fv1609

Wayne, unladen in imperial it's only 4 tons 14 cwt, metric it is 4,775kg. Just in case people have a 5 tonne cut off point in terms of vehicle capability or pricing, don't want to put them off!

Oh that completely passed me by Adrian! Although I was in the arena, I had other things on my my mind with giving support to Ashley Prior who was presenting the new Humber award in memory of his father.

Wasn't that originally designated as "quiet camping"? I overheard one official say to another that they had redesignated it as "camping".

I think the helicopter owner won two prizes, not quite sure what for. I think one may have been for the public's choice of best exhibit. Can't see any list of prize winners on W&P site though. What happened to the Bart Vanderveen Award? No mention of it this year as far as I'm aware.

Bought this manual, which gives details of exercises to avoid your rear end making contact with W&P toilets in the more far flung parts of the show ground.

The circuit diagram shows only 2 wires. The thick output that goes to a 50A fuse & a thin wire (brown with yellow trace) going to the 24v ignition warning relay. What are the colours of the loose wire? That should give some clue as to its purpose. I'm afraid by the time you answer this I will be at W&P.

Yes I noticed this & as the process of getting a PAC got further advanced even more offers emerged. Even so they were way off what I could get just starting off a contract with Roberts old company. I tried to resurrect these deals but firstly they were only valid at that moment. Secondly even milder offers were not available because I couldn't be regarded as an existing customer, because when the PAC goes through on Mon I'm not a customer any more. I can't see why a PAC initiated last Wed has to wait to be actioned on until Mon. Yet on Fri it is too late to stop it, I thought this all about technology & rapid communication for goodness sake!

Yes I was in Salisbury within 100yds there were the 5 main networks & several general phone shops. The trouble was not with the quality of the staff who generally take time trying to help or even longer time when they sign someone up on a contract for credit checks etc. I had to have fresh credit checks with them although I currently have two accounts active & have paid both religiously every month for 20 years, this meant nothing as I was opening a new account. I could understand it if my accounts had lapsed & there was a break & I was starting again. The argument was that on Mon when my PAC goes through those contracts will terminate. I found myself going back & forth between the two shops getting answers from one & delivering to the other. I think both shops I had to queue up four times in each & wait for the member of staff dealing with my problem. At one stage a transaction was put on hold for 15 mins waiting for their customer care line to give a response. I had to abandon this as my 2 hour parking was up & had to go & move to another car park. Then back to the end of the queue. Started at 1030 finished at 1430, not a fun day really!

Robert I was thinking of changing to your lot. The trouble was in the shop nobody knew when any of the phones I wanted would be delivered, so I went with a newer company that had them in stock. There was no mechanism to ring your old company as all telephone menus relate to existing customers. When I followed options to try to lead me to an operator I was put on hold for 10 mins then was cut off. I wish there was a means whereby you could pay a deposit for a signal sniffer (that couldn't send or receive messages) that you could try out at your home & see if there was a worthwhile signal. Then return the sniffer, get your deposit back & sign up (or not) depending on the outcome. It would save a lot of stress for the customer & avoid phones being returned to the shop in a used condition that obviously knocks some value off them.

I've not chosen a good time to change phones with W&P upon us. But I was tempted to get a fancy phone that could send e-mails with a screen large enough to show pictures & able to display documents in Word -essential to check that I am not about to buy a book I already have. So would be very useful at W&P. Just as banks don't really like you changing banks, although there is a mechanism to make it easy, everybody drags their feet. The same seems to apply to phone networks. To get the fancy phone at a reasonable tariff I had to change networks. I had to wait 48 hours before the new one became activated on the network & with an overall wait of 5 days to get my old number transferred. Well despite the shop saying it was going to be good coverage at home & me checking online that there was good coverage even indoors. I can get no signal indoors & only marginal in a few hotspots around the garden. The new phone company have accepted the problem & given me a full refund. But they cannot stop the mechanism that will in 3 days time disconnect my number from my present phone & allocate it to a phone I no longer possess. I have had to take out a new contract with my original provider & get a new number. Although I am still a customer I can't use my existing contract as that will cease in 3 days. Once I am disconnected I must swap to my new sim card to tell the new company I wish to terminate the connection that no longer exists & get a PAC from them to give back to my original company to retrieve my old phone number. That in theory means in 72 hours I will have my old number back. But I can see feet might be dragged again. So a lot of people I'm meeting at W&P will find my number unobtainable for much of the event. Oh yes & multiply the problem by two as I changed all this on my wife's phone as well! Despite checking online for coverage I find it doesn't work & the company that provided the old phone that gave good indoor coverage gives for my post code "not recommended"!

A few updates: http://www.shorlandsite.com/WhatsNew.htm Some members posting pics of Shorlands used in Trinidad & Mauritius also an unusual conversion of a SB401 recently turned up in Kosovo originally owned by US Navy. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/shorland/

Welcome Gav, yes I find IS vehicles fascinating. A bit before your time but I have two ex-RUC armoured vehicles.

Andrew well that's good news. How hot did the coil get & have you had a chance to measure the voltage being applied to the coil? Has Mr Jolley responded to the points raised about the differing resistances of the coil & that of the ballast resistor? One is tempted to wonder how much things would have improved anyway by just replacing the ballast resistors with non-corroded ones. But who knows you may now have a more potent HT source than the rest of us. Will you be bringing it to W&P as it would be interesting to measure the HT at differing speeds. I made up this to allow me to capacitively couple to a HT lead. So that I could use this. In the 1,000 rpm range mine runs around 12 KV. Obviously the speed, mixture, state of plug etc will have an effect on the resultant HT. The highest voltage being with the plug disconnected I was getting 27-30 KV I would be interested to compare readings on other B60s with & without electronic ignition to get a feel of how things should be. If I had more time I would like to put in a non-screened system to try to measure how much HT is actually lost due to the capacitance of the screened cables.

Probably, I have in front of me FVRDE Design Spec 9533 for the Austin Wireless Light FV16003 & that was issued in 1953.

As for the frequency, that looks like a 1/4 whip antenna so it will be somewhere in the UHF spectrum. Measure the length of the whip in inches & put it in this to get the answer! http://www.qsl.net/kd4sai/antencal.html (This is only a ballpark figure as it doesn't take account of the velocity factor of the radiator & the dielectric over it)

EOD coms, sadly the tape recorder is to record what may be the crucial final words of the ATO.

I've improved the situation a bit. I was using a 3.5in screen, now got one which is 7in. So images are now twice the size. The small screen had no adjustments, but the larger one I can set the brightness & contrast more favourably. I was going to just buy the 7in monitor but for £10 extra I could get a camera as well. It looked rather different so I thought I would give it try. Mounted the cameras next to each other under the rear body. The new monitor can switch between 2 inputs, so I could make very close comparisons. Unlike the first camera, the new camera showed none of the chassis of my vehicle, so presumably was less fish eye. This was confirmed by my test target 15 ft away was twice as large, still not as large as I would like. But with the larger screen objects are now 4 times larger. Although I have a low voltage more linear little camera, it's output is to a UHF modulator & I can see no obvious way of extracting a straight video output. But at least I've now got a more useful system to be going on with.

Hmm nice FV1604s. Glad they had the decency to stand clear to identify the registration plate.

I've got the full article somewhere. There were some factual errors, which I got corrected in the next edition.

Yes that is correct, it is a factual gimmick. There was a thread on here in the last year about it.

Ah interesting to see that the hole is in the original position. You remember me saying that because of the knob having a small point to the top, drivers assumed the direction indicated was 180 degrees opposite as they thought the pointy bit was the lower bit! So the hole got moved & the knob then mounted upside down to fall in line with the driver's expectation! My turn switch was modified like that but I welded up the hole & moved it back to where it originally was. These switches are hens teeth & terribly rare cost about £100 but you could have one for £50..,No, no, no only teasing. I have some NOS ones £5 ok? The original knob might be more of a challenge. BTW EVERYBODY WAYNE DROVE HIS FIRST PIG TODAY:D:D

Tom you will have to remove the relevant floor panels, this requires both seats to come out & the battery box. Apart from the fuel pipes you'll need to disconnect the leads on the fuel level sensor on top as well.

Just looking through that list Hornet/Malkara caught my eye. It seems such a shame that it is linked to a site that has unreliable content. This caught my eye: "Accuracy achieved in practice was poor. This may have been because the awkward control system required a lot of practice, and there was neither a simulation system nor sufficient missiles for practice firing". In fact the guidance system, similar to Vigilant, used a form velocity control unlike all the foreign stuff that used acceleration control which was cruder & cheaper. Hornet used a thumb operated joystick, you moved the missile say to the left then the missile moved to the left but continued on its path to the target. With acceleration control when the missile is commanded to the left it continues on a different path along that bearing, so a small correction is needed to bring it back to the right & on target. Too much correction & that has to be corrected again. This system needed a higher degree of training to maintain accuracy than with velocity control. In the heat of battle the ingenuity of a controllers thumb may not be so able make these constant corrections. As for no simulation system! There was a built in simulator inside every Hornet! It was hard to miss, it was the same size as the guidance control unit & mounted on the opposite side inside the rear cab. The crew could practice their firing drills in the field & in their vehicle. A spot of light was projected into the controller's periscope simulating the missile flares, this diminished its intensity to simulate the effect of distance. Furthermore there was a massive Hornet simulator built with a large projector before even Hornet was deployed. Why does such drivel have to appear? Seems a shame that the article had to have a link to it.

John that's excellent news. I was a bit thrown as it is similar to 1st Guards & 2, 3, 5 & 6 Guards appear in my book but with quite different insignia. I'm sure Wayne will be much relieved.

Wayne it certainly has a bluishness to it. But if it was used in Minder or Harry's Game it was would have been green for both roles. I have used a lot of genuine military DBG from various manufacturers, any left over I decant into jam jars. With time this settles out into its various pigments. It either has a red/cow dung brown or a deep turquoise blue dominant component. I think your Pig used the latter type of paint & time has been accentuating it. Looking at the picture of Dale it is certainly green.