NIK

Hi, I found when visiting Belgium in the past (looking for a famous Belgian) I noticed the yeast used to make their beer appeared to be more alcohol tolerant - a tun full of functional alcoholics. Their Trappist beer leaves you speechless in a good way but your brain is left with just one cell. In Bruges I was told about a famous Belgian but strangely by lunchtime I'd forgotten. Order the Dinde al la Pierre in a French speaking restaurant for a different meal (raw Turkey, salt, veg and a very hot stone on which you cook the meat yourself). Take care. Nick

Hi, Its been reported on our state broadcaster that UK off-licenses (which may be the pom equivalent of bottle shops) have now been allowed to re-open (assuming the owner hasn't drunk the stock). Not sure if they have yet allowed people to leave their homes to shop for alcohol. I was using beer to get me to sleep even before COVID19. Take care. Nick

Hi, I'm not allowed within a 100 metres of a nurse. Crispy bacon flavoured O neg - Dracula was unborn in the wrong century. The 2m rule is for situations where there is no effective PPE and no cleaning available?. They might need to take more blood donations if people do more DIY, tidy the loft or get on a bicycle for the first time in years. Good luck with your donation and make sure you get your tea and biscuit. Regards Nick

Hi, What electrical circuit are you using to convert that bit pattern to DCC?. Regards Nick

Hi, I'm in the UK and I'm down to about a weeks worth of beer and not my favourites either. At least I haven't had to swap to spirits - there can be some nasty stuff left over from Christmas that nobody wanted to drink then. Don't know if UK 'bottle' shops are allowed to stay open - they've mainly been driven out of business by supermarkets here over the past decades. I might actually be forced to do some railway modelling. I got sunburnt yesterday sitting in my UK garden - less jet trails in the sky etc - so stronger sun?. At least I managed to buy a hat. I'm hoping the UK government will allow solitary fishing at lakes - but will there be restrictions on bait deliveries - only two maggots at a time and left on your doorstep without ringing the bell?. Take care. Nick

Hi, I agree a more accessible and easy, accurate test of who has had the virus and also has enough antibodies to subdue the virus in an acceptable manner would be a very good thing now and beyond. I'd like to volunteer to help with essential jobs such as delivering essential items if my 60 year old bodies exposure to COVID19 can be minimised but I don't know whether such volunteers are regarded by the UK government as essential workers for travel and indemnity. Take care. Nick

Hi, I've thought about this again and although DIY can be essential do the government and the police think it can only be travelled to only for essential repairs to ones main residence?. Take care. Nick

Hi, That sounds like an intelligent approach. I'm not sure about how DIY stores could be made safe for the employees but hopefully the gov science advice may be suitable. I've got lots of model railway and other projects including leaks in my shed and garage roof but I'm not sure I've got all the bits so I can do any of them while largely restricted to my house. This crisis has made me try to imagine the comparison with WWII. I only found out recently that during WWII my late mum worked in British Military Intelligence compiling intelligence reports that she took to Winston Churchill. In contrast to WWII this crisis is probably different in as has been said that the enemy is invisible, and its behaviour is not known. Its probably even more technological challenging in that some potential vaccines can not only do medium/long term damage but may alternatively make another exposure of the same virus result in more severe effects on the individual person. Take care. Nick

Hi, That is reassuring. Hopefully my 15 year old car can now be maintained long enough until the car dealers reopen (plastic bits including suspension bushes and tyres are now starting to perish so they may need replacing even if I'm not using the car). Perhaps the UK PM should have done a 'Deep Impact' style speech where he spelt out what is planned to happen - 'people will pay their taxes, life will go on' I think Morgan Freeman said, which could have been replaced with 'you obey the law and we will do the best for you to obey the law and keep you safe'?. Take care. Nick

Hi Al, I heard that only today on a repeat of BBC radio's 'The Museum of Curiosity'. Maybe I'm so tired at 11:30pm to not come up with an original example but Terry P. is good inspiration. My mum's life ended earlier that it might have done a few years ago triggered by a virus that was different to COVID19. One way in which it may have been different was it the asymptomatic phase was less at least for my family. On the BBC this evening they said that halving the exposure rate of COVID19 should have a dramatic effect on the rate at which people are infected. As David Liddington pointed out on Newsnight are terrestrial TV broadcasts by politicians getting through to enough people?. Take care. Nick

Hi, The BBC have just reported that Sports Direct have judged that they qualify as an essential business as they help people keep fit. Hopefully that report is incorrect or out of date. I recognise that if a company is listed they may have a legal obligation to their shareholders to maximise their profits. However if they find one lawyer who gives an opinion that suits that requirement that does not mean that the people in general will think that is consistent with morality or natural justice. After World War II I understand the UK government enforced a strict tax of property via inheritance tax. It may not have been fair but it happened. What's to say after this war on COVID19 the people and their law making representatives won't target via tax those businesses and individuals who appeared to hinder the life saving fight against COVID19?. I recognise short termism is a tendency in capitalism maybe ever since the first cave man bartered his flaming torch for a Neanderthal woman rather than showing how to make fire in exchange for the location of lots of trees. Take care. Nick

Hi, Well the WiFi/microcontroller module (with the metal enclosure) is CE marked and looks like the guts of the ESP32-D based modules I've bought from China and work with UK WiFi. The last time I looked that ESP32-D module was a few pounds but of course there is the software to write. The whole unit may not be certified for European use but I think in the case of the newer Raspberry Pi computers the radio part may have been designed so that incorporation of that Raspberry Pi into a larger module did not require recertification of the radio side of things. So that might apply here to the ESP32-D module. I'm guessing it doesn't use NCE route Macros, NCE clock, Service mode programming, but I don't know enough about Hoffmann's WiThrottle. Regards Nick

Hi, Re shortage of loo rolls perhaps Donald Rumsfeld former US DOD boss? was a prophet for our times when he said s**t happens. His remark about known unknowns and unknown unknowns still remains enigmatic. Take care Nick

Hi, I tried click and collect for food when it first appeared and I couldn't get a slot then so I haven't tried now when there is a crisis. Some friends of my sister have bought four chickens to provide eggs, but they already had a fox unfriendly enclosure and past experience of keeping chickens). My brother in law was in the last stage of becoming a taxi driver, there's little taxi work at present but his local council is thinking about employing taxi drivers to deliver stuff to vulnerable people (leaving the deliveries without handing it over to the home owner directly). Take care. Nick

HI, Everything turned a greeny yellow - I didn't notice that or see it in the news. I wonder if it was because I was brought up in a remote-ish household where my mum didn't drive and I mucked around with petrol, concentrated nitric acid, soldering irons etc I never went for repairs at my GP or A&E. Mind you when I took skin and flesh off my knee after an incident involving a bicycle, a hill, a stone roadside ornament and a toy poodle I was given a dressing to put over the wound which turned out to be for burns. Turned out that the dressing my dad brought back from work was soaked in saline and meant to be given after anaesthetic. Strangely I avoid that hill after that. I once made up an electronic power supply involving a neon indicator. I didn't know it was a 90V? neon rather than a 240V one. When I turned the mains switch on next to the neon the neon vaporised including the glass. No long term effects except I can't go near the strip in Las Vegas. Just before COVID19 appeared I bought a medium sized milling machine and I have a load of diecast chassis to modify. Diecast is difficult to machine and if the parameters are wrong I can end up with heavy items being flung across the workshop at gonad height (kind of reminds me of a joke about a giraffe, a zebra and a hyena going into a cocktail bar). Take care. Nick

Hi, I was thinking about this - nobody who hasn't had the virus test and that test prove positive knows if they will get the virus, but all people need food. If they are in a non vulnerable group and have to self isolate they will need 14 days food if they restrict their shopping to once a week they need 21 days food in stock. If as you say I agree they are in a vulnerable group or think they are they think they are in need at least 12 weeks food. Also the UK government has quite logically told places that serve food at tables to close. So that increases the requirement for food from shops and also the perceived requirement. My Sainsburys supermarket had very little stock of the things I buy when I tried to just do my regular shop at 9.30am today. The choice of items was also reduced so their limit of 3 or 2 items so I ended up with two days food. So at some stage I may have to expose myself to extra risk by going back to food shop earlier. My thoughts are focussed at present on all people such as health care staff who it has been reported on the BBC just now as being made more vulnerable to the severe effects of COVID19 by working even harder in the crisis so far. Take care. Nick

Hi, That seems the right thing to do if there are enough railway staff. Making passengers congregate on platforms and then pack them into trains seems counter to the governments medical advice on how to reduce the load on the NHS critical care facilities and hopefully minimise the death toll. Take care all. Nick

Hi, I thought the mean for the virus to become ineffective on a typical surface was about four days. Do you have new information that replaces that?. Regards Nick

Hi, Thanks, there's still major buildings to be done at the right most scenic board and it was pointed out at the show that we need to disguise the holes in the backscenes more if we are going to exhibit in well lit rooms (most exhibitions are poorly lit and if we put a lighting rig on the scenic part that may help take the emphasis off the fiddle yard approaches). What the photos don't show is the frequency of trains or their speed. We had a new operator at the week end who normally drives local busses. He seemed intent on seeing how fast he could run the 14 coach parcel train. We aim to get a detailed layout with a high frequency of trains and maybe to inspire modellers and keep those who like to see lots of trains running happy. Due to it being our own show and the loss of helpers due to COVID19 we couldn't operate the goods yard most of the time. Only one point failed and that was linking the incline to the interregional spur so we couldn't use the spur either. At least the failure wasn't on the mainline. The Hornby 4 VEP that had had its power car flanges turned down ran ok at speed albeit with a lot of noise from the trailing car flanges as it bounced over the points. I didn't get my 4 CIG remotored in time for the show or my 6 car Hastings unit but part of the CIG sat in an EMU siding. Regards Nick

Hi, I've finally had time to select, compress/crop a few photos of Beggarwood Lane (taken in a few spare minutes on Sunday before our exhibition opened) - but with stock on it. We normally have a club open day a couple of weeks after our exhibition but I guess that's postponed. On Sunday we got a requirement to get the layout ready for photography within three months. Then the UK government's advice on COVID19 changed and has complicated things but made Beggarwood much less important for now. Take care. Nick Murphy (on behalf of the Basingstoke and North Hants Model Railway Society - still looking for members)

Hi, Its possible from the voltage appearing to be halved and DC being indicated by the tester and the buffer stop LEDs that the circuitry in the DCC command station may only be sending out one 'half' of the DCC signal. There is normally there is a transistor bridge circuit that drives the voltage alternately one way (one half) and then the other at a rate of a few kilohertz. It could be the circuit is only driving one way. Normally two signals (PCB tracks) come from the digital controller to the transistor bridge circuit. Possible causes include transistor failure or an interconnection failure. As it appeared to happen overnight I'd guess its an interconnection failure, inside the DCC command station. If its out of warranty and the mains supply is separate try giving it a firm shake and see what happens (only have it connected to a short piece of track and your DCC tester - keep an eye on the colour of the LED on the tester to see if it changes). Regards Nick

Hi, It may depend on whether your command station is still in warranty. If not it may depend if you are experienced in repairing electronics. Hopefully others can advise when they have time. Regards Nick

Hi, A possible but basic explanation is that the main output from your DCC command station is malfunctioning. Regards Nick

Hi, Not closed in England (@NI?) for children of key workers. Even if school caretakers and administrators count as key workers some schools may close due to whole family isolation and also due to amalgamation due to teacher self and family isolation. Just as an observation after the Basingstoke show was over the school started disinfecting where members of the public might have been. Regards Nick

Hi, At the PM's COVID19 press conference yesterday it was promulgated that the insurance companies have been persuaded by the government to pay out on event cancellation insurance where government advice resulted in the cancellation (as opposed to government orders or laws). This came too late for the Basingstoke show whose regional club I am a member - we were facing a ~£10,000 loss if we didn't go ahead last weekend. Hopefully the insurance companies will do in practise what they have agreed to. Regards Nick