• Coax Cable cut by FM Conway
  • Friday 31st August 07
• Broadband lost
• Cable TV lost
• VirginMedia activate dial-up & offer £25 rebate
• FM Conway offer to send team to dig road when VirginMedia call
• Engineer calls, but has to book 2 man cable pulling team
• Modem in Laptop stops working
• Order New USB Modem
• New Modem doesn’t work
• Phone line is dead
  • Later found out Virgin had removed old cable inc telephone line
• 10 minutes on hold before they answer, but call back my mobile (Nice)
• Get 1 month free TV & Broadband due to length of outage
• Go to Science Museum with Nephew (OK, not to do with Outage, but was a cool day out)
• Finally 18 days later the teams turn up on 17th Sept and I am reconnected with
  • Broadband
  • Cable Television
  • & Landline Telephone
• Monday 17th September 07

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So on Friday where this story begins I am having lunch chatting to my friend well aware they are knocking down the buildings next door. I try filming a little but when I start filming the machine operator starts clearing up, so I delete the video and continue chatting to my friend.

At the end of lunch I check phone for messages and then put it into standby when back at my desk. This is at 13:00. I finish work at 16:30 & head to pub for couple of ciders before heading to Radio Club. When I sit down at pub waiting for colleagues to show up I check my phone. Oh dear. It’s off.

Turn it on and them when at today screen I find 1% only left. But why?

I think back and it dawns on me that I must have left the camera on (but not as a friend suggested recording the inside of my drawer).

Two more ciders later I head off to the Radio Club and get home about 11pm.

I am barely in the door and my Mum is saying that the cable TV box wasn’t working. I asked if she had unplugged and plugged back in. This had been done.

As I was tired from work I say I will look into it and head up to my room. Computer is switched on and I load up my TV program. Oh Dear. Looks like the upstairs Cable box is down.

Will just check my email and look at the problem in the morning.

“Server not found – Firefox can’t find the server at www.gmail.com.”

Restart the Modem. Same thing. This is not looking good. Sod waiting for tomorrow I am on the phone to Virgin Media straight away. The person who answered the phone said he was aware of problems in the neighboring town and would log my call.

I head off to bed. In the morning when I eventually am up I start computer and check modem. There is the same lack of activity lights.

After 9 phone calls to Virgin I finally get them to concede there is a problem, get a 2 engineers booked (1 for TV and 1 for Broadband) a £25 rebate and refund on the premium rate calls I had made (Yes calls to the Broadband line are 25p per minute). I was also put on the standby list for cancelled engineers & got them to activate dial-up as a stand-by measure.

At this stage I decide to look at the cable coming into the house. I thought that as there are 2 separate cables between the upstairs and downstairs the problem had to be outside of my house.

The cables near the house were fine. Then as I walk up the garden path, the horror as I realise that FM Conway are digging up the pavement. They have upon removing the top layer somehow cut the coax bringing my lovely TV and Broadband into the house.

I am back on the phone to Virgin to get this note added to the engineer’s orders.

This was written day after my problems started but posted 2 weeks later as couldn’t get text to blog before this time.

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Was chatting in the Mobitopia chat room earlier today and I mentioned the fact I am aiming to do and get an Amateur Radio license.

For part of the Amateur License there is a Morse Code part. What I want is a program for my phone so I can practise Morse Code.

• Some of the features could include:-
  • Left/Right soft keys for Dots and Dashes (Dits and Dahs)
  • Alternative text input (i.e. for Txt Msgs)
  • Game mode to practice letters with increasing difficulty
  • Variable speed (XX WPM (words per minute))
  • Variable letter length (0-30secs to practise for ShortWave)
  • When in background plays pressed letters as Morse

It possible this will never get made, but I have to at least put the idea out so if anybody does see potential in this, it may get created.

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We had my nephew over for his normal weekend visit. Although I don’t spend much actual time with him, I enjoy him being here. He is getting to be a handful though. But what 4 year old child isn’t. One of his favourite things at the moment is “YORKIE” as it Not For Girls!

This weekend I have been busy sorting my room out as at the moment I sleep on a Futon bed. I originally got as was sleeping in smallest bedroom in the house. But I have for a while been in the biggest bedroom and will be getting a normal bed.

I have been sleeping on the Futon for a long time, but feel glad I will have a normal bed again. * * Sweet Dreams At Last * *

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Although was not smooth sailing. When I got home, I thought the Restore of the software and the Contacts would be easy! How wrong I was.

Took me a couple of hours and all I managed to restore was the Contacts (Which is better than nothing). But I will need to install all the software from fresh!

But At Least I Have The New Phone! * * * Phew * * * (And I am planning on keeping hold of this one! LOL!)

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I may be stupid losing my phone, but I am not that stupid!

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£29.99 (insurance excess) + £23.99 (first Months premium) = More than £40.00 I have! * OUCH *

So, I will have to use the money I had saved to go to the All About Symbian pub meet and hope another will be organised soon, or I will have to raise a few quid through other sources! (i.e. Generous Grandparents!). All I ask that if anyone goes, and I do not, get some photos!

Even worse, I got a loan phone. A Mitisubishi Trium

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Spent a while phoning Vodafone and the Police to get phone blocked and a Crime Number, then contacted my Insurance people to claim for a new phone. Will cost me ?30.00.

I might ask to see if I can upgrade to a Nokia 3650 instead of a Nokia 7650

I don’t seem to have a great deal of luck with phones, my last one went through the washing machine.

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