The Reeves-Hall Family

Brian’s vintage radios, clocks and other things

Screenshot of vintage radio collection playlist on YouTube

Videos of Brian Reeves-Hall giving the background to his vintage radios, clocks and other things! Click to view the playlist on YouTube. Check back for new additions in the weeks ahead.

Technology runs in my family – in my dad’s case it was a passion for vintage radios, clocks and cameras. But mainly the radios.

10 years ago I interviewed my dad about his collection – many pieces which he restored using original parts. Following his death I am only now getting around to editing and publishing it all! Still more videos to be added in the coming weeks the playlist that I’ve started putting together.

As I cleared out his house, I also came across some other things I never knew he had: a vintage slide projector, an original Polariod camera (bellows and all), and a typewriter with round keys.

There was also a ton, and it may be literally that!, of bits & pieces he used in his hospital / nursing-home security business (he made custom staff attack alarms, protecting nurses).

Over time, more videos will be coming. For now, here’s a start…

Royal Mail reduces use of bicycles

The Docmail Local Post company uses bicycles to deliver around some UK towns (image ©docmail).

On 19 April 2013 there was an article published about the Somerset council in Bath saving £6000 every year because they are sending out council tax bills using a bicycle-based delivery company.

Update 22/04/13: The Postal Services Director of Bristol based Docmail Local Post, Joe Broadway told me that they use a fleet of hybrid bicycles – the Saracen Urban Escape – to deliver roughly 20,000 items a month across their sites in Bristol and Bath. They used to use electric bicycles but found them to be problematic and costly to maintain. They are expanding slowly through the UK, with the next locations to be served being in Slough and Edinburgh.

Joe told me, “We deliver roughly 20,000 items a month across both of our sites and prevent the production of (by our own estimates) roughly 0.7 grams of C02 per letter we deliver via our network.”

This story reminded me that I had not yet followed-up with my MP, Sir George Young and the CEO of Royal Mail on how their so-called “Modernisation” programme is progressing. You see, modernisation to Royal Mail meant getting rid of many of their bicycle delivery routes, and using vans or trolleys instead.

MP PURSUES CEO OF ROYAL MAIL

Back on 2nd December 2011, I read on Sir George’s constituency blog about Royal Mail and bicycles. His blog stated:

» Continue reading Royal Mail reduces use of bicycles »

Cycling through daylight’s darkness in Bath’s Two Tunnels

On the first real almost-spring-like day this year, Tolii, Tosha and I (Katya was ill) headed up to Bath to cycle in the darkness of the Two Tunnels.

Thankfully, there were plenty of things going on in the daylight too: a fun festival with burger stand and beer tent.

For the past few years, Sustrans (a registered charity) has been converting a disused railway line into a shared path that people walking and cycling can enjoy on their way to work or when out for a bit of leisure.

I wrote a story about it over on The Joy of Cycling where I also embedded the video that I made.

What isn’t written there though is how my kids and I got separated just at the exit of the shorter of the two tunnels! You’ll see them riding ahead of me, then they » Continue reading Cycling through daylight’s darkness in Bath’s Two Tunnels »

In memory of Brian Henry, my dad.

That’d be me with my dad, Brian Henry Reeves-Hall, just a couple weeks before he passed away.

Brian Henry Reeves-Hall, my wonderful dad, died on 5 March 2013 at 9:53am EST (2:53pm UK time) in Cambridge, Ontario, Canada, following nearly 78 years of joy (mostly) since July 14 1935.

Dad’s wish was to donate his body to science, and I am so pleased to say that McMaster University accepted him into their Bequeathal Program. It is an incredible feeling to know that, even now in death, dad is still helping people as he had helped people during his life: He was a life-long donor of blood, plasma and platelets – 121 donations in all. At least in Canada.

Dad was diagnosed with stomach cancer* just on 13 February, less than a month ago, though he thought something was ‘not quite right’ in mid-January. His back became increasingly sore, as if he had rolled onto a plug during one of his install jobs.

*Aside: Today, 6 March it was announced (story HERE) that a study had shown promising results in detecting stomach cancer using a simple breath test
» Continue reading In memory of Brian Henry, my dad. »

The slow ‘faster’ Internet

BT sells Infinity, even to today, as having between 38 and 76Mbps speeds. Click for bigger picture.

I was one of the lead campaigners to bring BT Infinity to my lovely town of Whitchurch, Hampshire during the ‘Race to Infinity’ competition way back in the autumn of 2010. There were to be 10 rural towns in the UK to be upgraded first to fibre optic technology and its associated faster connection speeds to the Internet.

We won! It was a fantastic community-led campaign that introduced me to so many great people – see the campaign archive: click HERE.

Some people in town have now benefited from BT’s claimed 38 to 76Mbps connection speeds.

However, 3 years on from the win, and others are still waiting for the service to be installed. Ironically, those in the town centre are the most affected by the delays; as well as some of the rural villages neighouring our town. See the various stories on the town website for that — click HERE.

Then there is me…

BT OpenReach engineers install the FTTC fibre cabinet on London Street, Whitchurch, Hampshire in March 2012

GOLDILOCKS

Those of us who live in the ‘Goldilocks’ area – not too close to the town centre, and not too far away either – were able to place orders since May 2012.

My line was to be upgraded on 1 June 2012. Alas, my installation didn’t go well – 6, or was it 7?, visits by BT to try and get it working – and I was left with a very basic service in September. To their credit, BT offered a discount to entice me to stay with the service rather than going back to my previous ADSL connection.

Our house is apparently right at the end of a line that runs from the cabinet, up the main street, past a pub (surely that’s relevant?), around a corner and then up my street, with several cable splits/joins along the way.

I wrote a letter to the town’s website to let others know of my situation – see HERE.

A LOT LESS THAN PROMISED

BT tweets on 3 July 2012 that 15Mbps is the minimum speed for the Infinity product.

BT told me I should get 19.7Mbps download speed, and “up to” 2Mbps upload speed (for comparison, on their ADSL technology I had about 7Mbps download and 0.3Mbps upload).

After the installation in September, I was seeing 14.7Mbps – which is just under the 15Mbps that BT themselves told me was their lower limit for the technology to be sold to customers. They claimed I was getting 15Mbps but I couldn’t see that because there was ‘overhead’. I presume they mean extra data exchanged on the line – or perhaps some small bit given over to BT FON.

FURTHER SLOW-DOWN

The official BT speed test of my service shows a very slow service indeed.

The connection speed has deteriorated significantly since its installation. Yesterday and today the download speed was under 10Mbps – it was 9.3Mbps Saturday evening, and now on Sunday morning it is at 9.5Mbps.

I have contacted BT Care but I hold out little hope of a massive improvement, though. To fix it right, they would need to relay the cabling along our road or install a cabinet closer. Ha! I asked for that last year and got nowhere.

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Brian’s vintage radios, clocks and other things

Royal Mail reduces use of bicycles

Cycling through daylight’s darkness in Bath’s Two Tunnels

In memory of Brian Henry, my dad.

The slow ‘faster’ Internet