Jackie

In Deux Sevres, near the town of St Maixent L'Ecole. Any gen you get would be gratefully received.................................John

Ok so I take it that I may need to have a current UK licence. I let it lapse as I could not see much point in having a UK licence whilst living in France, does this mean I have to reactivate the UK call sign, assuming that is possible for a non-UK resident, before applying for the French licence I wonder, seems a bit strange!.............................John

Thanks for that PeterJ. I guess I will to the mairie go and get copies certified. Do you know if they send an inspector round to examine the station as they once did in the UK. It may be some time before I get it all working though I could apply for the licence now and that would cover me for transmission tests I hope. I also assume if the Tx is derived from a xtal then all that you would need for test gear would be a dummy load and a wavemeter. I also assume that knowing the d.c. input power would be enough to keep them happy you are not exceeding maximum radiated power. Is there a list of mandatory test gear available on any site?.......................................John

Thanks for the information Ray. With assistance from someone on another site (T.F.) I have found the following address and website. They have application forms and details of the regs, in case anyone else is interested. What I do not yet know if they will accept a CEPT Certificate of Harmonisation (UK issued) and a UK Radio Amateur certificate to qualify for a French licence, time will tell. Meantime I will get my gear up and working and monitor 2m and 80m to assess band activity, assuming it still works as it has been in a box in the barn for the last 4 years! Agence Nationale des Fréquences Direction de l'administration générale Centre de Gestion des Radiocommunications Régie de Recettes B.P. 61 94371 SUCY-EN-BRIE CEDEX http://www.anfr.fr/index.php?cat=radioamateur&page=indicatifs#ind_etr

Has anyone out there attempted to obtain a French Amateur Radio licence? I used to hold a full UK licence (A) and have a certificate issued by the RA called: Harmonized Amateur Radio Examination Certificate (HAREC) Based on CEPT Recommendation T/R 61-02. I would be interested in knowing the procedure for applying for a French equivalent licence, who to contact, what documents are required and any web stites that could give this information etc………..73’s …..John ex G0IQY

Thanks for all the info folks. Spent the morning on the dish and LNB alignment, think I have slightly improved things. Found a small wasp nest inside the LNB casing. Played with dish alignment/ LNB skew and have got as good a signal as I could. No freezing so far and watched Stargate and Startrek this pm with no problems, sad you may think but I like them!  The signal level of Ch 4 is now no worse than that of the default transponder so don't think I can do much more short of changing the dish and LNB. BBC 1 gives a better signal quality level than most. Still toying with the idea of a meter but doubt that anymore fiddling will do much. I still suspect that changes in satellites or footprint or power output or whatever has reduced the signal level and nobody has yet commented on that. I believe Astra 2D has a smaller footprint than it once did and some sites show Deux Sevres as being a bit near the edge. Regards to all.....................John 

Ok I am trying to look at the signal strength and quality for Ch 4, using manual tuning. I need to know: Frequency,Polarisation,Symbol Rate and FEC Must be doing something wrong as cannot see them on the Lyngsat site. Has anyone got these figures, many thanks in advance......John  

Thanks for all the info folks and I will certainly look for one of the meters suggested. Has the signal level from the sat' gone down since the recent changes because if not that would further suggest my dish is not pointing exactly right! Where do the two signal bars come to on your box, assuming you have a mini-dish that is.............John (Location Deux Sevres)

Ok on the meter. Could you be so kind as to suggest a make/model and a good supply source to us here in France. Many thanks......John

CH 4 seems to be the one that locks up and then the whole box is locked up and nothing works. I have today tried moving the dish slightly up and down and from side to side. Cannot improve either the signal quality or strength so I don't think the dish has moved. Twisting the LNB does not help. It is a wet day here in Deux Sevres and the two indicators only come to just to the right of the K in OK. When I put it in four years ago the signal strength and quality registered a lot higher than they do now, maybe the LNB has gone a bit insensitive, is this possible or is this because the sat' signal is less than it was?.............John PS Washed LNB and dish with a damp soapy cloth but no change in signal

The box is a Panasonic TU-DSB30. The LNB was replaced a couple of years ago. The only thing I have noticed otherwise is that the signal strength indicator does not read as high as it once did. I had assumed that was due to changes of the footprint of the transmission but maybe I am wrong about that! Location is near Niort in Dept 79 and the dish is a standard Sky mini-dish........................John

Anyone had problems with ch 4? From time to time it freezes and the remote will not make any of the sky box functions work. Turning off and reconnecting the power solves the problem until the next time. Warping the dish slightly in the two axes does not improve the signal strength or quality indicators. Quality indicator is to the right of the K in OK........any ideas anyone........John not Jackie

We have two numbers Tout Compris programmed into our AOL 7 software. 0860704444 and 0860880310. From time to time one of them will not dial. When you tell the thing to connect, having entered your password, you can hear the modem dialling normally. Frequently there is a problem connecting for one reason or another so the second number is dialled and you hear the tones. When the fault is there you don't hear the tones and it does not dial the second number. Now I have tried reloading the AOL software, no effect. I have tried dialling the two numbers using my telephone software "Phone Tools". One number gets a response the other does not, in fact it won't even dial. I have tried using a different version of AOL and that often works and seems to "cure" the fault as when going back to the original version the fault has gone, until the next time that is. So what the heck is going on? Is this a fault peculiar to our computer or have others had the same problem?..............John (Puzzled) not Jackie  PS how do you get rid of this grey highlighting?

There is a silver coloured safety valve at the bottom of our electrically heated water tank. I cannot remember the French name for it but it was something like Groupe de Securite I think. Clearly not that as searches fail to find anything about this. The knob, blue in fact, when turned causes it to release water and I am sure it used to spring back when released, does not do that now, keeps flowing until you turn it back. I suspect it is faulty as it tends to drip all the time now and blows off if a running tap somewhere in the house is turned off quickly. Water pressure is sitting at about 4.5 Bars according to a pressure gauge fitted to the house cold water system. What think you folks and what is it called in French please.........John not Jackie

[quote]John - You can't use creosote - SUR. L'ARRETE DU 2 JUIN 2003. L'arrêté du 2 juin 2003 renforce la législation française relative à la ... par les résultats d'une étude concluant que. la créosote a un...[/quote] Ok yes I heard that creosote was now banned but the local Brico sells stuff called Carbonyle that looks and smells like creosote so I guess I could try that. I assume that Carbonyle is a replacement for creosote?............John