Honey Monster Choco Puffs Review

Vendor: Poundland
Price: £1
Description: Chocolate coated Honey puffed rice

What the hell happened to Sugar Puffs? I bought this enticing little number from my friendly neighbourhood Poundland recently.
Quality was to be expected with such a destinguised brand as Quaker. And this seemed a bargain for only one £1..... Wrong!

Walkie-Talkie Long Range Test

Binatone Action 1100 from the top of Winter hill

This post is a follow on from last weeks review and short range testing of the Binatone 1100's. Not content with the 3-4Km range already achieved, I felt it was now time to push these Walkie-Talkies to their limits. Would they reach the 10Km mark?
Roughly twenty minutes drive from home is Winter Hill which sits among the West Pennine moors and overlooks the town of Horwich near Bolton, Lancashire.
Winter Hill is roughly 456m or 1496Ft ASL (above sea level)
This makes for an ideal high point to test UHF radios which generally have limited range and rely on line-of-sight.
For this test a position quite near to the transmitter mast was chosen. This spot can be reached via Georges lane and Matchmoor lane.
Read more....

M60 Motorway Misery

Motorway Misery 

Tales of despair from the orbital orifice

Update #1: Nothing smart about this Motorway

Introduction: 

For those who don't have a clue what I'm talking about then let me explain. 

The M60 Motorway orbits the city of Manchester in north west England. It is the only Motorway ring road in the UK. The Motorway is a little over 30 miles in it entirety and forms a complete ring around Manchester serving the smaller suburban towns on the periphery. Unfortunately It has been a bottleneck for traffic madness for years with certain sections and junctions becoming a static jam in the daily rush hour. To try and combat this Highways England together with MSM (Manchester Smart Motorways) started work on a 'Smart' controlled section running for 17 miles through the worst of the problems. The roadworks begin at M60 J8 and extends onward to M62 J20 with traffic currently restricted to 50mph.  The project originally started back in 2014 with the expected completion date sometime in autumn 2017. 

For more information:  Smart Upgrade M60/M62

PMR Walkie-Talkie Modification

Make the most of your Walkie-Talkies 

❗❗ Caution ❗❗ Please be sure you know what you are doing before attempting any adjustments. You do so at your own risk. 

Question? Do you have trouble hearing other Walkie-Talkies when moving further apart?

Solution: Your Handset noise reduction circuitry could be activating too early causing drop outs and loss of contact. This minor tweak may improve your ability to receive distant stations without opening the noisy monitor function full time.
No soldering required.

Requirements:
2 X Philips head screwdrivers or bits. 1 X small, 1 X large . knowledge of where the relevant components are.

Theory:
Squelch essentially cuts out most of the background noise you would normally hear when using FM radio. However, occasionally when two sets get further away the voice transmission may become broken or even lost. To overcome this most Handsets have a open Squelch button which deactivates and allows all the background noise to be heard which is annoying to the ear after a short time. The ideal situation is to have the noise reduction stay on a tad longer if possible. The squelch level on all PMR Walkie-Talkies are predetermined in the factory and are non-adjustable by the user. That is unless you can identify the correct component and make some small adjustments yourself.
Usually most consumer PMR446's will have a screw adjusted post for both Squelch and voice modulation somewhere on the main board. The pic below shows the inside of a Silvercrest handset.

Mame4droid Retro Round up #1

 Mame4Droid Retro Round up 

Mame4droid allows Android devices to emulate the old original arcade games.

*To play these games download mame4droid from the playstore! 

Round up #1 - Stuck in the 1940's

Welcome to the first Retro Round up. Old arcade games are something of a fascination of mine since being a small child.

Many of my fondest memories come from hours spent in some arcade or another. Arcade games offered better graphics and an overall better experience than my humble Atari or commodore C64 could muster. Everyone wanted an arcade copy of Space Harrier not a Sinclair spectrum port! 

Nowerdays we can emulate the original MAME ROM sets on our handheld devices. Enter Mame4droid and a few hundred roms and the arcade is in your hands. 

This section features quick fire game ROM reviews. Nothing fancy. Just straight to the point!

Expand to read more...

Maplin Infrared Thermometer Review

Vendor: Maplin

Price: £19.99 - currently £39.99

Manufacturer: for Maplin

Description: Compact thermometer featuring wide temperature range -35 to +365°C. 

What's in the Box?: Thermometer, Batteries and instructions.

Features:

Temp Range: -35 to +365°C 

Distance to spot ratio (D:S) : 8:1

Basic Accuracy: +/- 2.5% of reading or 2.5°C

Power: 2 X AAA 

Silvercrest Twin Talker 4810 PMR Review

Vendor: Lidl
Price: £19.99
Manufacturer: TopCom
Description: PMR 446 2 Way Radios twin set
What's in the box?: 2 X Handsets, 2 X Ear phone/mic, 1 X dual charger dock, 1 X UK plug, 8 X 600mAh AAA rechargeable batteries, 1 X Instructions.

It's not very often I find myself in Lidl supermarkets. On a rare occasion once I found these hiding in the bargain bins.
At the time I did have Walkie-Talkies on my wish list and these looked very exciting. When it comes to buying good quality Walkie-Talkies £19.99 doesn't normally get you very far. Indeed you can buy a cheap £20 set but these are often Handsets only and no features. For a good set with batteries, charger and headset mic you need to spend at least double that. Enter Silvercrest!
Let's get one thing clear before I start this review. These are NOT toys! The price is no reflection of quality.

What are PMR 446 Walkie-Talkies?

What's 446?

Have you come across PMR radios and wondered what they are or how they worked? ..No?
Well if next year's summer holiday involves a skiing trip or similar outdoor adventure you may find yourself purchasing a set of these radios to help keep in touch with friends and family.
They offer fantastic short range communication which can be very useful in poor mobile signal areas. They are cheap to buy, license free and universally compatible with other makes and brands making larger networks very easy.

What is PMR 446?

Personal Mobile Radio (PMR) is a European license free citizens band radio system operating on the 446Mhz UHF FM frequency using 16 channels. Most consumer walkie talkies use the first 8 channels. So generally you will just be using channels 1-8 exclusively.

PMR Channel	Frequency (MHz)
1	446.00625
2	446.01875
3	446.03125
4	446.04375
5	446.05625
6	446.06875
7	446.08125
8	446.09375
9	446.10625
10	446.11875
11	446.13125
12	446.14375
13	446.15625
14	446.16875
15	446.18125
16	446.19375

It is completely open frequency to use as you like. Walkers, bikers, small businesses or kids playing down the garden all share the basic 8 channels.
As everyone has to shares these channels they can become congested so added features like ctcss and DCS squelch coding (on certain Handsets) allow the user/group to talk with no channel chatter interference.
This system has become very popular across Europe......

Lightway 5W Cree™ LED Torch Review

Vendor: Aldi Stores
Price: £9.99
Description: 5W Cree™ LED torch
Model: WK 502
What's in the box?: 5W Torch, light diffuser and carry pouch

Focus: adjustable
Battery: 3 X 1.5V AAA
Light Source: 5W Cree™ LED Chip XPG II
Range: Approx 120m
Lumin Flux: 137 Lumens
LED lifespan: 50,000 hours
Warranty: 3 Years
Body: Aluminium

Recently I came across these tasty looking Cree torches when shopping in the local Aldi.  At £9.99 and with a 3 year warranty these seems good investment.
This torch packs a hefty punch! It's top quality Cree LED is both extremely bright and power efficient. The range coverage when using the adjustable focus is superb.
This unit runs on AAA batteries (supplied) for a decent number of hours. This can be improved if you use Pro rechargeables.

Accessories: Diffuser - a useful little end cap which lessens the intensity and spreads light over a wider area. A handy 'Candle' mode for reading or hanging in a tent.

Pouch- Soft polyester pouch with belt clip. Holds the torch (complete with end cap) securely on your belt. Velcro fastener.


Result: 5 out of 5
✅✅✅✅✅
For a high powered torch under a tenner this one is hard to beat. The Aluminium body is machined beautifully, the Cree LED is outstanding of course and the 3 year warranty is a bonus.
Tried and tested, this is a fantastic torch.

Nikkai 3.5in Pocket DTV Review

Pocket Rocket?

Price:  £35 (at the time)  now discontinued
Vendor: Maplin
Description: 3.5" Pocket LCD DTV
Features: 3.5" Screen, Li-ion Battery, Flexible Antenna, SD card slot for MP3 playback,  built in stand.  Able to receive all available Digital TV and Radio stations depending on signal strength.

What can I say? If you want a cheap pocket TV then you cant get much better than this. Yeah, the little 3.5" screen is crap, the single speaker is tinny and the aerial is thin and weedy but your
£35 gets you 80+ TV and Digital radio channels. The ability to play MP3's (I'm not sure why you would though) and recharge via a li-ion battery.
You do get what you pay for in terms of build quality. It's very cheap and nasty plastic. Don't expect a rubberised finish.
The battery life is pretty lame with around 2-3 hours of viewing from a full charge. It's not too much of a problem though. You have to consider how much bigger the TV would have to be to incorporate a larger battery. So ultimately a small TV means a small battery.
What more do you want for £35?

Result: 4 out of 5
✅✅✅✅

This little master gadget would happily get 5 ticks in the review if it wasn't for the annoying little antenna which has a tendency to move of its own accord, fowling the picture at times. This is because the fitted antenna is a cheap telescopic with articulation. This Elbow joint loosens over time and becomes brittle. Oh well

Still a good little a gadget
.

Work Zone 2W + 5W LED Lights Review

Price: £4.99 each
Vendor:  Aldi Stores
Description: 2W + 5W LED Work Lamps
What's in the Box:   3X AAA / 3X AA Batteries included

One of the brightest £5 torches available?

Poke your nose in amongst the choas that is the Aldi bargain bins and you might find some of these.
Work lights basically. The type you might hang from your workshop shelf or under the car bonnet.
These particulat lights feature a COB led arrangement rather than standard LEDs which results in a far brighter experience. Battery life is very good (depending what you use) and in a practical environment these devices perform quite well.  Both feature a magnetic disc at the rear and a hook for secure fixing.

Rating: 
✅✅✅✅ 4 out of 5

Very good value for a COB lantern. Although the build quality could be better. The free alkaline batteries is a nice touch.
Well worth the money

Binatone Action 1100 Walkie-Talkie Review

Binatone's mid-range twin set are a clear winner

Manufacturer: Binatone/Uniden

Vendor: Maplin

Price: £49.99 retail (cheaper online)

Description: PMR 446Mhz Two-Way radios (long range)

2 X Transceiver Handsets, 1 X twin charging dock, 8 X AAA rechargeable batteries (600mAh), 1 X UK plug charge adapter, 1 X instructions pamphlet.

Features: 83 CTCSS and 38 DCS coded squelch codes. 8 channel scan, ctcss code scan, DCS code scan, dual channel monitoring, 15 call tones. Splash proof. VOX 

Range: up to 10Km (conditions allowing)

Binatone have a pedigree when it comes to good quality radios and these latest offerings in the action range promise to follow the form.  

This particular model is actually a face lifted version of its predecessor the action 1000's from a couple of years ago which