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Oh winnie, THANK YOU! Your tips are extremely well received!

I was rather hoping for mobile signal as I'm self employed and need internet access for the laptop through my mobile phone to get at email. Still, that can be got around by driving somewhere that does have a signal. I am with T-Mobile...

Another thing, the laptop has a gizmo that lets it show freeview channels... providing the aerial is good! So would I need to take a long aerial cable? (to go from the socket by the electric hook up to the laptop). Headsets all round - we won't be annoying the other campers by blaring it out!

Sounds like I'm going to be sat there playing with electric gizmo's all day - far from it! Wifey's pregnant (due Dec) so we just want to chill out, and we can spend a week there as long as I'm reachable by email. We like the peace and quiet, and as far out in the middle of nowhere is great by us! I just hope and pray the weather is good when we go - we've already cancelled once due to the awful weather. Due now to go mid August.

Was the ground waterlogged at all?

Hi Markos,

the campsite wasn't waterlogged just extremely wet from rain,don't think I said but it is an adults only site due to the streams running both sides but don't think it would flood easily as they are both well down even in the recent dowpours we have had,on a nice day if you walk the length of the site there is a lovely peaceful area with benches where you can watch the  weir, I believe the salmon leap up there at sometime of the year think it's sept. not sure, w'ere in gloucs at the moment just heading home b....y weathers lovely today, had to come back this way for a funeral otherwise would have stayed there till today rain or not!!  hope you have a good time it's a nice ride over the moors to Lynton and Lymouth if you have time

We had Vodafone down there, i'm on Orange but didn't take it, there was one lady who had orange and she could get some signal but only after walking half round the camp site, we had to travel quite a way towards Minehead before we got any signal!!

the fella there provides very long aeiral cables from the van to the EHU! we have a satellite but didn't use it as we thought the five channels would be enough. by the way although this is going off the original thread you say you have a laptop. I want want for when we are away how do you go about using one without a mains phone line not that very up on these things? any hints and tips would be welcome  We're finally back home now end of hols for now need to plan the next one

Hi Winnie, well it's surprisingly straight forward - at least it is with T-Mobile. They offer a service called Web and Walk where by I can connect my mobile phone to the laptop via the cable that came with it (plugs into the USB socket). Then your computer recognises it as a "modem". If you use the CD that comes with the T-Mobile phone it sets the laptop up to simply connect to the Internet. Note this is using something called GPRS which is a fair bit faster than "dial up" you get at home - not as fast as broadband though. Web and Walk cost me £3.50 for the week to have it turned on. Give your mobile phone service provider a call and explain you'd like to connect your laptop to the internet via your mobile phone and see what the options are.

Now, there is another way to connect to broadband. Your laptop needs to be "wireless", i.e. it can connect to "WiFi Hotspots", sometimes called "Wireless Access Points". The costs vary, but a lot of campsites now have WiFi hotspots actually up to the pitch! UKCS site has a section devoted to these (see here). If your laptop isn't a new'ish one with "wireless" built in you can buy a "WiFi adapter" (either used in a USB or a PCMCIA socket) for about £25. With a bit of poking and clicking it will detect if you're within a wifi area and enable you to connect up. Most McDonalds (if not all) have WiFi (supplied via BT's Openzone I think) as do many pubs and hotels and even some trains now. I've seen it at really expensive prices, and I've also seen it as low as £1 a day.

For me I *must* have an internet connection as I run my own web business and cannot be away from it for any real length of time. Plus of course having the web to hand means we can look up info on local areas, maps, etc. etc.

Can't wait to get down to Exe Valley and we're hoping and praying that the weather will be kind to us in August - we've got a week down there.

PS Sorry to hear about the funeral.