While there are many wonderful places outdoors on Great Britain, the easiest way to get a sampling of the history, ranging from the prehistoric to the industrial, is to visit the National Parks or the “Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty” (AONB). Scotland has its own way of doing things. The mountains may be small, but they have character and certainly enough character to provide an epic for the unprepared!

While National Parks and AONB’s are scattered around the country, I prefer the north. The south, and particularly the Cornwall Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty will have better weather, the north provides a rawness and seemingly a closer connection to its history than other parts of the country. That said, in the south the places I recommend are the South Downs [info|map], Dartmoor [info|map] Exmoor [info|map] and the New Forest.

The Lake District

The jewel in the crown of the National Parks is the Lake District [info|map|photos]. The Guardian did a nice overview of some shorter walks. It’s relatively small compared to National Parks in the United States, but sees in the region of 16 million tourists a year (or the same as Yosemite, Yellowstone, Grand Canyon, Arches, Canyonlands, Bryce Canyon, Colorado National Monument and Death Valley - combined (from NPS Stats and STEAM 2009)). In the peak months of late June to early September it can be very busy but it’s worth the trip. I prefer to base myself in Keswick or Coniston, depending on whether I need to be in the north or south Lakes, respectively. Both of these towns are easier to deal with than the tourist-trap towns of Windemere and Ambleside.

The classic guides to fellwalking in the Lake District are Wainwright’s Pictorial Guides. While they seem like they’re from another time (they are!), they are recently updated (between 2010 and 2012) and capture the magic of the Lakes in a way no other guide can. No photographs, just illustrations, I spent many hours as a young boy pouring over exotic sounding places and excitedly planning my next trip…

In the northern Lake District, two of my favourite hills are right outside of Keswick. Both Skiddaw and Blencathra provide a decent climb, though Blencathra provides a more entertaining walk - particularly if you incorporate Sharp Edge into your day. A little further afield is another of my all time favourites, Helvellyn. Often covered in cloud, the routes from the east from Patterdale via Swirral Edge or Striding Edge offer the best walks - the west side is a steep slog. The lesser known High Street) (named for the 2000 year old Roman Road built over the top), offers a quieter perspective. Down the road in Borrowdale, the Langstrath valley walk is less strenuous but still very pretty. If you continue over Honister Pass, you’ll come to Buttermere, another area with many hikes and worth exploring.

Down south and near Coniston, my favourite walk is up the Old Man and Wetherlam. I love the ascent via the Coppermines and Levers Water / Boulder Valley.

Northumbria

My family has over 1,000 years of history in Northumbria so I feel a special connection to this place. Northumberland National Park is within the least populated county in England and doesn’t see as many tourists. While it lacks the picturesque qualities of the Lake District it makes up for it with a raw and natural beauty. There is an interesting history of early Christianity here including the Lindisfarne Gospels (though they are now in London), The highlights for me are Hadrian’s Wall and the Cheviot Hills. Just outside of the National Park is the Northumberland Coast AONB. Complete with castles, causeways, beaches and sea-life, it’s a very difference experience to the interior of the county.

North Pennines

The North Pennines AONB is famous for its moorland. Very quiet and sometimes even bleak, Cross Fell is the highest point and a good walk - though usually very boggy. Further south in Teesdale there are a couple of waterfalls - Cauldron Snout and High Force, though the latter is developed and touristy. My favourite in the area is Mickle Fell and High Cup.

Yorkshire Dales

Further south again, the Yorkshire Dales National Park has great walking, the classic route being “The Three Peaks”. Tough to complete in a single go, I prefer a more leisurely ascent of each of the peaks separately - Ingleborough, Whernside and Pen-y-ghent. Outside of the park is another of my favourite walks, Malham Cove and Gordale Scar.

North York Moors

East of the Dales is another National Park - the North York Moors. It has a different feel from the Dales, more isolated but less dramatic and certainly quieter. The best walking routes in the moors coincide with the Cleveland Way. Alternatively, for a challenge, try the Lyke Wake Walk - once was enough for me… As a contrast, I’ve always enjoyed the family friendly ascent of Roseberry Topping.

The Pennine Way

Many of the above walks in Northern England are a part of, or close to, the long distance footpath “The Pennine Way”. While the 268 mile route usually takes two to three weeks to complete, the guidebooks chop up the route into easily digestible day walks. Again, I love the Wainwright style in his “Pennine Way Companion”, updated in 2012.

Scotland

Scotland has 60% of the area of England, but less than 10% of the population. While some areas are very touristy, it is clearly quieter than England and Wales. It’s more of a trek to get there, though the drive or train rides are beautiful. Typically, the further north you go the fewer people you’ll see and the more spectacular the scenery. In the summer though, beware Culicoides impunctatus - the truly unpleasant midgie, I’ve met better mannered insects in the rainforest.

You could spend many weeks exploring Scotland, though from an outdoors perspective Glen Coe is a great place to start. It’s easy to base yourself out of Fort William [info|map]. Glen Coe itself is spectacular, and two great hikes make my favourites list. First, The Buachaille, or Buachaille Etive Mòr, “the Great Herdsman of Etive” is situated in Glen Etive just south of Glen Coe. It’s a steep 8-9 mile walk with great views.

My second Glen Coe area walk is the Aonach Eagach, possibly the most spectacular ridge walk on Great Britain. This is a much harder walk, and has significant exposure and some scrambling, though again, spectacular views.

Further afield, there are more remote places in the Highlands and the Islands. The Isle of Skye also has a spectacular ridge walk (really a scramble and some perhaps-avoidable climbing) - the Cullin Ridge. It’s a very long and exposed route that only the adventurous would enjoy. Back on the mainland, and further north again is the area of Assynt [info|map]. There are many great walks in this area, including the three great summits of Stac Pollaidh, Suilven and Canisp.

It was only a couple of years ago that the only way to have a decent navigation, communications and entertainment system in an overland vehicle was to either 1) buy 3 separate and non-integratable systems or 2) install a laptop (or with much more effort a ”carputer”). We’re lucky today, in the simplest fashion we can throw a phone in a cup-holder and have all three.

For the compact overland vehicle, a tablet is the best option. Not only are they cheaper and more flexible than laptops and carputers, but they offer higher security (you can grab it and take it with you), they easily integrate with the vehicles audio system, they are light and easily mountable, they are relatively inexpensive, there are hundreds of decent apps (and many more that are awful!) and the touch interface is easy to operate.

While there seem to be an endless amount of tablets on the market, and in-line with ”Sturgeon’s Law”, many of them are awful. For practical purposes I’d suggest that there are only 4 tablets worth considering, and 2 on those are of the 10” form factor and therefore I reject them as being too large (though if you have a larger vehicle, they may work for you).

• Apple iPad (9.7” display at 2048x1536 at 264 ppi, aspect ratio 4:3, dimensions 242x186x10mm)
• Apple iPad Mini (7.9” display at 1024x768 at 163 ppi, aspect ratio 4:3, dimensions 200x135x8mm)
• Google Nexus 10 (10.1” display at 2560x1600 at 300 ppi, aspect ratio 16:10, dimensions 264x178x9mm)
• Google Nexus 7 (7” display at 1280x800 at 216 ppi, aspect ratio 16:10, dimensions 199x120x11mm)

I’m using the Nexus tablets as generic Android tablets, feel free to substitute your favourite Android tablet.

The 4:3 aspect ratio is ideal for driving. While there are a few Android devices with this aspect ratio, the majority of them are no-name brands with the baggage that brings.

So, even though the iPad Mini has a lower resolution and ppi than the Nexus 7, it’s still a better tablet for in-vehicle us. It’s not the amount of pixels - it’s where they are. The 4:3 aspect ratio utilises the screen in a way that is better for the touch targets, and is better for mapping and navigation apps (as you can see more “ahead”) - which is likely to be the primary use of the device.

Of course, you are giving up some resolution - hopefully that’ll be fixed later in 2013 if the rumoured Retina iPad Mini is released.

My setup consists of the following:

Apple iPad Mini Wifi+Cellular (Verizon) 64GB
Google (LG) Nexus 4 16GB Unlocked GSM phone (on a T-Mobile $30 per month unlimited data plan)
Short Monoprice cables, for neatness
RAM Mount RAM-HOL-AP12U iPad mini cradle (the X-Grip RAM-HOL-UN8BU isn’t solid enough for off-highway use) - replaced by RAM-HOL-AP14U
Other RAM mount components for the dash
RAM Mount RAM-HOL-UN7BU X-Grip holder for phone

TL;DR, the iPad Mini is currently the best tablet on the market for an overland vehicle as 10” tablets are too large, and it has a 4:3 aspect ratio.

UPDATE: Sold in April 2013

Regrettably, I’m putting up my Dormobile up for sale. It’s a great base vehicle that’s in pretty good condition for a 41-year-old, but I’ve realized that I’m not going to have the time to perform the restoration I would love to do.

That said, it doesn’t need a full restoration. Put a couple of $k into it, and you’ll have a very useable weekend vehicle, as long as you don’t plan to drive 80 mph everywhere.

It’s a rare 2.6l 6 cylinder Series IIA, and also unusually it’s a 1972 Series IIA as it was registered in the UK after the Series III became available. It’s spent most of it’s life in South Africa, and I discovered it in Nevada in 2008. It’s a Right Hand Drive vehicle.

It comes with everything Dormobile, yes, including the kitchen sink! The only thing that’s missing is the rear-door table. They may be available from Dormobile in the UK, who still supply a lot of the original Dormobile parts.

It’s drivable, but recently developed a leaky petrol tank. The brakes need some work also, as they are currently more entertaining than I like… Get those fixed and give it a good service and you’re good to go.

There’s lots more info on my website - http://www.nickt.com/dormie, and there are lots of photos in the gallery. The original specs and the BMIHY (“Gaydon”) Certificate are also available. You can download a PDF mini-brochure too.

The Dormobile has a clear Colorado title and is currently in storage in Golden, CO. Please send me an email if you’re interested and would like to find out more. I’m open to offers around $12,000.

If you’re after a Land Rover Defender in the US, here’s an idea. It’s possible to pickup a used one in the UK or Europe (which of course may have fared better away from the UK’s salty and humid atmosphere, and will also be left-hand drive), which now in 2013 means you’re looking for a 25 year old truck (1988 or older) to conform with the NHTSA requirements. Clearly, anything that old will need a restoration, and the older engines are a bit anemic. Why not swap out the engine while you’re on?

Later in 2013, Ford introduces the replacement for the Econoline series of vans. Bringing the US into line with the rest of the world, the love of ”White-Van Man”, the Transit will arrive as a 2014 model with petrol and diesel engine options - we’re interested in the diesels, particularly the 3.2 5 cylinder diesel.

In the rest of the world, it’s a ”Duratorq”, though in the US it’ll be branded as a Powerstroke. It’s a nice engine with about 200 horsepower and 300 torques, it’s built in Ford’s engine factory in Port Elizabeth, RSA, shipped to the US and popped in the Transits in Kansas City.

This engine clearly has to meet all the current and near-future emissions regulations. To meet these regulations, the US version of the engine will have a selective catalytic reduction system (probably a urea reductant) to reduce nitrogen oxides. It’ll run on B20 and well as ULSD.

Now the Duratorq line of engines is better known in Land Rover circles as the “Puma”, and the 2.4l and 2.2l are used in Defenders from 2007-2011 and 2011-on respectively. These engines are part of the “ZSD” line, as is a certain 3.2l inline 5 turbodiesel currently used in the Transit around the world, and about to arrive in the US as the 3.2 Powerstroke in the 2014 transit…

And the good news? These engines fit in a Defender. Bell Auto Services in the UK have fitted a 250hp (which is about 150hp more than my 300 Tdi) into a Defender 90. Twice. Nene Overland are also offering the engine in their iCON range. Beef up the transmission with the MT-85 manual gearbox or a ZF autobox and you’re good to go.

A fully restored, US-legal Defender with a 200+ hp EPA approved engine? Sign me up!

Lee gives a fright from Nick Taylor on Vimeo.

If you’re looking for towers to climb, check out this video produced by Camp 4 Collective for The North Face. Fantastic location, climbing and filming.

Towers of the Ennedi from Camp 4 Collective on Vimeo.

I’ve neglected this blog over the past year or so, and all of the infrastructure. nickt.com was hosted with Media Temple (mt), and a great job they did too. Solid uptime, great communications and extremely responsive customer service (on the rare occasions I had to call upon them for support). However, it was costing me over $600 a year, and while at one time that was ok, my needs have changed and I no longer need a dedicated VPS and complicated hosting.

I’ve used Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) in the past, but as I was using it to backup gigabytes of photos and videos it started to get expensive and I stopped using it. However, it seemed an ideal place to stick a blog as it’s storage requirements are modest. S3 buckets can be setup to serve static content, which is an ideal way to move away from the complexity of mysql and PHP.

Last week, reading Hacker News I can across Matt Gemmell’s article on Octopress and was inspired to get to a baked blog, and read a few more articles. I quickly setup S3 but the time-consuming part was setting up my client Mac with the Git/Ruby/Jekyll/Octopress environment. Here’s how I did it:

1. Installed the latest Xcode from the App Store.
2. Installed Macports.
3. Installed git from Macports.
4. Setup git.
5. Ruby Version Manager from Macports won’t install on OSX Lion so I installed homebrew.
6. Installed wget from homebrew.
7. Installed RVM from homebrew.
8. Installed Ruby 1.9.3 (the version OSX 10.7.2 ships with is 1.8.7 and Octopress needs 1.9.x).
9. Installed (cloned) Octopress from github.
10. Installed the Ruby Gem Bundler.

And that got it installed on two of my Macs. I have the slightly scary setup of using Dropbox to sync across my Macs, and the git repositories are in Dropbox. As I’m the only editor, and the files are small (so very fast syncing), I don’t think it’ll be a problem.

Migrating posts from Wordpress

Now this was trickier. There are basically two options. Use the database and run some sql and hopefully everything will be converted from HTML to markdown. You can read about that here and here or dump the XML from Wordpress and run the exitwp script. There is also a forked version of exitwp.

Initially I couldn’t get the script to work. I found a hint here, and that helped me make the following changes:

parallax:exitwp nickt$ git diff

diff --git a/exitwp.py b/exitwp.py
index 4dd9c83..0aeb6bb 100755

def html2fmt(html, target_format):
-    html = html.replace("\n\n", '<br>')
-    if target_format=='html':
-        return html
-    else:
-        # This is like very stupid but I was having troubles with unicode encodings and process.POpen
-        return html2text(html, '')
+    #html = html.replace("\n\n", '<br>')
+    #if target_format=='html':
+    #    return html
+    #else:
+    #    # This is like very stupid but I was having troubles with unicode encodings and process.POpen
+    #    return html2text(html, '')
+       return html

And after removing that chunk of code I had all of my Wordpress posts ready to move to my new Octopress blog. That said, not everything is clean. Not only are there some formatting errors but not all of the HTML was converted to markup. But, with all the files in a format that mostly works, I can clean them up at my leisure, though if it never happens it doesn’t matter…

Now all I have to do is write more.

I like camping in the desert.
The Defender is the best way to get there…

Here’s my results:

I noticed something I didn’t expect. I have a Verizon iPhone and I don’t take it when I travel internationally. The points you can see on the map in Europe and Central America come from data collected from my last GSM-based iPhone 4. When I moved to the new phone, I did a backup and restore.

So if you do this, the consolidated.db data contains location data from all your iPhones, not just your current one.

Iridium uses a constellation of 66 operational satellites in low Earth orbit, and is the only satellite telephone communications company that gives complete global coverage, even at the poles.

My handset, a Motorola 9505, is large, bulky, heavy and slow - it’s starting to show its age. After a software upgrade a few years ago, it’ll now send SMS messages and emails, and there is also a data connection kit (with a DB-9 serial connection), though at a maximum of 2.4kbps, it’s barely usable and once I had the ability to send SMS messages and emails, I gave up using it.

I put up with both the age of the handset and almost $500 per year of standing charges as there were no other options (other providers didn’t give the coverage I require).

Lately, however, Inmarsat, a well-know satellite communications company unveiled their new satellite phone, the IsatPhone Pro. It’s still like a cell phone from the year 2000, but it’s lighter, faster and more compact than the Motorola 9505. It uses the Inmarsat 4 constellation of satellites, 3 birds in geosynchronous orbit to give almost global coverage (the exception being the polar regions). These are the same satellites that provide the BGAN service.

As well as the phone being better, the service is also cheaper - the basic service is $20 per month, so it’s half the cost of the Iridium service.

This convinced me to get one. In July 2010, you can find brand new ones for around $500.

My quick testing shows that it performs well, though as I’ll only ever be in the footprint of one satellite (and you get the best service if you point the antenna at the satellite - so you need to have a general idea of where it is), the coverage in more challenging areas (canyons, forest, etc.) may not be as good as the Iridium network.

Out of the box it comes with the ability to send both SMS messages and emails, and has a built-in (Navstar) GPS, from which you can email position data (a fantastic feature from a safety and security perspective). Sending and receiving both SMS messages and emails is speedy, with a delay of just a few seconds between sending and receiving.

In summary the IsatPhone Pro is better, faster and cheaper than the Iridium/Motorola 9505. I’m liking it so far, and I think it’ll make satellite phone ownership available to more people.

Recommended. Field testing from Central America coming up soon!

He makes a great argument for liquid cooling in the data center, something I’ve been an advocate for a long time. It boils down (ha!) to something simple:

Heat capacity of air: 1 MJ m^–3 K^–1 Heat capacity of water: 4 MJ m^–3 K^–1

Clearly, the heat capacity of water, and other liquids, is far greater than air.

Interestingly, he’s not just talking about re-engineered cabinets which use liquid cooling to cool the air before and after it has been ducted through hardware, which certainly helps and while it isn’t common it isn’t rare, but rather he advocated the use of microfluidic heat sinks (using microchannel heat sinks and liquid cooling) at the transistor level to alleviate the heat issues caused by leakage currents at the gate oxide (we currently loose more in leakage currents than are consumed by computation). As we move from 45 nm through 32 nm to 22 nm packages in the next few years, this issue will accelerate - thermodynamics is still your daddy.

He estimates that using cooling water at 60C-70C will protect the microprocessors from overheating, and alleviate the need for chillers to operate at the extent they do today (or at all at certain times of year, probably depending on your local environments ambient temperature and humidity) - with a 50% reduction in data center energy consumption. A second benefit is that collection of the waste heat becomes easier, with applications in office and district heating and some industrial applications.

Anything we can do to reduce the 330 TW·h of energy in data centers globally (2009 estimate) is a good thing, right?

Science 16 April 2010: Vol. 328. no. 5976, pp. 318 - 319 DOI: 10.1126/science.1182769

This time, I’m just back from the 2nd Overland Expo. What a great event! Even though I was involved in the 1st Expo and was asked at that event to present and do some driver training this year (by Graham Jackson of Overland Training), it wasn’t until I rolled into the event that I fully understood the scale. It eclipsed last years event in many ways, many more vendors, better training facilities, much better rooms for AV presentations, a knockout team of staff, instructors and presenters and finally a fantastic audience of folks who love to travel. I couldn’t believe how many great vehicles were parked in the car park.

It’s not really about the vehicles though. I know a great many of us enjoy building them, tinkering with them and driving them, but really they are just another companion on the journey. A great many of the vendors realize this (and they realize we spoil them), and are on-hand to help us do this. My personal favorite piece of vehicle kit was the Kaiser / Nekarth Differential Locker, a much simpler and more elegant approach to locking differentials than the Detroit and ARB solutions. I saw this demo at the Expeditioneers booth.

The Expo is not just about the vehicles (and they ranged from pedal-bikes, through motorbikes, regular 4x4 vehicles to huge ex-military and custom built behemoths) and their parts and accessories. Other vendors offered medical equipment and training (and Remote Medical International staged some great demos), guiding services (notably No Limit Expeditions offering adventures in Belize and the rest of Central America and Safari Drive based in various African locations), clothing (including one of my favorites, Mountain Khakis - recommended!), tents (roof-top and otherwise), all sorts of camping/expedition gear (including Bug Out Bagz), the list is long and distinguished.

Seminars and presentations are a key part of the Expo, and if you just attend one or two of them you would realize that “overlanding” isn’t just 4x4 driving - and very different from what usually pops into peoples minds when the outdoors and 4x4 drivers meet… I talked about staying online and in touch while on an international overland trip, and driving through the Sahara in a VW Golf! Other presentations and panels discussed medical responses, overlanding with dogs, solo overlanding, cooking demos (very popular I understand), and some great overland movies courtesy of Austin Vince and the Adventure Travel Film Festival.

Groups and clubs are also prominent at the Expo. It’s always great to see the Disabled Explorers and their WAVE Sportsmobile, really giving folks the opportunity to get out and explore who normally may not have the chance to. I love the ideas behind both the Carbon Neutral Expedition and the Vanishing America Project (Overland Society’s Expedition Flag ambassador for 2009), and again, the Muskoka Foundation is making a difference around the world.

My favorite part is the opportunity to see old friends and meet new ones. One moment sticks in my mind, during a basic vehicle overview session I was one of the instructors. After the other instructors had said their piece, I was my turn to add something. Trouble was, three of the instructors were Tom Collins, Duncan Barbour and Jim West, 3 Camel Trophy luminaries, and a hard act to follow! Having the opportunity to talk to people like this is wonderful - and the chance is there for everyone who attends, especially at the ever-popular happy hours each evening! I particularly enjoy spreading the word, or “preaching the gospel of travel”, as a friend once told me. I think retelling great stories and sharing experiences really gets people fired up for that first trip. Helping them over the “well, it’s a dream I’ve always had, but I just can’t get the time off work” is usually the first part, and not that difficult in the environment the Expo creates.

Once people have traveled off the beaten track they come back home with new eyes, none more so than Americans (not a dig, just an observation). Through their new eyes they see people, politics and the Earth in a different light. A more tolerant, understanding and sympathetic light. An ability to put themselves in the other persons shoes and see that there are many more sides to national and international issues than you’ll ever see on the typical “never mind the quality, just look at the quantity” news channel (which is why I refuse to watch television news - that’s another story). Anything which opens peoples minds and makes for a more tolerant and understanding society clearly should be encouraged; I’ve always advocated international travel for this purpose and the Overland Expo is the ideal platform to encourage people to embrace this.

Originally submitted at REI

Backpacker April '07 says for 1-pot meals, ''…MSR Reactor™ offers a whole new level of convenience, speed, and trailworthiness.''

MSR Reactor Stove System

Great, powerful stove, but has issues…

Gift: No

Pros: Powerful, Easy To Clean

Cons: Poor temperature control, Difficult to Light

Best Uses: Car Camping

Describe Yourself: Avid Adventurer

What Is Your Gear Style: Minimalist

Pros:
1. It’s extremely fast, I boil a lot of water so this is a huge win for me. Subjectively, it takes around 1/3 less time to boil water versus the JetBoil. This is due to the more powerful burner and larger surface area on the burner interface.
2. It packs small, and as it’s wider than a JetBoil, you can pack a 220g (7.8oz) gas cylinder inside it, whereas the JetBoil can only contain a 110g (3.9oz) cylinder internally (so I always packed an additional large 450g (15.9oz) cylinder).
3. It comes with a small packing cloth which stops the insides getting scratched when the burner unit is packed inside (yes, you could easily make this yourself, but it’s a nice thought to provide one).
4. The whole unit it the typical good quality you’d expect from MSR.
5. It’s wider than the JetBoil, and that makes it easier to clean.

Cons:
1. It’s more expensive than the JetBoil ($160 vs $100 using REI prices in April 2010).
2. Simmering is difficult, if not impossible. The burner is so powerful it seems to have only two settings, off and “supernova”!
3. No piezo ignition! It’s a pain to use matches or a lighter.
4. Bigger burner means it goes through gas faster, though as you can pack a larger cylinder internally it may not be an issue.
5. It is slightly larger than the JetBoil, the diameter is larger but it is shorter.
6. It has a fold-out handle, the JetBoil is insulated so you can simply pick it up with your bare hands even when hot.
7. As the diameter of the pot is wider than the JetBoil, it is slightly more difficult to pour into narrow containers.

http://nickt.com/2010/04/12/msr-reactor-stove-review/

I’ve been a JetBoil fan since they became available in 2001. When camping, my cooking philosophy is “just get it done’, nothing complex, usually something I’ve pre-made or something out of a packet (I actually like MREs, usually warmed on the manifold). And being English, I mandate several tea-breaks throughout the day, so really I just need a fast and efficient way of boiling water. That covers about 90% of my cooking requirements.

One of my more lightly-used JetBoils failed recently (a JetBoil PCS - Personal Cooking System). The seam attaching the inner part to the outer part (which interfaces with the burner) broke away. I noticed that it was spot welded and the newer JetBoils have an updated design - so they clearly know about this issue. I took it back to REI to get it replaced and while in the stove section I had a longer look at the MSR Reactor, clearly their answer to the very successful JetBoil. It’s of a similar design, slightly wider and the burner interface section has a number of fins which gives the pot a larger surface area and speeds up heating. The burner itself is very large, in terms of area (but quite compact), and is quite quiet in operation.

On a recent camping trip in Utah, I had the opportunity to give the stove a decent field-test. Of course, I boiled water for tea and washing, I boiled milk for porridge (Mornflake Lyle’s Golden Syrup flavour - imported from the UK), which is rather messy, I made soup, warmed some pre-cooked steak and cooked-up some pasta. I noted the following pros and cons.

Pros:

1.  It's extremely fast, I boil a lot of water so this is a huge win for me. Subjectively, it takes around 1/3 less time to boil water versus the JetBoil. This is due to the more powerful burner and larger surface area on the burner interface.
2.  It packs small, and as it's wider than a JetBoil, you can pack a 220g (7.8oz) gas cylinder inside it, whereas the JetBoil can only contain a 110g (3.9oz) cylinder internally (so I always packed an additional large 450g (15.9oz) cylinder).
3.  It comes with a small packing cloth which stops the insides getting scratched when the burner unit is packed inside (yes, you could easily make this yourself, but it's a nice thought to provide one).
4.  The whole unit it the typical good quality you'd expect from MSR.
5.  It's wider than the JetBoil, and that makes it easier to clean.

Cons:

1.  It's more expensive than the JetBoil ($160 vs $100 using REI prices in April 2010).
2.  Simmering is difficult, if not impossible. The burner is so powerful it seems to have only two settings, off and "supernova"!
3.  No <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piezo_ignition">piezo ignition</a>! It's a pain to use matches or a lighter.
4.  Bigger burner means it goes through gas faster, though as you can pack a larger cylinder internally it may not be an issue.
5.  It is slightly larger than the JetBoil, the diameter is larger but it is shorter.
6.  It has a fold-out handle, the JetBoil is insulated so you can simply pick it up with your bare hands even when hot.
7.  As the diameter of the pot is wider than the JetBoil, it is slightly more difficult to pour into narrow containers.

In summary, I like the Reactor, I doubt anything on the market can boil water as fast. However, until it adds both piezo ignition and a way to simmer I still recommend the JetBoil (especially as the Reactor currently demands a $60 premium).

Posted via web from nickt’s posterous

Curious, and not being one to dismiss seemingly crazy suggestions out of hand, I tried to engage further, but it really just descended into a rant at this point. In the box of protest materials were “information” sheets concerning things people like to protest about - vaccinations, contrails, nuclear power, cars, etc. Clearly, rent-a-protest. She wouldn’t or couldn’t answer any of my (very polite and charming, and not condescending) questions about the science behind their claims. ScienceNow also picked up on this mini-protest: http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/02/smattering-of-activists-protest.html

Why do people do this? If they want to say “be careful with geoengineering”, then say that. State why, and people will be polite enough to listen. If you’re ranting then you’re going to be ignored. We know science isn’t perfect, but at least scientists attempt to communicate with the general public. Protesters really have a duty to become informed and stop spreading disinformation and downright lies. We have enough things back in the real world to worry about.

Posted via email from nickt’s posterous

I’m happy that I’ve managed to get my Icom IC-2820 radio and Kenwood RC-D710 TNC/data terminal to work together so I can now use the “left side” of the 2820 for APRS on 144.39 MHz and use the “right side” for D-STAR and conventional voice communications. This configuration passes GPS data from the GPS in the IC-2820 to the RC-D710 which in turn sends back APRS data which is transmitted by the 2820. I’ve also upgraded the GPS antenna to a waterproof active antenna from Gilsson (#MCX180) which has a straight through MCX connector and fits, with a little trimming.

To do this, you’ll need the following (if you’re not making your own cables):

• Icom IC-2820 D-STAR radio
• Kenwood RC-D710 TNC/data terminal/control panel
• Kenwood PG-5J interface kit for RC-D710
• Kenwood PG-5G programming cable (to connect to a PC running Windows)
• Kenwood MCP-2A, “Memory Control Program” software (a free download)
• A PC running Windows for the MCP-2A software
• 6-pin mini-DIN cable that comes with the PG-5J
• A data cable with 2 mini-stereo jack plugs (the RC-D710 came with such a cable, but with only one jack plug)

After the usual preparation (checking items, installing powerpole connectors on the power cable, etc.) I powered off the radio and TNC, and connected the 6-pin mini-DIN cable from the main unit of the 2820 to the “data” socket on the PG-5J interface unit. I then connected the RJ-45 cable between the PG-5J and the RC-D710 panel. Finally, I had to connect the mini-stereo jack cable from the RC-D710 panel to the main unit of the 2820. I assumed that there would be a mini-jack at each end of the cable, but, no! Fortunately, I had two of these cables and I chose to connect them together. It’s a very small cable, with what seems like 3 strands of very thin copper in 3 cores (it’s a stereo cable). My soldering ability wasn’t up to the job, so I gave up and used a terminal block, which works nicely for testing (I’ve ordered a 10ft ready-made cable from Monoprice).

Next, I connected the RC-D710 to my PC and upgraded the firmware (it was v1.x and v2.01 is current), and then used the MCP-2A software to read the default config. This software is the only way to change the configuration elements on the RC-D710. I upped the levels as described in this article, viewed the other configuration items and set my callsign info, as well as some custom messages, setup smartbeaconing, etc. and on the IC-2820 I made sure in the data function that “G-D” was on (this sends GPS data via the stereo data cable to the D710), and in the menus (GPS sentence) I set RMA and GGA to on. In the packet menu, I set the packet operation band to “left” so the APRS data will only transmit on the band I have set to 144.39 MHz.

I feel I’ve only just scratched the surface, and will experiment a little more to optimise the configuration, but my first impression is that this will prove to be a great setup.

Anyway, I got an email from them saying that they’ve registered the device for me and they also threw in a free upgrade to City Navigator North America NT 2010, which is great, and that’s what started this thing in the first place.

So, while a little slower than usual, Garmin support came through again. Thank-you Garmin, I shall continue to recommend your products!

I’m a fan of Garmin GPS receivers, particularly devices like the GPSMap 478, a wonderful chart-plotting GPS. I also have a StreetPilot 7500, a nice large-screen GPS that I use in the truck. I’ve spend thousands on Garmin hardware and maps since my first Garmin device, a GPS 12, back in 1995. If you count the devices I’ve bought for others and my referrals that total is well north of $10,000.

A while ago, maybe in mid-late 2007, Garmin updated their internal systems at my.garmin.com. I had multiple GPSes registered with them, including the StreetPilot 7500. The old system was never brilliant, I blame the DRM they have around the mapping data, but that’s another subject…

Anyway, I want to upgrade the 7500 to the latest version of City Navigator North America NT, the 2009 update. To unlock the maps, you have to have a registered device. During Garmins update to my.garmin.com my previously registered 7500 disappeared. Now, when I try to register it again my.garmin.com rejects my serial number.

I’ve been extremely happy with Garmin support through the years, in fact they managed to next day me a replacement mapping CDROM when I was out of the country, starting trans-Sahara trip, to replace a damaged disk. They have been pretty responsive so far with my registration problem, until I received this today (the issue had been passed to their IT department)

We have contacted our IT department and requested another update. To answer your questions:

We have stressed the importance of getting this matter resolved and I am hopeful that we can get this matter resolved quickly. Thank you for your patience in this matter.

As this issue has been outstanding for 3 weeks, I’d love to know what the “IT Department” are doing. The very phrase makes my blood run cold, and I’m in IT guy! Some transparency would be greatly appreciated.

Ideally, I’d like to know what IT have done in the 2 weeks since they received this ticket from their support guys, what they are planning to do and why they can’t escalate it.

Remember, all I want to do is give them about $100 for new maps. All I need is a valid serial number.

I hope I don’t have to start buying and recommending other brands if they can’t resolve this. If anyone from Garmin feels like helping, the case number is KMM12787676I15977L0KM. Thanks!