Roamer.com

England’s most remote building Skiddaw House, described by Alfred Wainwright as being “at the back o’ beyond” has found a solution to its telecom problems. The house stands on a 1500ft high plateau between Skiddaw and Blencathra, three and a half miles from the nearest road, with no mains electricity, postal delivery, landline telephone, or mobile phone handset coverage. The problem facing Skiddaw House was how to operate as a viable hostel when no-one could contact it by phone or email to book accommodation. Fortunately, someone discovered the Burnside desktop mobile, and initial tests using an external aerial showed that the Vodafone GSM/GPRS network could provide reliable phone and data access. An ordinary desktop telephone and a PC connected to the Burnside unit now provide voice communication and internet access. And, since the Burnside unit can operate from a low voltage DC supply, the terminal is permanently powered by the hostel’s batteries, which in turn are charged from solar cells and a standby LPG-powered generator.

I arrived home Tuesday early evening shattered after a few days away in France. The purpose of the trip was a track day at Croix circuit, about 60 miles from Calais. The track day was organised by BHP Trackdays and it was a well run relaxed day with friendly people. Most of the cars there were Caterhams and 8 cars went on the same crossing to convoy down together.

I went down with a friend of mine in his Caterham R300 which meant leaving at 6:30am on Sunday morning to get down to his dad’s house near Dartford where I would leave the car and squeeze the gear into the R300. It’s a good job I know how to travel light what with two people, two sets off luggage for 3 days and two crash helmets. (more…)