Electronic Frippery

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Griff, What a great topic! To paraphrase the words of an occasional contributor to this Forum, "Motley luuuurves Electronic Frippery". It frustrates the hell out of my wife, but I keep telling her how luck she is to be married to an "early adopter". Now to business. 1. TV. Went with Sony flat screen computer monitor on a really whiz bang flexible arm. Great picture and the benefit is that it stows against the wall of the fridge. Don't need to have a place to store it when on the move. Also able to watch from table or in bed. Driven by a thingy called a Jaton X media Dream Box which also handles input from CD stacker, Satellite decoder and DVD/MP3 player. Have a look here - http://www.jaton.co.th/ Also purchased an Abrolga Satellite Dish. Brilliant! easy to use, great picture and now have worked out a place to stow it, it's even better (pictures to follow) 12 Stacker CD , multi region DVD/MP3 player and radio completes the AV setup. All installed by Sound in Motion. Have had some niggles with GME Dome antenna for local TV. Not happy with that yet, but everything else is brilliant. Have loaded pictures in Motley's Pics.
3. GME TX3400 Remote Head UHF in car with GME TX6000 Handheld. This is used by Mrs Motley to direct me when reversing onto site or hitching up to van. GME Radio gear is excellent. Also have Codan NGT HF radio, Nokia 6385 CDMA phone 4. Garmin GPS. More on this at the end - I've just seen the future and I like it! 5. Reading lights over bed, over table. Cabin lights in cargo hold. Should have got external 12v socket for the hand held "fluoros" you can get for under awning 6. 3 panels, 3 batteries, 1800W inverter. Enough to drive the Microwave (for short periods) 7. Engel 39 liter mounted on storage shelves in back of vehicle, connected to auxiliary battery. Allows us to leave van and go off with tent or swags for a day or two if necessary. 8. Piranha Big Red compressor and Safe-T-Seal repair kit (invaluable). Have a look here - http://www.safetyseal.com 9. Warn 9500-pound winch. Winch gives you the choice to go places where, if you do get stuck, you can get yourself out. Also means you need to spend a bit on the Bull bar, auxiliary battery and recovery gear. Back to GPS and the future. My business partner, friend and fellow traveller has just built a computer to fit in his Land Cruiser for a trip we are doing to NT and Qld in July August. Here are the features: Computer has a 12v Power Supply and fits under the drivers seat. It's a Pentium 900Mhz with 500Mb of memory and a 30Gb hard drive running Windows XP Connected to a USB port is an externally mounted GPDS receiver On the dash he has a 6" touch screen monitor The PC is loaded with the Auslig Topographical maps for all of Australia and uses Oziexplorer software. Voila! A moving map display sitting on the dash, all driven by touch screen. But wait! That’s not all. He has converted 150 of his CD's to MP3 and loaded them on the hard drive. Then has connected a micro transmitter (also under the seat) to another USB Port. Tune your FM radio to a set frequency and you have 150CD of music pleasure available and you guessed it, all controlled by Winamp software via the touch screen! But wait! There's more. With an infrared adaptor, connected to ANOTHER USB port and velcroed just above his mobile phone, sitting it its cradle connected to an external aerial, he can do his e-mail using a wireless keyboard. I am so bloody jealous! Anyway Griff, that's my take on Electronic Frippery as at 15 May. These things have a habit of changing quickly. I'm of now to prepare the cost benefit analysis as to why I need one of these computer/GPS/CD/email thingies for the trip as well. Redundancy you know - it's really important and essential "out there". I think that's going to be the main theme for my CAPEX Request.
Motley

Motley, I was expecting you to say "But wait there is MOOOOORE" Doesn't it come with other things that are operated via the touch screen. Has he worked out how much the setup cost??

I think my wife just went selectively deaf ....... like about 10 others.
I yelled ..... I have a list from Motley I have to catch up ! <wink>
Cindy replied ... What's that dear ... you need the Ketchup !!! <grin>

Have digicam whittled down to three with the Nikon 3500 coolpix at the top. New puter quotes arrive Monday .... Birthday soon, I can feel a techno/electronic thing arriving !
Where is that list ... <wishingwellgrin>

Anthony

Motley - yu da Man! Speakers, what about speakers (BT & loco). Loved the puter thing - must investigate (don't tell Mrs Griff!). I was actually looking at a TwinHead Laptop (with spill-proof keyboard) to run TrackRanger with a GPS to give a similar result, with the advantage of portability to make use of the DVD etc in the van as primary (or back-up unit), as well as the internet/email connectivity with you lot when in towns (or using mobile or Sat phone??!). Who knows? Early days yet. Your mates install sounds great. One reservation may be the circuit board & hard drive. If not designed to be mobile, the vibration may get em. Sounds a sweet rig though! Anthony, not a bad choice for Camera. Did a lot of research bout 6 months ago for work (love spending other people's money). Ended up with Fuji Finepix 602 - pocket size & great for our needs. Between that, the Nikon & the Cannons can't go too much wrong. Have to get one myself now for BT imortalisation. Click Griff

Anthony, I have a Nikon Coolpix 995 looks like the Coolpix 4500 now. You will think the swivel head is a joke, but believe me its fantastic. Take photos with arms above your head and still see the screen, down low tilt the head and still see screen, shoot behind you ( I did this on an aircraft and in busses. Boy's fishing trip to NZ) etc, etc, etc, I picked up a standard camera and was gob smacked at how much I had got used to not having the camera at face leval. Go back and have a good look at it Anthony you may like it. Graham

Anthony, would agree with Jan & Graham re the Coolpix. If you're going for the Nikon, the swivel head is a must, I think. It really allows you some creative options that the others can't touch. There are some really good Digital Camera Forum sites around - a few hours should see you able to make a really informed guess Good Hunting Griff

P.S. I'm investigating something new. Bainbridge have relesed a nice rear-view TV set up, with a feature that Mrs Griff fell in love with. Among other things, it has a one-way intercom back to the screen. Mrs Griff thinks that will be much better than the hand-held radio as she will be able to yell imprecations at me for my incompetence behind the wheel & I won't be able to respond in kind about her obvious Left/Right confusion when giving directions. Well, more precisely, I will be able to, she just won't be able to hear them - an entirely satisfactory state of affairs from her perspective! Teeth Grittingly Yours Griff

Griff, I think that is one smart woman you are hanging around with. Angie

And Motley, whats this about being an occasional contributor to the forum? I resemble that remark. (And its 5 "u's" in luuuuurves) And where is Nomad? Surely he is out of the ceiling by now? He never does anything else his wife tells him so why is he still getting lost? And whats happened to Turist's report and photos? Angie is having withdrawals from lack of new photos. Honestly, I really don't know what is happening to this forum!! It's going to rack and ruin. I need a coffee. LOL. Angie

Got something that may be helpful for us newbies looking to figure out the whole electrical enchilada (especially around battery/inverter/charger stuff). Though I can in no way speak for the quality of the product & am certainly not infering a recomendation, the following site is very helpful (I think): www.baintech.com.au It may even be worth inclusion on the Links page - it contains some good low-tech explanations of what the key ingredients are & what they do, but a VERY useful table of common appliances & their current draw vs various battery types - good for working out just how many 'D' cells you're going to need to run the electric whipper snipper, washing machine & drier! All Lit Up Griff

Graham & Griff

Went to get Nikon 4500 today ... had a look at them last week ... nice bit of gear !! Just before I left Cindy says " Certain eldest daughter has taken quite a few 35mm SLR shots the last few trips .... are you going to let her use the digital ?
I could feel the noose starting to tighten having almost a vice like grip around my throat. I wanted to say ...Yes ... but it came out ...NNNnnnnooooooo !!! Its my toy I quipped ! (Stamping right foot three times on floor)

So now I'm sharing a camera !! Came away with a Olympus 3.2mp with two 64meg cards, one each. Decided to go this way because salesman showed me a digital Canon SLR that my very expensive EOS 35mm lenses will click straight on. He said this way you have much better lenses you already own ... and just buy a digital body at 6mp.

Watch out for a full photo album as soon as 8 year old shows me how !! <wink>

Anthony

Great choice, Anthony! There is no getting around the fact that the best digital electronics on the planet can't compensate for a mediocre lens. GIGO. It will be interesting for you to take some identical shots on the two cameras (try water drops from a hose on a sunny day for a good idea of the contribution a good lens can make.) Happy Snaps Griff

What a gr8 topic! Just refitted my car audio system... As lots of 4x4 offroad fun stuff is planed, i decided on a Kenwood 7000MD head. Its a Cd, Mini Disk, reciever. Mini disk will not skip, so its perfect for ruff roads. Fitted to 200W 6x9 3 way rear, 180W 6' 3way front, and tweeters. 300W rms Amp running a 16' sub in custom box. Very happy with the sound and cannot recomend MD for off road use enough.

I looked at a " Premium (taken with grain of salt) Flat Panel Liquid Crystal Television ... what a buzz word for LCD !
Looking to replace Orion Tv/Video in BT .... with Xien LCD-15GP ... metal case suits recess mount in wall or hang on wall .... is a 12v TV receiver with mini speakers in mount.
Weighs 3kg AV off campersat straight in .... Cost $ 1274 Spoke to Manager of company (Australian Technology Specialists ... since 1984) about warranty ... has three years. Anyone seen these or used this brand ? www.xien.com.au

Anthony