(Alan Frame) wrote in news:1hkwrcp.lpinmb1x1zs7qN%
:

99 Ducati 748BP, 95 Ducati 600SS, 81 Guzzi Monza, 74 MV Agusta 350
"Ride to Work, Work to Ride" SI# 7.067 DoD#1930 PGP Key 0xBDED56C5


Back in the 60's I bought a Ducati 450 one cylinder beast. It had rear
view mirrors on it but we could never figure out why. You could never
see anything in mirrors bouncing up and down that hard on each stroke.
If you rode it 20 miles, you couldn't stand up by yourself to get off it.
The vibration was the best chick magnet we ever saw....(c;

Guzzis....I had a 700, 750 and my last one was an 850 police special I
bought from the Tampa Police Department for my winning sealed bid of $300
in fine condition, taken care of by a loving cop. They de-militarized
it, put new tyres, brakes, generator belt, plugs and points in it plus
fixed a few other "safety items" the police department wouldn't sell it
without fixing. I drove it for many years, selling it for far more than
I paid, even including maintenance.

Aren't Magneti Marelli electrics just so much fun to continuously
repair?!

Fed up with swapping starters, I took the last one into an auto starter
shop that had been in business since the Model A Ford was new. He took
one look at it and said, "It's a Fiat starter, but they've swapped the
brushes around so it would run backwards. That's why it has a pinion
solenoid." He swapped the brushes in a rebuilt Fiat starter and handed
it to me. "Try that and bring it back if it doesn't work." It was the
last starter problem I ever had with Mother Goose....

It ended up with maintenance-free HONDA 750 handlebars and switches.
Problem solved. Other Guzzi enthousiasts were horrified. Fiat 850
points fit it, too...(c;

My father "borrowed" a Guzzi V-twin from a couple of dead Italian
soldiers in North Africa during the war. There were many of them running
great in Allied hands, prized because there was no water cooling in the
desert. It was like a little pickup truck with a motorcycle front
end....like those little Italian delivery vans with motorcycle handlebars
I saw in Naples in the '60's. I think they were 2-stroke Vespas, though.

Ok, back to boats. Thanks for the great story. I'd like another Guzzi,
but can't see paying the same for one as a new Lexus.



--
There's amazing intelligence in the Universe.
You can tell because none of them ever called Earth.

On Sat, 26 Aug 2006 16:48:50 -0400, Larry wrote:

http://www.aisliverpool.org.uk/shows...mmsi=234983000

The S/V "Ben My Chree", a 12,504 gt Ro-Ro/Passenger vessel is, to quote
their AIS beacon "underway by SAIL" headed for Heysham. She's making over
19 knots!

What an interesting site.

From the site's 'maps' page, I clicked through to this map:
http://www.aisliverpool.org.uk/currentmap.php?map=33
but at the time of posting, there are no ships shown on it. Is that
because there are no ships there at the moment, or because the site is
(obviously) Liverpool oriented, and this map is outside the area they
want to cover?


______________
best wishes,
Ron

Ronnie wrote:
On Sat, 26 Aug 2006 16:48:50 -0400, Larry wrote:

http://www.aisliverpool.org.uk/shows...mmsi=234983000

The S/V "Ben My Chree", a 12,504 gt Ro-Ro/Passenger vessel is, to quote
their AIS beacon "underway by SAIL" headed for Heysham. She's making over
19 knots!

What an interesting site.

From the site's 'maps' page, I clicked through to this map:
http://www.aisliverpool.org.uk/currentmap.php?map=33
but at the time of posting, there are no ships shown on it. Is that
because there are no ships there at the moment, or because the site is
(obviously) Liverpool oriented, and this map is outside the area they
want to cover?

There's plenty going on now, 11 vessels, so I imagine the site was down.

(Ronnie) wrote in :

From the site's 'maps' page, I clicked through to this map:
http://www.aisliverpool.org.uk/currentmap.php?map=33
but at the time of posting, there are no ships shown on it. Is that
because there are no ships there at the moment, or because the site is
(obviously) Liverpool oriented, and this map is outside the area they
want to cover?




I'm assuming he has a very high receiving antenna on a big tower near
Liverpool that can receive data from as far away as Ireland as I see
targets from over on that side. Maybe he has multiple receivers around the
Irish Sea linked to it, but I'm not sure.

I'd bet, watching the coverage for quite a while, now, there are no ships
broadcasting AIS from where you want to look. The coverage, the linked
realtime pictures taken when the AIS target passes in front of his
recording camera equipment stored on the website....it's the best AIS
coverage on the planet...even much better than the subscription ripoff
artists which only give limited coverage.

What a great donation he is making to the marine community, worldwide.

--
There's amazing intelligence in the Universe.
You can tell because none of them ever called Earth.

Donald Lancaster wrote in news:OW0Kg.12228$r61.7769
@text.news.blueyonder.co.uk:

There's plenty going on now, 11 vessels, so I imagine the site was down.


Or your path to the site might have been interrupted. Boot the "command
prompt" (dare we say DOS 5.2?) and enter:

ping aisliverpool.org.uk

and see if you can ping the server. If it never makes it there, that's why
you don't have data. Mine looks like:

C:\ping aisliverpool.org.uk

Pinging aisliverpool.org.uk [194.154.164.82] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 194.154.164.82: bytes=32 time=159ms TTL=48
Reply from 194.154.164.82: bytes=32 time=141ms TTL=48
Reply from 194.154.164.82: bytes=32 time=147ms TTL=48
Reply from 194.154.164.82: bytes=32 time=171ms TTL=48

Ping statistics for 194.154.164.82:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 141ms, Maximum = 171ms, Average = 154ms

(I would have suggested tracert, the traceroute command, but many ISPs,
including mine, no longer allow traceroutes from their users because of
abuses we just can't seem to keep from doing.)

If, when the site is unreachable...and you don't get the IP above...it
means your ISP's DNS lookup server isn't taking the domain name and
resolving it to an IP. The internet has no idea where aisliverpool.org.uk
is located. You can also use http://194.154.164.82/ and try it directly,
but the other pages you want to go to all require DNS resolving to IP to
find so that won't help much. DNS failures are awful on some ISP systems.

You can put in your own DNS to your networking setup in Windoze, if you
like. The bigshot server is 4.2.2.1 and 4.2.2.2 for the whole internet.
It's open and anyone can use it to resolve addresses, bypassing the hosed
DNS at your cheapskate ISP...(c;

From my ping, I'd say it's about 150ms from Charleston, SC, to Atlanta, GA
to England and on to Liverpool......and back. Not bad at the speed of
light!

--
There's amazing intelligence in the Universe.
You can tell because none of them ever called Earth.

Alan Frame wrote:
Dennis Pogson wrote:

Currently The IOMSPC operates the modern Ben My Cree and a faster
SuperSeaCat2 which take 3.5hrs and 2hrs respectively for the 70-mile
crossing to/from Liverpool.

The attraction? Currently the Manx Grand Prix motor-cycle races and
The IOM TT races are far and away the finest motor-cycle races in
the world, attracting huge entries from enthusiasts desperate to try
their luck on the torturous mountain circuit.

I've spanner'd at the MGP and ridden on open roads, but never sailed
there, however:

"If Frederico Fellini ever gets a little farther out and wants to
film a truly bizarre spectacle taken from real life, he should bring
his camera crew and sound men into the cargo bay of the Isle of Man
ferry on a night when approximately 500 motorcycles are being cranked
over or kick started all at once, packed together in a steel room
about the size of a small gymnasium and lighted by a dim row of 40
watt light bulbs. The microphones would pick up an ear splitting
confusion of shrieking RDs, high-revving unmuffled Fours, and the
general chest-pounding thunder of Ducati 900s, Norton 850s and 750s,
Harleys, Triumphs, BSAs, BMWs and piston slapping British 500
singles, all of it bouncing off the walls in an incredible rising and
falling wail. The camera crews would get footage of several hundred
leather-clad people flipping down face shields and punching starter
buttons, with others in the mob of bikes heaving up and down on
kickstarters like erratic pistons in some kind of insane smoke
machine, headlights flaring on to make a blanket of brilliance and
flashing chrome at the bottom layer of the smoke cloud. They could
catch the bikes launching themselves row by row up the ramp into the
dark night, people spinning their tires on the oil slick steel ramp
or catching traction in half-controlled wheelies. What no film could
capture is the mixed smell of Castrol R, several dozen brands of
two-stroke oil and all the other choking thick exhaust fumes, or the
instant, furnace-like heat given off by hundreds of motorcycles
lighting their engines in a confined space. Also, they'd have to film
it through the distorted star-burst pattern of a really scratched
yellow face shield, just to get the last effect of profound
unreality... Our turn came and we slithered up the ramp with a wave
of other bikes. We landed on the docks and the white gloves of a row
of nearly invisible policemen directed us onto Manx main street. We
were on the Isle of Man."

Peter Egan [Cycle World Oct'82 v21,n10,p38]
http://www.deathstar.org/~flash/isleofm.html

I'd rather sail than race there, but like the OSTAR or Jester
Challenge, I'm not worthy enough to comment on those that choose to
take part...

(Side note: I once sailed on the Ionian with a bike-racer-friend - I
put him on the helm and tweaked the sails for speed - he watched the
log and counted up from 4.9 to 6, to 7.4 knots. When the rail dipped;
he exclaimed "Whoo! We're in the groove now!" - I pointed out that in
a fortnight's time he'd be peaking at 170 mph at the MGP[0], and he
replied "Yeah, but this is *fast*!" ;-)

rgds, Alan
[0] this year he got a race average of 106.91mph.

Wonderful description Alan, only someone who has experienced the spectacle
could adequately describe it like that!

My parents had a Brough Superior combination in the thirties and were
regulars at the TT Races.

Dennis.

On Fri, 01 Sep 2006 18:07:09 -0400, Larry wrote:

Donald Lancaster wrote in news:OW0Kg.12228$r61.7769
:

There's plenty going on now, 11 vessels, so I imagine the site was down.


Or your path to the site might have been interrupted.

[snip interesting DNS story]

It is showing some ships, now, thanks. I did get the map outline,
just no ships. Presumably the map outline and the ship display are on
the same server?

I RTFM, after posting, of course :-) and the site designer explains
that he receives signals up to, say, 35 miles away. In fact the North
Channel is probably further than 35 miles from Liverpool, so some AIS
signals are reaching his system from longer away than his FAQ
suggests. But the site shows nothing on the 'atlantic gateway' along
the top of the Irish coast, or up towards the Minch. Presumably,
those areas are well beyond his system's capability.

I wonder if there is any way for the site to develop to display all
the traffic in the map areas that the site already contains? I'm
interested because we live on the coast, and notice that many of the
ships passing are bound for the North Channel, on their way to
wherever they are going.

And I've taken note of that DNS suggestion, thanks for that.


______________
best wishes,
Ron

Larry wrote:
(Ronnie) wrote in :

From the site's 'maps' page, I clicked through to this map:
http://www.aisliverpool.org.uk/currentmap.php?map=33
but at the time of posting, there are no ships shown on it. Is that
because there are no ships there at the moment, or because the site
is (obviously) Liverpool oriented, and this map is outside the area
they want to cover?




I'm assuming he has a very high receiving antenna on a big tower near
Liverpool that can receive data from as far away as Ireland as I see
targets from over on that side. Maybe he has multiple receivers
around the Irish Sea linked to it, but I'm not sure.

I'd bet, watching the coverage for quite a while, now, there are no
ships broadcasting AIS from where you want to look. The coverage,
the linked realtime pictures taken when the AIS target passes in
front of his recording camera equipment stored on the website....it's
the best AIS coverage on the planet...even much better than the
subscription ripoff artists which only give limited coverage.

What a great donation he is making to the marine community, worldwide.

I have e-mailed a sailing friend who lives near Liverpool (a Liverpudlian!)
to see if he is aware of the site and if so can he describe the receiver(s)
and their height etc.

Dennis.

(Ronnie) wrote in :

It is showing some ships, now, thanks. I did get the map outline,
just no ships. Presumably the map outline and the ship display are on
the same server?



Not necessarily. He could be storing the static parts of the webpage on a
remote server run by a whole different company, which is cheaper, then the
realtime data even on a small server onsite or in someone's home. It would
make sense.

There's no limit where he could store static parts of the webpages. They
come up here much faster than the actual data does, which supports this
hypothesis.

--
There's amazing intelligence in the Universe.
You can tell because none of them ever called Earth.

"Dennis Pogson" wrote in
:

I have e-mailed a sailing friend who lives near Liverpool (a
Liverpudlian!) to see if he is aware of the site and if so can he
describe the receiver(s) and their height etc.

Dennis.



He should contact the webmaster(s) and get a tour, or at least tell thim
how much we all appreciate the free access. This site has got to cost
quite a bit of money that must come from somewhere.

--
There's amazing intelligence in the Universe.
You can tell because none of them ever called Earth.