Me and a bunch of lads decided to pull some of our mates leg. We decided to cycle to Canada and Palistine. That right the other side of the world. Well we not that fit. But fit enough to do a 120mile round trip from Swindon to Canada Near New Forest. Also pop in and said hello to Palistine on the way. Most of the time we cycled along roads and footpath. Of course we did get lost a little on the way back. I guess we all was tired and exhusted.
Bike Trip, Bristol to Devizes



For more information about the trailer please check out my other blog.
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Bike
Bike Trailer



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Bike
Solar Power
Free power all sound good. But when put into practice around the U.K. it not made out to be. Because we are far from the equator the average sunshine per day through the year is about 4.5 hour. If you had a 100w panel you would only have 450watts of electric in a day. Which is enough to run your lights in the evening. That if you use energy saving bulb. A energy saving bulb is about 10w an hour. A average house will have about 10light fitting. So that 100watts an hour. So you would have about 4 1/2 hours of free light. It all sound good so far. But when winter arrived you have longer night than day. This is where all the hic up start. OK light might not be good way.
Now look at the fridge. It run over time in the summer and the solar panel will be working over time. And in the winter the fridge hardly have to work or you solar panel. A average fridge consume about 400 Kilowatts a year. That about 1.2kw a day. So you would need at least at 280watt panel. That 1260watts a day.
All these figure are based on peak condition every day. If it a cloudy day you probably get less than 50% of the output and when it snow 0% as it will cover the solar panel.
Now look at the fridge. It run over time in the summer and the solar panel will be working over time. And in the winter the fridge hardly have to work or you solar panel. A average fridge consume about 400 Kilowatts a year. That about 1.2kw a day. So you would need at least at 280watt panel. That 1260watts a day.
All these figure are based on peak condition every day. If it a cloudy day you probably get less than 50% of the output and when it snow 0% as it will cover the solar panel.
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Electric
Wireless Network
The purpose of this medium range wireless net work was to see if it was possible to save money on the long run. I just moved into my own home a few street away from mother. At the time I could not afford to have a phone line and broadband. One or the other. Well mother had a phone line so I got broadband at mother house.
This enable me to save about £120 a year. So the wireless kit most not cost any more, so in the a year time it pay for it self. All I needed to do was to be able to link the 2 houses together via wireless. After a long search and research on the Web. To make sure that I get thing right the first time. The distance from the 2 houses is approx 300meter. The only line of sight was from the back of mother garden to the roof of my place. I had to run the Ethernet cable along the wall along with the low voltage power to the access point which is mounted in a water proof box at the bottom of the mask. The mask is on a 4 foot pole with a parabolic dish which is pointed to my house. The parabolic dish was picked to help security by narrowing the beam only to my house. This carried the broadband. Of course use encryption for more security.
Now on my house was a omnidirectional antenna which has a horizontal beam for covering wide area. Of which I share to who ever I wanted. The antenna on my house is mounted on the roof with a 12 foot pole. Just inside the house is the wireless access point. A very good question is why am I using such a big antenna kit that are high gain. The answer is simple it due to having poor coax with high loss of signal. But this cable is very cheap RG58 compare to LMR400 that is nearly 10 time more and is 100 time better. Not to say all the cost of the connectors. In All the project cost me about £150 to set up and going. The wireless network is still going today after 5 years. Yes, it is the old 802.11b 11 Mbps. It plenty fast enough for 2MB broadband and playing network games.


Please fell free to look at my other blogs
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Electric
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