* Posts by teabag36

12 publicly visible posts • joined 28 Feb 2014

Buy with your head, drive with your heart: Alfa Romeo 4C Coupe

teabag36

The F type certainly is brilliant and has luxury and speed. It doesn't have the added lightness of the Alfa - that ain't cheap. Very different horses methinks.....

teabag36

Re: WOW

Well I've driven Elises (never owned) and Caterhams - great cars for sure. The Alfa felt a lot nicer than the Elise and rather more stylish.

teabag36

WOW

A stunning looking car. Looks even better in the flesh. A Elise done properly. A Boxster with style, soul and passion. Well done Alfa!

Volvo V60 Polestar: Speak softly, carry a big stick, dress like a Smurf

teabag36

Re: Blimey

A challenge: can you name anymore transverse straight 6s?

Jaguar F-Type: A beautiful British thoroughbred

teabag36

What a brilliant article.

I'm here and interested in a superbly engineered British car. I'm so glad Ford's bean counters sold it off to the Indians. Credit to them for knowing how to run a car business as Jag and Land Rover are focussed on making great cars and not rebodied Modeos.

I'm not Arab, Chinese and rich, but its still a desirable thing and I was pleased to read about it.

German iron meets Monaco's highlands: Audi A1 review

teabag36

Re: Sums?

Yes, do we know if the engine has a 120 deg crank - as the coward says, this makes for a nice smooth engine (reminds me of the Wartburg - 1000cc triple with 120 crank. The fact it was a 2 stroke made it even smoother

Alfa Romeo Giulietta Quadrifoglio Verde: Fun, but not for all

teabag36

Re: Driven Alfas for years

Hi,

I too have had several Alfas (and a Lancia Fulvia - which was truely epic). They were completely reliable (well, my 33 let me down once - Bosch electronic ignition module - but that's german electrics for you).

I've also driven the Giulietta (both in the UK and Italy). It was quick and quirky, but not less involving than say the 156.

I do hope cars aren't converging into mediocracy - Alfa is one of the last hopes.

VW's Scirocco diesel: A sheep in Wolfsburg’s clothing

teabag36

Re: Scirocco:

A tedious Golf coupe with as much charisma as an East German caravan site. Yawn.

Caterham Seven 160 review: The Raspberry Pi of motoring

teabag36

Light Car Challenge

Great article. The AZ-1 mention appreciated - I've always wanted one.

The 160 - a super car. The last time I really enjoyed driving was in my brother's Caterham - its also the only car I've ever spun.

There aren't many cars I have taken out to drive, just for the fun of it. The Caterham being one, my 10in mini being the other.

The key is lightness. I really struggled to buy a car weighing under a tonne which has any fun factor at all. The Caterham is to expensive BUT, lightness brings dynamic response and driver satisfaction.

So, no that I'm ready to get a new car, what can I buy that's under a tonne, exciting for less than 15k?

Jaguar Sportbrake: The chicken tikka masala of van-sized posh cars

teabag36

No alternative

In praise of the Jag, someone who might pretend to have an imagination, has little choice in this sector anymore. Saab have gone, Alfa have nothing in the bracket, the french seem to have abandoned the sector to the germans. This leaves us with hard suspension, heavy steering - to make it feel solid, but no feel or connection to the road, zero throttle response and no flair. Yawn. I blame the reviewers who seem obsessed by German is great. Not in my garage.

A big shame, but that ought to leave the field open to the Jag - which is great - and British.

teabag36

Re: Jaguars are astonishingly awful in the snow

A nameless former collegue would not dare to venture into work in his 3 series Beemer when the snow fell - the car was un-drivable - BMW - the ultimate skiving machine

New radio tech could HALVE mobe operators' bandwidth needs

teabag36

I must agree with Mr Robinson's comments earlier. The practical numbers are difficult. Even in a portable device the TX power would be 33dBm (2W) and reference sensitivity, say -110dBm (that's 0.1 picoW BTW).

What the technique is doing is subtracting a huge number from another huge number to derive something very tiny.

So, summarizing my thoughts:

this techniques is pretty old.

modern processing may be making it more feasible, but still, I suspect, not practical.

the degree of isolation claimed is still not enough to double the bandwidth for Operators (as the headlines would have you believe) in a practical cellular network.

the degree of isolation in a practical device will be significantly lower than demonstrated

the processing power required with today's technology will still be battery drain

better isolation is achievable at higher frequencies.

So I'm not surprised that suggested applications are all at high frequencies, with low TX power, short range and for mains powered equipment - like a repeater.

Interesting, but not practical yet.