zeltus

>to know how many kgs, you need to examine the side of your filter where it should have a decal That's the problem... there are no markings on the filter! It's not a plastic one, it looks like it's been woven out of fibre glass or some such. I was hoping that there was a rough and ready way to measure the volume of the filter container and take a percentage of that as the bit that represents how much sand I need. Bill

I've been looking after a friends' pool for a few weeks. He has a mega-expensive Magiline one which has  a salt hydrolysis setup with a peristaltic pH- pump. According to the said pump meter, the pH is 6.6 i.e too acid. The pool is however, very clear and smell-free - ideal to look at, anyways. Said friend was told to throw in a bucket of salt at the beginning of the season and then forget about it. Whereas me, with my chlorine tablet/sand filter combo, am used to checking the Free Chlor and pH every few days or so. Or mebbe weekly if I'm really honest! Has my mate been given good advice? I am soooo tempted to throw in a tub of pH+ just for starters. I also think he probably needs to at least use test sticks to have an idea of what's going on, with a view to adding salt as necessary. I do know a few people who have moved to chlor. tabs. away from electrolysis, but I dont' think he'll do that. He can afford the electricity! Again, thanks for advice and comments etc. Bill

Or rather, if it's cost-effective enough, how much zeolite? I have a sand filter and I figure it's time to put replace it's contents. Is there a convenient way of working out how much sand/zeolite I need? I mean, is it sold by volume or weight and in either case, how do I work out how much I need? Many thanks! Bill

I can regrettably confirm that iPlayer is not available via Freesat here in France. My investigations show that whilst the Freesat box picks up a local N/W connection OK and the iPlayer screens appear to work, nothing ever downloads. Unfortunately, a VPN type solution won't work... there are no hacks into the Freesat where you can set one up (it is essentially a Linux computer, but you can't get at the "normal" Linux interface in order to (ahem) adjust things) Oh well, I can watch at my computer I s'pose. Or just use a service like Demonoid. Not that I would. Ever. Of course. After all, it's illegal* Bill *umm, no it's not. It's only illegal to download copyright material. I get all my perfectly kosher Linux Live CD's from Demonoid - not breaking any laws there at all. So there.

Both my wife and I have French driving licences. The car is registered in my name. But she was the one who drove thru' a speed trap and got a 45€ fine! Although the penalty notice was addressed to me as the owner of the car (at least, I presume that's why it came to me) No real problems, other than noting that the French, like the Germans, seem to be heading towards a "no-excuses, even 1kph too fast is speeding" attitude - the on-line web-site for paying the fine is extremely well designed and easy to use, with a well-nigh perfect English version (as well as other languages) But now I have been notified that I have a point on my licence. Or if you wish, 11 points instead of 12. But I don't recall receiving any query asking me to agree I was the driver or otherwise nominate who was. One point might not be a lot but as it stands a) I've been wrongly landed with a penalty point and b) in effect, this means my wife can really go to town (only in theory, of course) with gay abandon and I'm the one who gets to lose his licence. Any comments, anyone?

Spot on! I think I might get a few as my friends will almost certainly want these installed on their systems... Cheers Bill

I can't get at my on-live Factures for information - summat is wrong somewhere with FT me thinks. Has anyone got the address I need to send a Lettre d'Recommande to Orange/France Telecom a la Clair's Letter Examples so's I can formally cancel my Broadband account with them? I don't have a livebox, nor do I have a time-length contract with Orange, I just need to send a letter telling them to stop taking money from my bank account. I have tried searching but the noise/signal ratio is returning too many duff hits for me to find the info - altho' I am sure it's been posted here somewhere. Cheers Bill

An update ---------- a) & c) All three of my 'phone services (DECT, handset, Answerphone) all work using VOIP even when the internet side of things is artificially made very busy with large uploads/downloads. Sound quality is comparable to what I had before with an "ordinary" FT line. All I now need is a splitter to allow all three to be conencted at the same time (like this, but I need one this side of the Atlantic) b) OK, so it seems it is not possible to change the Neufbox's DNS server settings. This is annoying but not catastrophic, as I can set each PC I have to point to OpenDNS rather than looking to the Neufbox for DNS provision. And I am only interested in my PCs, I have no interest in whoever is in my Gites and using my WiFI - so long as they can get their e-mails, they don't really care. d) It would be nice if the Neufbox allowed for a voicemail system, call forwarding (to a mobile) and a few other bits and bobs, but as I have now cut down my monthly bill to nigh on a third of what it was, I'm not complaining too much! [;-)]

Not really, I can run the cables under the floor to the various parts of the living room/reception room where I have a) the DECT phone base b) the answerphone and c) an "ordinary" handset (which has an RJ11 socket on it), which is all I need. I just need an RJ11 splitter to connect to the Neufbox's single RJ11 'phone socket so's I can connect said three devices. Not sure you understand my needs - I think I need to improve my descriptive skills a bit - I don't need a BT style plug/socket/adaptor at any stage, nor do I want France Telecom style plugs/sockets any more (except the primary master one I need for the ADSL filter) - in fact, this is now the only socket I want in the whole house, so I will be getting around to removing the FT extension sockets in due course - DECT is sooo good - I can have a handset in each room in the house, near enough. I have found this, now I just need to find one this side of the pond. Then all will be solved. Cheers Bill

>Simon wrote the following post at 23/05/2009 11:11:>Or there is this if you already have the sockets in place, what are you trying to achieve? Almost what I want. But if I plug that into my neufbox, it'll block off the adjoining DSL socket. So I need an extender with a three-way female at one end and a male RJ11 at the other. A metre or so should do it. Still looking.

Has anyone got a source for an RJ11 modular outlet box? To explain a bit, none of my 'phones use the France Telecom ugly, large plug/socket, it's all RJ11 now. So I need a cable with an RJ11 male at one end and a box with three or more RJ11 female sockets at the other. Tried looking online but all I can find are suppliers int he USA - who want 50 bucks postage! Cheers Bill [blink]

Last Sunday I bit the bullet and ordered a Neufbox from SFR, direct from their web-site. At 34.90€ a month all-in, it's far cheaper than France Telecom Line rental, Orange ADSL and Teleconnect "cheap" 'phone calls. But living in France does give me that sinking feeling when trying to do things like this - "Customer Service? - no sorry, can't translate that" A spate of e-mails from SFR and frantic calls to their help-line (well, they call you back, really) didn't quieten me - none of 'em spoke English, I speak no much more French and wifey, who is quite fluent, can't/won't/doesn't speak techie. Sigh. It wasn't looking good. Then today, the actual box arrived. Along with a letter stating they would e-mail me to say when it was going to go live. Two hours later, the internet connection disappeared and a few minutes after that, the 'phone line went down (permanent engaged tone) Not to worry, hastily install Neufbox in place of existing NetGear (I despise Liveboxes) and what do you know? All the lights lit up, a quick connect to http://192.168.1.1 gave me a helpful "first time login" screen in French that even I could follow. Before I knew it, I had reset passwords, logins and WiFi SSIDs to what I wanted them to be and I was (and still am) happily up a running. All in all, it turned out to being a very painless experience. Remaining on my ToDo list are a) test 'phone to make sure it works fine on both incoming and outgoing calls (my brief test to date has been 100% so I'm hopeful) b) Work out how to change the Neufbox DNS settings to OpenDNS (umm, it's all in French! But I speak techie so I'll cope) c) Work out how to install my DECT 'phones and my Answerphone - in effect I now have but one 'phone socket as the Neufbox blocks my "normal" 'phone line and invisibly makes me use VOIP for all calls (which are free to just about everywhere) - an experiment with multiway extenders is beckoning. So, a pleasant experience to date, in case anyone else is considering this. Mind you, YMMV (Your Mileage Might Vary) Bill [geek]

Actually, that is just about the opposite of what is fact. Europe (that is, the EU Parliament, such as it is) wants it to be a Right for everyone to have internet access. This HADOPI legislation defies that Right and is thus (probably) illegal by EU laws and standards. I say probably, because the EU doesn't have too much by way of teeth, they best they can probably so is a) fine defaulting countries and b) withhold grants. a) can be ignored by countries if they wish - a bit dodgy but it can happen and b) is a penalty with a bit more teeth. But whatever, it's a hugely long, drawn out and expensive process. In general, you do not want to be the Test Case used to see who wins, unless you'd like several years of despair, depression, expense, trauma and general bad karma. HADOPI is an interesting law in the sense that guilt does not have to be proved - it seems "culprits" will receive a letter stating "we think you are downloading illegally - stop it - you've been warned". And so on to the more severe penalties right up to disconnection. No onus to determine actual guilt in there at all. So it might fall foul of the EU on that count as well. Don't forget, illegal downloads are illegal, and laws already exist that DO require proof of guilt and if so determined, can result in very large fines and/or jail time. Not that these cases are easy or cheap to prove by the interested parties (umm, that'll be the Music Industry as being the most vocal - dunno why the Film Industry (MPAA) keep a lower profile, I'd've thought they could afford to lose cases much more that the RIAA can! :-) - so, if you do insist on using flakey, non-encrypted adware-ridden carp like LimeWire, youy might well find yourself being noticed. It'll be interesting if the new P2P protocols that can evade deep-packet inspection and so forth CAN evade deep-packet inspection and so forth. And whether they take off - it's a situation akin to code-makers and code-breakers in times past - sometimes one and sometimes the other held the lead in an endless race. Me, I encrypt everything I can whenever I can - why make their* jobs easy for them? Bill *whoever "they" are.

>You do not need to convince your CPAM that you've been here five years because in your case, it's immaterial - you're already in the system and will be allowed to continue > regardless of how long you've been resident. You know that.. .and I know that (and I know that you know that I know that you know that ad infinitum :) ) But the CPAM in Perigueux have sent us a letter stating we are out at the end of March and to date (i.e. two days ago) as far as they are concerned, the situation hasn't changed - so I am trying to cover all my bets and make sure they can't wriggle out on a technicality. >You do not need to obtain a carte de sejour. Yes, I know. But I'm entitled to one and it is recommended by french ministers that I have one. So I'll bloody well have one or know the reason why. Signed Angry of Guildford. >There are better things to do than get worked up over this.... Nah, this is too much fun! Otherwise I'd have to berate the neighbours for their bonfires and barky dogs and rage at the bar for not selling decent beer and curse the cost of servicing my Beemer and how dare they make petrol so expensive... re. your tag.. d'you follow http://www.pilotedudimanche.net/ perchance? Cheers Bill

Following the publication of a procedure for replacing expired cartes de sejour with a titre de resident permanent in the December issue of Connexion, we decided that we had better try and follow the procedure in order to obtain our titre de resident permanent - we have lived in France over five years, our initial cartes de sejour have expired and we liked the idea of having proof of residency, especially when it comes to traipsing down to CPAM to convince them there that we are entitled to stay in the French healthcare system. We carefully printed off the relevant section of les codes (L122-1) at ww.legifrance.gouv.fr, collected together vast amounts of utilities bills, rates bills and other proofs of who we are and where we've been for the last five years, and headed for our Prefeture, which in our case, is in Perigueux. Firstly, it was a case of "Whoopsy, this is a hard one, le Chef needs to be consulted and he is busy" - after a period of patient waiting and perusing our documents, with no appearance from "le Chef", it became "but this is for non-Europeans" After still further waiting, it was obvious that "le Chef" was not going to be available and the excuse became "Connexion has this wrong, this is not the procedure and anyway, this printout (of the legal code) is not right, it is just the short version" Regrettably, we could go no further, I'm afraid our french wasn't up to persisting in arguing. But the two assistants assured us that they would contact Connexion to explain what the procedure was (and I would bet a lot on them not doing that!), that all we needed at CPAM was to tell CPAM to 'phone the Prefecture for proof of our residency (what, two departments in France agreeing to talk to each other?) and that anyway, it is no longer a law in France to carry proof of ID and even if it was, our expired cartes de sejour were enough. Now, much as I love living in France, I am well aware, and have first-hand experience of this element of the french psyche that does not allow them to admit they do not know what to do (or to apologise for that matter) - but in this case, I don't know what to do next either! A certain bloody-mindedness in me wants to pursue this on the grounds that "I don't care if it is necessary or not, but it is my right to hold such a card, so I want one" - but I really don't know what to do next. Perhaps someone can advise? It may be that there are several of us who want to follow this procedure and we can arrange to visit the Prefecture en masse, preferably, alas, with someone who speaks french a darn sight better than I do. There is a sort of cross-link thread in the "Western France" forum where the advice is to write to the Prefecture demanding to know, in writing, the reason for refusal, might be a sensible next step, but even when sent by Recorded Delivery, there still seems to be too many cases of such communications being ignored - so I'd like to follow this up on several fronts if I can... Cheers and all...

Ha! Me too! Following the publication of the process for doing this in the December 2007 issue of Connexion, we decided that we had better try and follow the procedure in order to obtain our titre de resident permanent - we have lived in France over five years, our initial carte de sejour has expired and we liked the idea of having proof of residency, especially when it comes to traipsing down to CPAM to convince them there that we are entitled to stay in the French healthcare system. We carefully printed off the relevant section of les codes (L122-1) at ww.legifrance.gouv.fr, collected together vast amounts of utilities bills, rates bills and other proofs of who we are and where we've been for the last five years, and headed for our Prefeture, which in our case, is in Perigueux. Firstly, it was a case of "Whoopsy, this is a hard one, le Chef needs to be consulted and he is busy" - after a period of patient waiting and perusing our documents, with no appearance from "le Chef", it became "but this is for non-Europeans" After still further waiting, it was obvious that "le Chef" was not going to be available and the excuse became "Connexion has this wrong, this is not the procedure and anyway, this printout (of the legal code) is not right, it is just the short version" Regrettably, we could go no further, I'm afraid our french wasn't up to persisting in arguing. But the two assistants assured us that they would contact Connexion to explain what the procedure was (and I would bet a lot on them not doing that!), that all we needed at CPAM was to tell CPAM to 'phone the Prefecture for proof of our residency (what, two departments in France agreeing to talk to each other?) and that anyway, it is no longer a law in France to carry proof of ID and even if it was, our expired cartes de sejour were enough. Now, much as I love living in France, I am well aware, and have first-hand experience, of this element of the french psyche that does not allow them to admit they do not know what to do (or to apologise for that matter) - but in this case, I don't know what to do next either! A certain bloody-mindedness in me wants to pursue this on the grounds that "I don't care if it is necessary or not, but it is my right to hold such a card, so I want one" - but I really don't know what to do next. Perhaps someone can advise? It may be that there are several of us who want to follow this procedure and we can arrange to visit the Prefecture en masse, preferably, alas, with someone who speaks french a darn sight better than I do. I guess the advice to write to the Prefecture demanding to know, in writing, the reason for refusal, might be a sensible next step, but even when sent by Recorded Delivery, there still seems to be too many cases of such communications being ignored - so I'd like to follow this up on several fronts if I can... Cheers and all...

There has been a lot of work put into expired-E106 owners' plights recently, and as their cases are so urgent, this is right and proper. But we have been here over 5years and are still, as we understand it, in the position of being booted out of the system at the end of March - despite running a gite business that generates all of our (admittedly meagre) income it seems we are "Inactif". Is there an article somewhere that would help us determine what steps we have to do now? This based on the understanding that if we do nothing, then out of the system we will be! Knowing how french bureaucracy works, we sure as hell won't automatically be kept in the system! To date, all we have received is the one letter from Perigueux stating that as inactifs, we have until the end of March... that being the case, I believe we have to drive the process forward somehow - I just haven't got a clue what our next step should be! Cheers everyone

Oh yes, we've got a Siret number and have been paying Cotisations for the 5 years we've been here, having taken over and continued to run a  registered micro-emterprise. Whilst we might get into the system under the propsed 5 year exemption (not that the french have declared this as of  yet)  we think it's important to NOT be considered inactive. After all, if for instance, we sell the business, it would be a mighty big help to be able to pass on all the benefits to the new owner. And anyway, it all smacks of governmental incompetence and bias - and for that alone I want to start treading on toes. I do know someone who works at the Chambre d'Commerce in Perigueux, I will see if I can get him to help as "unbiased" translator Bill

It's all very confusing isn't it? We have been here five years now, having taken over an exisitng gite complex already set up as a micro-enterprise. We did all the right things (I think) including registering at Perigueux's CPAM office and arrnging (and then paying) our Cotisations thru' URRSAF (who they?) once our 2 year E106 ran out. It is our main source of income, we pay tax professionelle to prove it. As far as I can see, we fit into both the 5 year residency qualification and the "we are not inactif" category. But nonetheless, we have now received a letter stating that from the end of March next year, it's "so long and thanks for all the fish". Fortunately, both of us are in good health but thats beside the point - I dunno why we were sent this letter altho' I suspect it might be something that's happened to us before from other bureaucracies here in France - "Let's send it to everyone and only deal with those who reply in a high-pitched scream" I s'pose we can struggle to deal with it at the local office and also try and Anglotelephone on 0820 904212 - but it would be really nice to have the equivalent of a local MP to help fight our corner.... Bill & Jan

We've received our taxe de sejour demand for this year - it seems to be growing rather faster than any other bill we receive, measured as a percentage. I am a little concerned that a couple of years ago, it just appeared - no-one warned us it was on it's way in, how it would be levied or anything else :- does anyone have any details? But what really riles me is that they add TVA on it - since when was a tax taxed? Or am I missing a point here? Any advice gratefully received - I feel an action group coming on!

Thanks for all the useful info - on the whole, I prefer Orange's ADSL offerings (perverse, I know, but true) I'd like to keep the e-mail address going even while the service is suspended but other than that, everything you've given me is everything I need! So many thanks again Bill

I second the response suggesting that a NetGear router is the way to go - it's much more reliable than the Livebox and doesn't slap unwanted drossware all over your PC (umm, therefore, don't forget to uninstall all the Livebox crud off of your PC when installing the NetGear) I've no idea what it is about the Livebox that is supposed to add value - I don't believe freee french TV is yet available and as for the telephone service, I reckon it's easier to get this functionality from other sources, such as Primus. YMMV. Cheers Bill

Has anyone any experience with "no contract" ADSL here in France? I have had a number of queries here from people with summer homes who just want to be able to hit the 'net while they are here, and not have to pay for the unused winter months. Any suggestions and help gratefully received, of course Bill

I am trying to get my bike re-insured after cancelling with AGF (off-hand service and ever-increasing premiums) Unfortunately, the company that was supposed to replace them seems to be worse than useless as well - don't they just love inventing rules and conditions over here, given half a chance? Anyway, I searched the forum and all I found was a reference to AXA - no probs there, but they are a large company - I'd rahter have a specific agen(t|cy) to deal with. Has anyone any recommendations? BIBA do our car, but don't do bikes. Sigh. As ever, any help or suggestions gratefully received. Regards Bill

Aah.. I see that at http://www.transcience.freeserve.co.uk/bramley-apple/tutorials/wanadoo-wireless.html there is also a comment about Safari incompatibilities at various levels... Thanks for the info... I'll get the guy to follow the Bramley instructions and see how far he gets... Cheers Bill