Is the Prof Ok ??

[paws]

I haven't seen anything (posts) from the Prof recently.....
Well for quite a while actually
I do hope he is OK.

If this goes on then I will have to open a new topic on measuring nose weights......that should temp him out! :cheer:

Seriously though I begin to worry a little, when a respected member of our "forum family" stays away for a while, it maybe of course that he's become fed up with the lot of us!!!!
or maybe he's poorly at the moment.
In any event I hope he will accept our best wishes.
Regards, and of course
Happy Caravanning
paws

 

[Thingy]

Hes just away trying to sort out his noseweight?

OK, back to the naughty step I go.

 

[Raywood]

I had noticed his absence and miss his useful posts. Could be he is just away and not using the internet.

 

[Dustydog]

Not far away I hope.
I think he won some Milencos in Junes PCv.
Maybe the nose weight thing went a bit haywire and blew a fuse?

 

[Parksy]

I know that the Prof's wife hadn't been too well and I hope that all is well,but I can't help thinking that since a few of us, especially me, took him to task over the noseweight issue the Prof may have decided to give the forum a miss, at least for a while anyway.
If that's the case I'll be extremely sorry that he feels that way.
When a fundamental disagreement is aired on the forum it's all too easy to upset someone holding an opposing view, but the nose weight saga had rumbled on for years and I know for a fact that many forum members didn't subscribe to the Prof's doctrine on that particular issue and neither do I.
If the Prof is upset at the way that the discussion went it's very sad, because most of his help and advice was extremely valuable, but the stage had been reached whereby a collective groan could almost be heard whenever that particular issue was posted.
I really hope that the Prof will return,but from what I saw the discussion was reasonable and civilised, so if the Prof is offended enough to stay away there's not much that can be done unless a number of forumites wanted to pretend to agree with every word written by one forum member in spite of what they really believe to be true.

 

[Thingy]

Im sure its not that Parksy. Im guessing hes just busy. If it is his good lady, I sincerely hope its nothing serious.

 

[Mel]

All the Profs posts have been calm and professional even at the height of debate so I doubt he has gone off in a strop as it would seem out of character. Hope all is well with him and his family and he is just having a long holiday or sabbatical.
Mel

 

[ProfJohnL]

I have been unlawfully held in incommunicado by a corporate cyber pirate. :woohoo:

Some bright spark managed to disconnect my line termination at my local telephone exchange, which left me without phone or BB for 22 days. No I haven't been a naughty Prof - all the bills are paid on time by DD. :evil:

What makes it worse is that where I live the mobile phone reception is abysmal for all networks, the best is Vodaphone, and that only works in the corner of one room, so we don't have domestic mobile communications, a fact the phone company could not understand. They kept on suggesting I should use a mobile to contact them and so they can update me by txt. :side:

This is particularly sad as an Aunt has passed away a few days ago, and I was unaware of the details until this evening. I'll admit it's been nice and quiet; I haven't had one call about PPI, Energy or double glazing, but equally family and friends have been left high and dry.

I normally receive part time work schedules and School governorship information about meetings and other roles by email. My wife has a number of medical appointments which are arranged and confirmed by email, and worst of all I haven't been able to put the great caravanning public right on all technical points! (Boy! have you been lucky) :huh:

It has been a nightmare trying to contact the phone provider, Out of preference I have used an online chat service so I can keep a full transcript. But I have to make a special journey to a friends house to do this on BB. This afternoon, it was atrocious as it takes on average 10 to 12 minutes to fight you way through the first line of defence to actually chat with an 'fault manager', who then asks all the same questions again, then decides to pull up the customer file, and then loses the connection, so its back to the beginning I was cut off 5 times before i actually got an answer that told me " there's been a big problem at the exchange and it will take some time to fix. and then it dropped out again. :S

On getting back home I find an engineer is there, and he sets up a signal injector on my master socket and traces it back to the exchange. He returned 50 mins later to remove the injector and tells me some one has been fiddling in the exchange and had disconnected my line,and it was 5 min job to reconnect it. Most of the rest of his time was taken up with negotiating the roadworks and 2 mile diversion on the A5 nearby. :huh:

Hey presto up and running again.

Now I have got to formulate my letter of complaint and populate it with all the references to consumer legislation where the company has been in breach of contract. I shall also be invoicing them for all the missed appointments and additional expense I have had to go to to specifically manage the fault they failed to rectify within a reasonable period (especially in the light of the final engineer's comments)

What worries me is whilst I am totally disillusioned with my current supplier, are any of the other companies any better - My choices are limited because despite having a corner property and one side is on a street that has been cabled our street was not. hmy:

 

[Hutch]

Glad your back Prof, but am I correct yoir asking for advise, about comms companies!. :evil:

 

[Thingy]

Been there Prof, got the T-shirt. It seems all the comms companies are as bad as each other. You wouldnt believe the issues I have had with Vodafone and their Indian Call Centre. Roll on September when I can leave them.

Glad your back and nothing serious, apart from a comms blackout of course.

But what I don't get, really don't get, is

WHY DIDNT YOU TELL THEM HOW TO FIX IT

 

[paws]

So sorry to hear about all the "comms" problems... but delighted to hear that you are OK.
There are quite a few of us who were beginning to worry about you...
All best
paws

 

[colin-yorkshire]

hi John, glad your OK, B) and it was just a line problem. as for other ISP providers, :evil: :evil: no comment, except I've been down that route, was with BT mine was out 16 days, I and I knew what was wrong, :woohoo: we got cabled a few years ago, while the path was up outside, the service went down, I ask the contractor what the problem was, no idea he said "who are you with BT I said "OH nothing to do with us better see them, were working for Virgin media. so after a few frantic 20mins calls from a mobile that was 40p a minute I got an engineer to call, he checked the line, went away came back checked again went away then came back and said your lines disconnected , "yes I know that" nothing I can do will have to wait for the contractor to sort it, that took another 7 days, eventually they found the fault, when the virgin guys were cabling they cut the phone line underground and left it, when making the ground good, so it was dug again, and reconnected, :woohoo: sorted.

then about 6 months later I received some info from Virgin offering a great deal for new subscribers, "right I will have some of that, changed providers and the installers came to fit it, played with it all day no it won't work no signal.
another 5 days later a team turns up to dig up the path, yet again and what did they find "yep the BT contractor had cut the cable while reconnecting the phone line. hmy: hmy: it this what they call service rivalry I wonder.
so no there all just as bad, now I have SKY and that is a complete rip off, who next I wonder talk talk, "no" I wont even think about them.

 

[ProfJohnL]

Believe me; I did. Every time I called, they asked the same inane questions, which always led to " we need to book an engineer appointment to visit your property" :S As it had been established it wasn't a problem with my wiring or equipment, :silly: they did not need access to my property, therefore they did not need an appointment, as they could access the line outside my property if they needed to. :side:

 

[Dustydog]

Morning Prof,

Glad to see you are back. BT are a disgrace. My 90 year okd mum was left without a working phone for five days
It took me hours trying speak to someone at BT who could arrange an engineers visit.
I am sure with your skill base you will receive just restitution B)
BTW did you win the Milencos

 

[colin-yorkshire]

yeah it's awful being given the run around, same questions over and over again as you are passed round while they find the right department, each time being played music to while you wait, worst of all is telling them you are phoning from a mobile that is very expensive, and the answer comes back, "Well if you ring 150 from the land line is FREE" :woohoo: :woohoo:, "yes but if I had the line line working I wouldn't be calling them. :evil: :evil:

 

[SirRogerFFS]

Bt are a disgrace . Some years ago when I was made redundant I some how managed to find some within bt that spoke my language and put me on a special low rate My wife and I decided recently we would go it alone and have our own broadband instead of sharing her business broadband that was a pin in the arse as well. Contacted bt to remove my special low rate and we were held to ransom they were not prepared to move my low rate unless I went with their broadband for 12 months.They are nothing but legal thieves.Now my Wifes business broadband has recently been changed to Plusnet so far so good ,no problems at all.I think when we have had our 12 months we will go with Plusnet.
Sir Roger .

 

[DrZhivago]

I was cut off with BT for four weeks last summer. They are idiots.

I am in a forested rural area and the overhead lines around here are a rats nest tangled in trees. When you see them you wonder they work at all.

My line got crackly and intermittent. I established that the fault was their line and not in my house by disconnecting at the soffit point of entry and connecting a phone straight on it*. That's naughty, but as they make dire financial threats about being called out and finding it is your own fault, I want to make d-d sure first.

The first problem is getting through to report a fault. You would think there would be a dedicated number straight to Open Reach (they are the real phone company, BT is a sales front end). The Phone Book number 0800 800 151 covers everything from billing to requesting a sermon on how "green" they are. Moreover, it uses voice recognition - I ask you, voice recognition when reporting a fault on a crackly line! I was yelling "FAULTY LINE!!! FAULTY LINE!! FAULTY LINE!!". Eventually the penny dropped with this mid-atlantic female robot and it/she said she would do a line test. It did and, guess what, it/she said there was nothing wrong with my line, if I wanted a call out I'd be charged for it, get lost, and have a nice day!

My next step was to disconnect the phone line at the soffit (naughty naughty), drive several miles to a place with mobile reception, and complain again. This time they at last agreed there was a fault, could hardly do otherwise. Back home and reconnect.

A linesman did call soon and diagnosed a fault in the overhead line 300 yards down the road where it cut a corner through the forest. So far so good. However he considered the phone was working passably (in fact it ceased to work entirely after he left) and I was therefore put on low priority. I discovered this several days later after a number of conversations (via mobile, driving several miles away each time) with people with strong Indian accents who did not seem to have any concept of what a forest or trees were. I guess they've long chopped down all trees in their part of India. The delay, I was told, was to get Highway's permission to set up cones, temporary traffic lights, the works. When they did the repair there was a small army of Open Reach vans, cherry pickers and temporary traffic light operatives, and they coned off about 500 yards to single lane for half a day. I hate to think what it cost.

After all that I only got a pro-rata standing charge rebate and a £25 "good-will" payment, well short of the expense of the mobile calls and the driving to use it and to the public library computer terminals 10 miles away to pay bills etc. I am now looking at alternatives to BT.

* I did not simply use the master socket test point as I had previously rewired between it and the soffit junction box myself (naughty naughty). This was when I replaced the rotten soffit and fascia. I had not wished to attempt co-ordinating my house repairs with Open Reach attendance, for reasons demonstrated in the above story.

 

[Raywood]

Welcome back. Have to say we are on Virgin and the service has been spectacular. On the odd occasion we have had a fault they check the line remotely and fix it if they can and if not arrange an engineer for the next day even giving you a morning or afternoon time. before they set off from the last call they ring to let you know they are coming and the staff have always been polite and helpful. If they cable your street I would try them and just to confirm I have no connection with them.
On one call the engineer even gave us his mobile number so we could call him back if there was a further problem.

 

[Dustydog]

You're very lucky Ray. Where I am there is no Virgin cable and we too are held to ransom by the BT equipment.
I use Virgin for my mobile with no issues. :cheer:

 

[WoodlandsCamper]

We have our internet on Virgin and our landline on BT. I have 2 mobiles, one on Tesco (for which the coverage isn't very good) and is an Android 3G phone. The other mobile is an old Nokia T-Mobile (now EE?) and has quite good coverage, but its texting is via the numeric keypad. When we first had the Virgin cable the phone was free line rental (and we used it for a fax machine) but after a year or two they started charging so we cancelled the phone line and just kept the data line.

 

[woodsieboy]

Hi Sir Roger
We are with Plusnet who are owned by BT you never see BT adverts comparing their service with Plusnet, so far they have been very reliable and good service,

 

[Hutch]

Which ever company you get make sure you can review the programe" Caravanner of the Year".

 

[Parksy]

Hi Prof, I'm very pleased to see you back on the forum with your internet restored. I was worried that the prolonged noseweight debate had upset you
I'm with Virgin Broadband because the cable network is very well established in the Back Country, we rarely (if ever)have any lasting problems with Virgin.

 

[ProfJohnL]

Hi Prof, I'm very pleased to see you back on the forum with your internet restored. I was worried that the prolonged noseweight debate had upset you
I'm with Virgin Broadband because the cable network is very well established in the Back Country, we rarely (if ever)have any lasting problems with Virgin.

Virgin cable goes down the side of my property, but not down my street, and Virgin won't connect me.

 

[Hutch]

A pair of side cutters! And denie all knollege.