Wendy Windblows Service Information

It is not always possible to get a damaged or otherwise off-air Wendy back on-air immediately. especially in winter, when weather conditions for outdoor repair work are often impossible! Access problems or continued high winds often prevent me from fixing things immediately. Most of the stations are in extremely exposed locations, and I have to wait until winds die down before it is safe to climb the mast to repair/replace things... Sometimes, landowners limit access to the stations until the fields/tracks have dried out - and I have to abide by their wishes, as they mostly allow the Wendy stations on their land as a favour to me, and you.

I try to keep out-of-service, and anticipated return-of service data on this page up-to-date.

If you need more information, please contact me

If the Website Data crashes.....

Remember, if the website data feed goes down for any reason, you can still gain access to the Wendy data by calling the stations direct, 24 hours a day. Each station runs independently, so if the central data feed to the website goes down, phone access is unaffected.

Station Telephone Numbers are at: Subscribers' Phone Page

Latest Service Data for Thursday 13th November 2008

Apology

I have not been able to get out to faults as quickly as I would like recently - a bad knee injury I got earlier this year caused me to have an operation in July to try and correct things. All was going well, but in the last month or so it went gone wrong, and I had very limited mobility - I couldn't get up ladders, for instance, and even being in the car for any distance was agony. (let alone the business of getting in and out of the damn thing, which took me ages). I was taking more drugs than Kate Moss - but, alas, getting no pleasure from them!

As the current faults (Poole, Hayling, Weston) are approx a 4 hour drive away (I live in Sheffield), and involve considerable physical work, it has very difficult for me to attend to them. I am sorry - I usually try to get major faults fixed asap. Please bear with me, and I will try to get things done as soon as possible. Having said that - these south coast stations get very little traffic (see below) and I think it is probably uneconomic to continue them - no one has complained of their absence! I think the core customers for Wendy are now all HG/PG, using the inland sites. So unless there is a late storm of protest, I may just remove them shortly.

The good news is my leg has started to respond to physio and other treatment, and I will soon be able to get out and about to deal with things as normal.

Weston-Super-Mare Pier Burnt Down!

As you may be aware, the pier at Weston Super Mare burnt to a cinder on 28th July - taking the Wendy Station with it. There seems no possibility of getting it back on the air at the same site until the pier is rebuilt. Attetmpts to find an alternative site have been unsuccessful - but if you know of somewhere where it might be possible to site a station, please let me know. I am off down there in a few days to look out an alternative places to mount the unit. Weston is the one coastal station that is still popular, and that people miss - I have had quite a few calls about it, so intend to replace it if possible.

Outstanding Station Problems

Poole and Hayling Island have gone off the air..

Mind you, no one has complained, and these stations are of no interest to Wendy's core HG/PG users, so I may yet remove them if the cost of repair is too great - there are lots of free coastal weather sources now, which makes me think the economics of these Wendy stations is no longer viable.

Portland is due to be removed this winter anyway, as the site is changing hands, and the new owner wants us to remove it. It gets very little traffic (see above) so I have no plans to replace it.

So, I will be concentrating purely on the core Hang Gliding/Paragliding stations in future.

I have a report of a direction inaccuracy at Mercury. I'll check it when I go down next week.

Ditto for Parlick - some direction inaccuracies reported, which I will investigate.

No more faults that I am aware of.... if you know of any, please tell me!

Contacting Me re Faults and Other Problems:

For fastest response, Text Rod on 07971-846-153

Next Fastest....... Freephone: 0800-358-0405

Or, if it is not urgent, then........... Click Here to Email

By the way, if you want to know the sort of stuff I have to do to keep all this running,

here I am refurbishing the Dyke and Firle Wendy stations....

No other problems we are aware of. But if you know of any, please contact us