FarangFlyer

2 weeks ago, I drove down the road, and witnessed numerous locals throwing large amounts of water over every passerby! (Specially entertained trying to hit motorcyclists as they went by, and seemed overjoyed on the occasions when they removed them from said vehicle!)

At that time, I saw on the local news, scenes from places like pattaya, and chiang mai, scenes from something called "songkran" which appears to be an event involving as much water as possible being shed over passersby on the road (from hose pipes, water guns, barrels, etc etc)

Surprisingly, now, after so many gallons (large litres) of water have been thrown away, (at the hottest time of the year here with the least rainfall) people are complaining of a drought!

Surely this is a no brainer right....?

Or am I missing something???

My house is by the river, just 10 minutes from Night Bazaar and Airport

It seems that every time the wind blows or a dark cloud appears, the electric in the whole area goes off.

It's annoying, but enquiries fall on deaf ears.

Ditto. Ruam Chok Market area of Sansai. Power goes off all the time; several times per week. Sometimes for a few minutes and sometimes for up to 3 hours!

Same here in a moo ban area East of Ruam Chok. Regular power outages. I called the electricity helpline number printed on the electricity bill to complain on each ocassion (press 9 for english and skip all the thai pre-recorded crap). I lodged some 32 complaints in the past 3 months! Now when I call they say 'hello Mr G!' which makes me realise two things, 1. I have been complaining way too much, and 2. None of my Thai neighbours have been complaining! Each time I politely ask them to call me back with an ETA as to when the power will be back on, if it is a scheduled outage for maintenance, I have them call me 24 hours before (the printed notice is written in Thai!) and suggest to them that the power supply serving my area must surely have faulty equipment and should be replaced. You get the ocassional....'Have rain in Chiang Mai' bs, but I soon put them right! I asked for a written explaination from their management as to why my supply is so unreliable. They seemed to take that quite seriously, although I am sure I will never get it. Persistancy is key.

Finally, they have now been upgrading this equipment, and the electricity supply has been more reliable than ever in the past 14 days. On the last outage 2 weeks ago for 8 hours of maintenance, I insisted that they provide me with a generator to supply my house with electricity. I could not believe when it actually arrived outside my door 40 minutes later! Judging by the looks I got from some of my neighbours...neither could they!

I used Maxnet for almost 10 years and hardly ever had a problem. When I did, it got sorted out, even sending out a technician once to check my router (which I didn't purchase from them). It turned out to be the router so got it fixed.

In the last couple of months it has got worse and worse. Connection dropping maybe once every 2 mins sometimes!! Then off for half an hour ...

I am guessing that one of the problems is the technicians they are using. I think they are sub contracting out as there are various people up the local telephone pole every other day, they don't seem to work for anybody but are fixing internet.

After 5 days of no internet, frustration, and over 60 calls to maxnet, I am finally back online. Aparently, TT&T the previous owners of 3BB got p*ssed off for some reason and blocked a number of internet connection servers. The one I use in Chiang Mai was one of them. Despite numerous calls to TT&T and 3BB, I was unable to get my net fixed. However, I was lucky enough eventually to get an agent who gave me the number of the technical manager in Chiang Mai, and things moved forward from there. When the engineers eventually came, they disconnected my TOT phone line, put in another line and reconfigured my router. Took about 2 hours, and now I am back online. I am not sure yet how good, fast or stable the new connection is. But time will tell!

Anyone having similar problems, PM me and I will give you the number of the manager in Chiang Mai

Good luck

UPDATE

Finally got through on the 1530 number to someone who was helpful. Her name was Chanista. And she told me that a number of factors could be causing my frequent line drops. One of the possibilities is oversubscription, another is depending on if you have a telephone line installed in your home (for voice calls). I have TOT, and she told me that they have had a number of problems with internet users having TOT lines. She recommended that I remove the line, and she will even assist with the process of doing that. But before hand, she will run some tests at the engineering support end, and also send an engineer out to run some tests before giving her opinion. If in the end, it turns out to be un-correcatble due to over-subscription, she will even tell me thats the case.

I am not holding my breath, but hopefully, one way or the other, this is the light at the end of the tunnel!

Will update later when I have more.

I always wondered what happened to the characted 'MONGO' from the classic movie BLAZING SADDLES! It has now become apparent to me that he has found a senior management position at this retarded internet company.

2.5 years with the old company was virtually flawless. However the new outfit is nothing short of a disaster on all fronts. From the actual level of internet connectivity and service to the customer service agents. Ask them to speak to a manager on the 1103 number, and you have more chance of getting Foi Gras at McDonalds!

Over the past months, the service has progressively deteriorated. It is a complete disaster! Regular server break downs, and line drops are a daily, if not hourly occurance. Equally frequent calls to 1103 are a complete waste of time. I may as well have called the samaritans ; at least they actually listen!!!! I tried to speak to a manager once again today, and they told me to call 1530. That number is even worse. Takes 20 mins to answer the phone. They put you on hold for another 10 minutes and then come back with 2 words and hang up.

The underlying problem, after numerous technical engineer visits revealed that the issue is cronic oversubscription of their service. Its like having 30 seats on a bus and selling 100 tickets! I have resolved to continue with their service, but without paying until they finally cut me off. With their level of compitence, I should be fine until 2011 at the earliest. At which point, I will simply change provider. At this point in time, I really believe that there cannot be a worse ISP in Thialand in any case.

dam_n, it has been down a while. Sent using my oh so slow AIS EDGE connection.

Triple T Maxnet server in CM is down. However, despite that, I can actually connect to it, and surf at a rate of 1 page per hour. Thats about 50% slower than normal lol!

Contacted the good old 1103 (which has been on speed dial for 6 months now). Dont you just love it when you press 9 for english, and the computer bitch continues gibbering nonsense in thai for another 20 minutes, while awaiting the attention of a sub-standard english speaking customer service rep (who must have been sick on both the day of the customer service and english language course!) I was told that the server has been down since 2pm today, and would be online by 8pm tonight. I softly voiced my opinion (gave up shouting 3 months ago!) about the poor internet connection and service provided by maxnet (server offline at least once per month, cable cut once every 2 months and internet unuseable on a daily basis from 5.30pm-10pm). Having been a customer for 3 years, I can only notice that the speed has progressively got slower every time they tell me that they are increasing the broadband speed free of charge! I dread the next time they make this statement! In fact the past 6 months, they really have become intollerable. I asked to speak to some level of management to voice my concerns as a customer, and the call was prompty cut off! Makes me wonder if the management there are actually aware of how dissatisfied most of us are. Does anyone have contact details for a manager in the complaints department there (perhaps send them a link to thai visa!)? Has anyone else had similar experiences and found any solutions? I am not convinced that changing provider is the solution.....devil you know and all that! But perhaps the time has come...

Unfortunately, some of these statements are simply not correct.

1.) anyone who was going to book their flights on PB can actually be happy, because both Saab's were not airworthy and have been rejected during the handover 2 weeks ago at US based Leasing Company Aero Country. Colgan Air used to be the previous owner. So, nothing wrong with this and a good decision was made.

2.) for the ATR's they had on lease, of course BKK Air wanted them back, due to the fact that they need to be in their service during the busiest time of year. ATR's on short distance flights are very high in demand, due to relatively low operating costs.

3.) The 145's needed to be returned to the Leasing Company and to renew the contract was not an option.

OK. Now many may think that this is mismanagement etc., but believe me, it is not easy get 2 - 3 planes in to service. Most of the flying equipment out there is heavy duty flying and those are being sent to the desert, need a couple of months to be reactivated. Law and Registration issues come on top of it.

Leasing a 734 is not an option for them as PB does not have the demand on the PAX side. Also, their destinations require smaller equipment.

From my point of view, I actually think that the decision of terminanting the current operation was a wise idea and most likely saved PB from a big disaster.

My 2 cents ...

Personally speaking, I don't think there was anything wrong with the Saab aircraft. They were never delivered, so delivery condition of the aircraft could never have been checked. Also the below title was published in Thai media today. (Hopefully the Nation will pick up on this so that we can post more details).

Singha beer baron closes operations at PB Air after 19 years

PB Air has closed its operations for good after 19 years in existence and accumulated losses of some 2 billion baht.

The full article can be viewed on the newspapers website that we are not allowed to mention on this forum.

The ATRs are back with Thai.

For now......watch this space!

these secondary destinations were not attractive for bigger airlines, or have limited runways, were B-737 or A-320 can not land. Every airline who would want to could use these airports, in fact I rather think those provincial administrations would welcome every airline with open arms and even offer incentives.....

You will get a 737 into/out of Nakhon Phanom or Sakhon Nakhon no problem with the normal route loads. Of course, passenger numbers would not make the route profitable. Also, to my knowledge within Thailand if an airline wishes to operate a domestic route (exception of Thai Airways), permission must be sought from DCA and Minister of Transport.

Agree about the Saab comment though, with pax numbers, it should be the 'man' for the job. Slower than the ATR though, but still faster than the bus!

As far as I know, Happy Air are operating out of Phuket/Langkawi with one aircraft, which is not yet on the Thai register. Even if it was, I doubt they would have the capacity to add Isaan to their existing routes with only one aircraft.

I would not be surprised, however, to see Nok Air operating these routes in the near future with the ex-Thai Airways ATRs.

I spoke to PB air again yesterday and they said they cannot be sure if they will have the new planes by December and advised me to refund my tickets for November and fly to Udon with another carrier. They confirmed it was a contractual issue with aircraft.

My speculation is that the new planes were late and BKK air tried to hold them to ransom by locking into another contract with them and they said no.

Anyway, a shame and I hope they start flying again soon.

PB has had some issues of late. They gave back their leased Embraer Jets, and wet leased ATRs from Bangkok Airways temporarliy while they sought out new aircraft. However, a few rumours circulating recently (before 1st Nov) suggest that the DCA were not happy for PB to continue operating with another carriers aircraft; and the second rumour was that Bangkok Airways had not been paid, and therefore took the aircraft back.

During this time PB Air had arranged for new aircraft (Saab 340) to be leased from Saab leasing. So far the aircraft have not arrived, and I can only guess that it is due to financial difficulties.

A large majority of the domestic routes in Thailand are controlled to an extent by Thai Airways. PB air previously negotiated these routes. Although at one point Nok Air was keen on operating the Sakhon/Nakhon Phanom routes, they were not allowed. (For another carrier to take up these routes permission must normally be sought from the DCA and Minister of Transport).

I would be surprised now as we arrive into the high season if politicians will allow these routes to go unserviced. So unless PB air start operations agian soon, it would not surprise me to see NOK Air or other carriers operating into Isaan Airports in the near future.

If these routes are particularly important to you, perhaps it wouldn't go amiss to have a chat with your 'city mayor' and have them put political pressure for the routes to be re-serviced. Afterall, it has been tried and tested in Mae Hong Song when Thai Airways planned to pull out, and thanks to city wide protests in the province orcastrated by the Mayor, the route was maintained.

Once again, a big thumbs up for Amnuay Motor Air 2. Here's why I like this place. Brought the wife's car in to get the AC fixed, new film for the windows, and fix the central locks. As soon as we park and start talking to the manager, a team of techs pop the hood and start diagnosing the AC. They ask questions. How long has it been like this? What noises? Then we select the film, here are the pros and cons of each. We agree and out from the office steps an assistant with my name and number written down on a slip of paper--they had my name and number on file from my last visit, over a year ago, and actually remembered me, even though it was a different car. Just wanted to check if I still used the same cell number. They called at the end of the day, car is done. Itemized bill ready and a chat about what was needed. Want to see the failed parts from the AC compressor? Here they are for inspection. You just don't run across this level of service and professionalism every day in Thailand. Sure, Amnuay costs more than the local AC hack shop, but they're worth it.

Go out via the back way at Limping Supermarket where all the flower markets are (Mae Jo Road / Ruam Chok) and turn right, about 300m on the right there is an aircon repair shop for cars. Its a wooden hut type deal with signs in Thai (U-Turn required to reach it). The guy is helpful, and cheapest that I have found so far in Thailand. If its a big job, he will see you home and drop your car off to your home again when he completes the work. He will also guarantee all of his work. Bit limited in his English ability though.

I have driven the road many times and everybody I know who does it regularly uses the same route. The last time I did it was in rainy weather and I had my GPS on. Nong Khai to Lampang was 555km and the driving time was jut under 7 hours so Chiangmai - Udon should be about 7.5 hours. Denchai-Chatrakarn-Nakhon Thai-Phu Rua-Wang Saphung-Nong Bua Lamphu.

I have done the route by Bus, car, direct flights and in-direct flights via BKK.

Obviously the easiest way is to fly direct. However, I am not sure that the direct flights will start up until mid january despite the website from Nok. The 2 Thai Airways ATRs in CNX are about to be transferred to NOK, and NOK MINI is awaiting the delivery of the Saab 340s from Australia. So far as I know, no dates have been finalised yet. If you are able to book on-line for these flights, be prepared that they may end up being cancelled. In the same way that earlier this month a number of people found out that their PB Air flights had been cancelled after Bangkok Airways took their ATRs back from PB. If you are coming here as a tourist though, perhaps a reasonable holiday/travel insurance plan will cover any additional expense if you had to fly via BKK to Udon in any even of your flights being cancelled.

The issue travelling via BKK is getting good connection times. You can fly 1 2 Go or Nok to Don Muang, then Nok to Udon. Otherwise its Thai Airways or Air Asia to Suvarnabhumi then Air Asia or Thai to Udon. Not particularly cheap or convenient.

There are two possible routes to go to Udon, via Pitsanulok/Khon kaen (longer) or take the short cut next Uttaradit Eastbound, towards Loei. It would take about 8 hours in reasonable traffic. The roads are ok; but via Khon Kaen, it gets a bit mountainous close to Petchabun, but the views are spectacular (likely close to 10 hours on this route)!

There is a VIP bus (and 1st Class) bus nightly to/from Udon, leaving around 8pm, and arriving 8am next day. The bus is one of the older VIP busses, so not as much leg room as I would like. Cost is cheap though. (650 baht I think). There are 2 companies operating this route on alternate days, so if you call one and they say "no bus today", call the other outfit!

Today's Bangkok Airways Flight 266 that skid and crashed into the Samui Airport Tower is not new for this aircraft.

A couple of posters stated this aircraft French made ATR 72-500 is safe. Actually it is plagued by a history of problems.

American Eagle and Delta Airlines grounded their whole fleet after a few problems and then removed all of them permanently from service in any temperate climate routes.

The ATR 72-500 has a history of failure and accidents related to:

-Fuel Exhaustion and accidents caused by malfunctioning fuel indicators

-Engine and component icing problems even in areas with warmer climates. (icing more a condition of humidity and altitude than just location.)

Firstly, my thoughts go out to the family of the Captain who lost his life today in this accident.

A few clarifications as reading this post as follows (in no particular order):

The ATR-72 is a French built turbo-prop aircraft. Bangkok Airways operate this aircraft, and also the A319 & Md80s into Samui.

Bangkok Airways are the owner/operator of Samui Airport, and no other Air Operators in Thailand fly to Samui. Thai Air, and a few others sell tickets for this flights through a code sharing agreement with Bangok Airways. Bangkok Airways restrict competition on this route by charging substantially for any other airlines who wish to land at their airport and therefore make it an un-profitable route for other carriers.

There is no re-fuelling facilities at Samui, and therefore aircraft carry round-trip fuel on this route (enough for A-B, B-A (or C) plus fuel for diversion). So if required, the aircraft would have had more than enough fuel to divert to a number of other airports.

I am not sure of the category of weather station at Samui, but expect that it would be failry low category, and more than likely, the control tower would be the best source of weather information for the pilots.

The control tower at Samui is fairly basic, with no radar, due to the low number of daily flights into the airport, and also since most approaches flown there are in visual flight conditions (VMC).

The ATR 72 has had a number of problems as mentioned already. The fuel problem was caused by indicators that could be (physically) fitted to the ATR42 or 72, but will only function correctly when fitted to the appropriate aircraft.

Icing has been a problem in this aircraft, but having flown most of this week in that area, there has been little icing around at the typical altitudes that the ATR72 operates.

The ATR 42 is equipped with weather radar which detects precipitation. Dense areas of precipitation are highlighted in red/magenta and normally indicate the presence of Towering cumulus clouds or Cumulanimbus (CBs) clouds. The latter should be avoided by all aircraft, due to the severe turbulence/wind-shear associated with them.

Approaches are not normally carried out (nor take offs performed) if CBs and/or Thunderstorms are present in the vicinity of the aerodrome. This principle was established a number of years ago after a DC10 in the USA crashed short of landing due to severe windshear associated with a thunderstorm. The normal practice is to wait until the weather clears before attempting take off or landing. However, I have observed in Thailand aircraft arriving and departing during thunderstorm activity.

The flight computer on-board the ATR will give instantaneous wind read outs at the actual aircrafts altitude. By monotoring this during the approach the crew can establish the likelihood of windshear presence.

If an approach is flown into deteriorating weather/turbulent/wind conditions, it can be terminated by the pilot at any point, and a missed approach flown. Even on touchdown, a safe go-around manouvre can be executed.

The ATR 72 is equipped with reverse pitch (Beta mode) which can be used to slow the aircraft on landing. Failure of one (left/right) can result in severe difficulty maintaining directional control.

Wheel brakes provide the most efficient stopping power to most aircraft. Failure of one side (left/right) can result in severe difficulty in maintaining directional control.

If heavy rain was present at the time of the accident, resulting in a wet runway, again, directional control can be difficult if aquaplaning occurs (similar to that which may be experienced in your car on a wet road).

As regards commercial pressures, all pilots are taught that safety comes first, therefore if deemed unsafe to land at an airport, the majority of pilots will divert (or hold until weather clears).

From the distant photo, it looks as though the aircraft has landed in bad weather, on a wet runway, and possibly a strong gust of (cross) wind has caused the aircraft to start to deviate from the runway centreline, and it may not have been possible to regain the runway due to aquaplaning. As this happens, the Captain will decide instantly wether to keep the aircraft on the ground, or to attemp a go-around. If the aircraft is not straight at the time, a go-around will be the less likely choice. I expect that the flight crew did not have an accurate picture of the surface weather conditions at Samui at the time of their landing.

Hope this helps clear up some of your queries.

It would also be nice to see the press in Thailand like the Bangkok Post and The Nation delving more deeply into the routes of these problems and exposing them fully. Had these types of internet issues been experienced in the UK (for example), Maxinet would have already had their share of prime time tv on programmes like BBC Watchdog etc!

From time to time all companies providing a service will run into difficulties of one sort or another, and as a result their customers will suffer. But at the same time, as customers, we expect any problems to be dealt with in a professional and timely manner. So far Maxinet has niether acted professionally, nor promptly.

In the mean time, I look forward to having my internet back ASAP! (but I am not holding my breath!)

Try asking questions about the slow internet conection from Maxnet and the difficulties to get information or answeres in the Bangkok Post forum. I tried it - 12 h later my post was delited and I was banned permanently from the forum. I send them an e-mail asking why I was banned and my post delited, but I didn't got an answer.

.....Any conspiracy theories out there?

Worst its ever been here

Bangkok just now:

Agreed!

I would like to post speedtest results for connection with LA (West coast USA) server, but speedtest returned multiple latency errors!

For me, this is the slowest days internet so far in this 3 week long ordeal; I hope it is not a measure of what may be to come!

After spending some time reading this thread on Maxinet, I don't believe that checking your line SNR and latency etc will resolve any problems of late (with the exception of folks experiencing longer term issues, for example longer than 1 month). Nor do I believe that using another DNS will help; I have tried this on a number of ocassions, and compared the speedtest resuts over multiple countries/servers, and I noted very little difference in average speeds, nor any significant improvement in webpage loading times. I have even spoken to friends who have other packages with Maxinet, like Premier etc and they too seem to be experiencing exactly the same problems as I have had recently with Indy. The plain and simple fact is that MaxiNet have failed to deliver the service that we, the customers, are paying for.

I have been a Maxinet Indy customer for 2 years now, and have never had cause to complain about the service that I have recieved. Until now. Yes, we all know that a server may go down for upto 24 hours, or an under-sea cable may be cut and restric the internet for a few days, but we accept these as part and parcel of our internet package, in the knowledge that our ISPs are doing their upmost to resolve them as quickly as possible. But when our internet service is at best severly degraded, and at worst completely unuseable for a 3 week period, we have to ask why. And when we eventually discover that it has been due to our ISPs failure to purchase sufficient international bandwidth, it makes me, for one, a tad angry! One of the most frustrating issues here is the not only the lack of honest and accurate information from Maxinet technical support, but it was the initial denial of any problem existing (your modem/router is hot!), to the later story that things would be fixed in 2 weeks, and the most recent report that I have had from them stating that (although they have now allegedly purchased more international bandwidth last week) things will be fixed next month.

Ultimately, this leads me to believe that the best course of action in order to resolve this issue is not playing around with internet and router settings, but to with-hold any further payments to Maxi Net until this issue is resolved. If you have pre-paid (as I have) then get down to your local TT&T shop and DEMAND a refund. I am quite sure that they will laugh in my face when I do this, but I wonder how long that will continue when, each day when I visit them and they refuse a refund, I will simply ask them to send the TT&T internet engineer to come to my house and check my internet. I can happily do that until either the problem is resolved, or refunds are made. In jai yen yen style of course! In my experience, most of these companies operate on the 'path of least resistance' mode. So perseverance is the key. Its not the meagre sum of money that I care about being refunded, but in the consequences it will have on Maxinet if we all with-hold payment or demand a refund. Maxinet will not only have to refund a significant amount of money, but will have to justify these losses to its board of directors, shareholders etc. A group of people that more than likely have been kept in the dark regarding the true nature of what has been happening with Maxinet. Hopefully this will be enough to force resignations of those responsible for this incompetence, and for safeguards to be put in place to significantly reduce the likely-hood of this re-occurring in the future.

It would also be nice to see the press in Thailand like the Bangkok Post and The Nation delving more deeply into the routes of these problems and exposing them fully. Had these types of internet issues been experienced in the UK (for example), Maxinet would have already had their share of prime time tv on programmes like BBC Watchdog etc!

From time to time all companies providing a service will run into difficulties of one sort or another, and as a result their customers will suffer. But at the same time, as customers, we expect any problems to be dealt with in a professional and timely manner. So far Maxinet has niether acted professionally, nor promptly.

In the mean time, I look forward to having my internet back ASAP! (but I am not holding my breath!)

bump..

Has anyone been to an airshow at Don Mueang? Is it worth the effort?

Will many of the Thai aircraft importers/manufacturers be there?

Is anyone planning to go to the air show at DMK this coming weekend?

I am flying out of DMK on Thursday, and found that the Amari Airport hotel is doing some pretty good rates (1000 Baht per night) so will stay Friday night and get 2 days of Airshow out of it.

Another point; does anyone know of any companies in LOS looking for experienced pilots? General Aviation would be nice, but would look at any option right now....

Cheers

FF

Sadly, after all this no doubt excellent advice it looks like the lads at Heathrow, Shanghai or BKK managed to render my new barometer inoperable en route from Blighty. Anyone suggest a place to get it fixed? I doubt Amorn would even know what it was

An avionics engineer should be able to sort it properly. I may be flying out of Chiang Mai middle of next week. If I find one there, I will PM you contact details.

It may be that the aneroid capsules have been damaged though, in which case repair is probably not practical.

And there I was, very interested in the 3BB..

What a waste of time.

If only laws were stronger, maybe we could do something about these misleading details.

I really don't think stronger laws would do much with internet... see Malaysia for example, lagging behind Thailand on internet.

I just went down to my local TT&T shop in San Sai, Chiang Mai last week (to tear them a new arseh*le about cr*p internet), and managed to drive straight past it first time, as they had changed the appearance of the shop. It now sports a Triple T logo etc, and after a 10 minute 'discussion' with the wife which went like óh yes it is' 'oh no it isnt' We discovered that it was!

Once inside the staff were so clueless that it had to be TT&T in disguise! I aksed them why the logo changed and got a baffeled look in response.

I've found subs for one movie I want to watch but when I play it all I see is strange script, as if VLC player can't recognise Thai script, is there anything I can do about this?

Do a google search for - Thai fonts free download

Install a few new Thai fonts in your windows/fonts directory

And make sure that you have 'support for East Asian Languages (inc Thai)' Installed, and a Thai language option in the language bar.

That should solve your problem.......

If not, you could always install the English language pack on your wife!

Your GPS altitude is calibrated on the GPS elipsoid, most likely WGS84.

Pressure decreases with altitude. So it will make a difference if you are at a significantly different altitude from the weather station where you are taking your readings from. 30ft=1mb approx (27 is usually a bit closer to the truth in the sort of atmospheric conditions that we have in Thailand). This is why barometric pressure is normally given with reference to sea-level, and it is this that you would normally want to set when calibrating.

Within 30kms of the weather station, pressure should not change too much (on a calm day), unless you are around Lampang which for some reason seems to have quite different pressures from Chiang Mai (with the elevation difference removed of course).

By all means use a GPS fix to obtain your altitude, depending on the satellites, it is usually accurate to 100ft (or 3mb)

(WGS 84 Datum is solely for Lat/Long co-ordinate position)

If you fancied an adventure, you could always take your baro to the weather office at Chiang Mai Airport and set it up from there!

For more modern methods, most weather data can be displayed on your sidebar (Vista, Win 7) using the weather network gadget.

!

If you know so well why not putting the needles in your body yourself?

Expensive? If you think about the years of studying and have a quality practice, And your health is important for you Nothing is expensive!

I am a regular customer at Mungkala and have absolutely Nothing to complain.

Hurray for Mungkala!!

self needle placement sounds good in theory and works on the easily accessible places but impossible for the back etc. When its done right and the needles are twisted it does hurt some and its kind of hard to do that yourself. Believe me I have experimented but most practioners I know just about never place their own needles. Too easy to barter with others.

That's great you love Mungkala.

Too lazy one morning to battle the Toyoto Vigo drivers and the moat area one way system to get to my usual doctor, I stumbled upon a small GP office behind the Limping Supermarket (Raum Chok/San Sai area) on Second Ring Road. I had a swollen gland, and the doctor there proceeded to administer acupuncture to various areas. After numerous questions from the Doc of 'Feel better?' I finally lied, and told him yes (to avoid further mutilation and pain). It was otherwise quite an amusing experience, as the Doc reminded me in someways of a pro-active version of Basil Fawlty!) He then gave me some pills, relieved me of 100 Baht and told me that I would be better in 2 days.....

2 days later, still sufferring, my regular GP Doc told me I had the mumps!

LOL

I have had thesame problem as you for a long time, but now its back to normal again, with the exemption that i cant make international phonecalls via x-lite (SIP) or skype! Witch i could before this problem started a few weeks ago. The call either doesnt connect at all or ive got a like 5-7 sec delay in my calls. What could have happend when i got exactly (or even better ping) then before and thesame up/download speed.

Thank you in advance

Another thread on SKYPE /TT&T problems here:

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/Problems-Sky...60#entry2879060

Tony Dabbs knows the insurance business in Thailand. I have a health Ins. for my wife and myself with one of the Thai companies that Tony represents .

Recently I was very sick and diagnosed with typhoid after being taken to the hospital by ambulance. When I was in the hospital billing office settling the bill I had some questions about what my ins. was suppose to pay. I called Tony and within minuets faxes were sent and his wife (business partner) was on the phone sorting it out.

He represents many Thai Insurance companies and I highly recommend him.

-O

Orangutan,

I second that. I have dealt with Tony for insurance purposes for almost 3 years now. He is very good, extremely knowledgeable, and professional. As a broker, he has access to a wealth of information from most insurance companies and can not only help you select the best policy, but save you a significant amount of time and the frustration of actually hunting around yourself. Price-wise, he was certainly not any more expensive than going to the selected insurer directly, and you can deal with him in English, or his wife in Thai for any queries. He certainly found me the best car insurance policy!

On a side note, I actually contacted BUPA Thailand for a quote through their website last week. I indicated that I would like them to contact me by telephone, NOT by email, and the idiots did not call me........you got it....they sent me an email! So I will be contacting Tony in the near future to look into health insurance for me!

Hi All,

I'm experienceing problems with inbound voice on Skype. I use a True 4Mb ADSL connection through a Netgear DG834G router.

When using Skype, the people I talk to can hear me no problem. However, incoming voices are garbled, patchy and echoey... you can't understand anything the person at the other end is saying. Again, they can hear me no problem.

Are there any issues with True that someone else has experienced here?

Or, is it the router settings? I have tried to adjust the MTU packet size settings in the router, but it doesn't really help. Can anyone reccommend some router settings to check or adjust that might help?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

Cheers,

--M.

I adventured the same problem though I am with Maxnet/TT&T. Six weeks ago, Skype worked, FTP worked. Today FTP to my German server works slow, Skype is scrambled. The reason: Maxnet sold more and more internet accounts, thus the bandwidth of the international lines, which they have to lease, are not sufficient anymore, and are congested most of the time. They have to buy more bandwidth, but for those companies profits are more important than customer satisfaction.

You can check your international bandwith by using http://www.speedtest.net/index.php . There you can choose the server closest to your SKYPE-Parner and find out. You also find statistics about your provider. In my case Maxnet offers 3m down and 0.5m up, which is sufficient, but only up to Bangkok, Macao and Hongkong when using Skype.

I remember a situation in Macao, where the company named CTM, which has the monopoly for all fixed telephone lines and the internet, provided a "first class" connectivity within Macao and the neighbouring Hongkong. But CTM did not invest in the lease of more international bandwidth. One day, the big companies in Macao stood up, complained, and threatened the local government to move to Hongkong, if there is no improvement of the international bandwidth provided.

The government then forced CTM to increase the bandwidth considerably. The 6 million dollar investment reduced their corporate gains from 55 million dollars to 49 million dollars in that year.

Top countries download/upload: Thailand Nr.67/55. That speaks for itself.

I've just spoken to TT&T customer support people at 1630 today. This is what I was told:

'We have plobrem with International Bandwidth, but we buy more already. Plobrem not yet fix for more one week, so internet slowly until end this mun. Maybe next mun can work again ok'

Doesn't sound very promising!

I told them that I want a refund since I didn't believe that they have given me the service that I paid for this month, and was told to go to my local TT&T shop. File a complaint and then ask for money back! Will see how that goes. It's not the 590 baht that matters, but if everyone who has been affected by this problem follows this procedure for a refund, perhaps it will prompt pro-active solutions from TT&T in the future. Surely if no one paid TT&T this month, that would be much more costly to them than actually buying more bandwidth to fix the problem.

Regarding SKYPE and TT&T Indy package; I have used this for the past 2 years, and have had no SKYPE problems (or other problems) until 2 weeks ago.

If anyone else tries for the refund, let me know how you get on!

Cheers

FF

Thanks for the replies.

I finally figured out that this router - Netgear DG834G v4 - has problems with the latest firmware update which I applied recently. I downgraded the firmware to version 5.01.09 and now iSkype works just fine.

Cheers,

--M.

Ive been having the same problems with SKYPE recently, but with TTT Maxinet 3MB. It seems I can be heard clearly, but the sound that I hear is scratchy, and very, very broken. Not sure if this is symptomatic of the problems TTT have been having recently or if there is any solution?