highland Way. (I have now walked 80 practice miles in preparation for the West Highland Way trip.)

Ti mug cooker
Ti mug with aluminium lid and copper stand

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IRLP

/ General /

This is an early image of the amateur radio IRLP station that Roger G3PVU and I are making. It will be located near Lincoln city center and be available on the 70cms repeater GB3LS.

LSWC IRLP Station
LSWC IRLP Station

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Lightweight Camping

/ Camping, Outdoor Gear, Photography, Walking / , ,

I took a few days off from work this week to try out some of my light weight kit – which eventually will make up the kit I will use on future backpacking trips.

Coleman Bedrock 2
Coleman Bedrock 2

Although I had the car I limited what I took. It gave me a chance to try the tent, food ideas and stoves I plan to use. I probably will not be carrying the folding stool on my backpacking trips.

The tent is a bit heavy for backpacking – but at £17.50 in a sale the price was right. It weighed 2.5kgs but by changing the steel pegs with titanium ones and not using the stuff sacks the weight drops to under 2kgs. It is also large enough for two (at a squeeze with rucksacks) but for one it gives that extra bit of space and comfort. I can sit up in it and cook outside the door easily or look at view whilst drinking tea. The window panels in the fly sheet doors adds some weight but this allows you to look out at the view even when it is raining!

I camped at the Camping and Caravan Club site on the outskirts of Scarborough. It is well placed so I could just walk out to the cliff top footpath, without having to use the car.

Map Clip
Camping and Caravan Club Site
Cliff top view
Cliff top view
Cliff top view
Cliff top view
Sunset from my tent
Sunset from my tent

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Probably the Best Server Backup in the World

/ Technology / ,

Last Christmas we had a real problem recovering a server, following a serious crash. Although we had a series of tape backup, using only the best quality tape, a Sony tape drive and BackupExec, when we came to move the tape drive to a new server to recover the all important data we could not find a driver for the drive. Neither the native drivers or the BackupExec driver would work. The skills of one of my engineers saved the day with the use of a PE type boot CD in the failed server with allowed him to access the one of the raided drives and copy the data to a USB portable hard drive.

So we have been looking for a better solution.

In conjunction with Basic Business Systems (http://www.basic.co.uk/) with now use CA ARCserve D2D for backing up servers, first to NAS devices and then we copy this to either USB protable HDD or across the internet to remote storage. Backing up is fine – but the real strength is its speed of recovery. The Bear Metal Recovery simply speeds up the time to recover a server. It is also practical to test the recovery process and several of our clients who are now using this software are going to have a Disaster Recovery practice – we will go in on a Saturday with a spare black server, turn off the working box and recover ti to the spare using only the D2D files. If it works great, but if we do have any issues we will be able to solve them, whennot under pressure of a real crash.

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GB3LM – Lincoln Cathedral

/ General / ,

The Lincoln Shortwave Club maintain a set of amateur radio repeaters that are located on the highest point of Lincoln Cathedral. It is a good position for the antennas.

Antennas
2E0ZLO and M0TEF
Licoln Cathedral
View from the Top
Licoln Cathedral
View from the Top

It is a great view.

On this day we were undertaking some maintenance on the Cathedral’s internal radio system and we had to go inside the roof section of the high tower. This gave a different view of the bell that chimes on the quarter hours, Great Tom. When it chimes and you are inside the roof it is very loud.

The Bell
Looking down on the bell

 

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Spring Time in Brighouse

/ General

I have been working in Brighouse this week, upgrading a client’s network, reconfiguring Outlook to work from a remote site to an Exchange server, installing NAS storage and setting up terminal services for the reception staff. It has been a rushed job to address some of the limitations the company met when trying to run the factory production via terminal services – I came up with the solution at the end of one week and was there for 6.45am on the Monday to make the changes. Some problems with availability of software and hardware deliveries meant that it was an early finish on Monday, with a stay overnight in Brighouse to complete the job on Tuesday.

I stayed at the Waterfront Lodge in the centre of Brighouse, which is located next to the canal. As the weather was fine I had a good walk up and down the canal which included a visit to “Brighouse Marina”, (I could not find the Geocache hidden at the Marina, too many muggles). I managed to fit the walk in during the sunny break between showers. The canal walk is a real gem, giving a green corridor through the town.

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