This is the pilbox that I couldn’t find the other week, it was pretty hard to see until it just popped out the bushes at us. It is in amazing condition apart from the fact that it is falling into a ditch. There are two shots of the interior which has many original features still. I would love to go back and actually go inside it. If I do I will get some more shots. Anyway here they are, click them to enlarge them or go over to the main photo gallery and check them out.

Years ago Ben and I went hunting for stuff relating to WW2 in Enfield. We took some photos of stuff and noted most of it down. Now that the Internet is widespread finding this sort of information is still pretty hard, there are some websites about that have recorded a lot of these things. I spent some time looking at their records and found that some of the ones that Ben and I had found weren’t listed at all and of the ones that were (Gordon Hill Station Pilbox and tank traps) there were no photos. Yesterday I took a walk up the canal to try and find two type 24 Pilboxes listed on a survey from 1997 and these sadly are gone.

In my search for one of the Pilboxes I went up to a bit I have never bothered with as it’s normally closed off and someone has forced the gates open so I took a look. I couldn’t find much. On closer inspection via Google earth and the 1997 survey there should be a Pilbox on this land. As this land is normally closed off I assume it’s still there about 5 metres away in undergrowth from were I was.

Anyway there is another Pilbox of unusal design missing from the survey and listings, I think this is due to the land it is on being closed off in 1997 and the fact that it isn’t really visible from aerial shots either. The Pilbox is located at 51′40′13.32N 0′00′35.66W as you can see from the co-ords this is on the meridian line! It looks like it has been converted in to a bat sanctuary which is cool, here is some shots.

If anyone has any more information about this Pilbox please get in touch. I will try and revisit all the old sites Ben and I looked at in the Winter and they are much easier to located and see without all the leaves and plants over them. If you fancy a bit of Pilbox hunting let me know!

For those interested in Pilboxes in general check out
http://www.pillboxesuk.co.uk/

For Pilboxes and other defense structures near you take a look at the survey
Defence of Britain database

I was just looking around for some reviews of the new Apple iPod line up and after reading a few something became quite clear. All of the reviews I had read had waffled on about this and that in great detail but what was missing from all of them was a proper review of the players sound quality! This after all is a music player (hopefully) and therefore sound quality should take pole position on the check list.

I know that a lot of people have detuned their hearing over time by listening to too many <= 128k mp3 files but their is still no excuse to not give a run down of a units tonal qualities. If a unit sounds good ot should make those nasty low bit rate files sound awful and make them re-encode them using a higher bitrate, or make them search for higher bit rates to download.

From what I have read in a few forums the new iPods are using an Apple branded D/A chip made by Crystal and a new DC coupled output stage. Due to the new DC coupled output stage previous iPod mods will not work, many of these mods were a change in the output capacitor of the previous generations.

Taking a guess at the sound quality is hard, iPods generally have a good neutral sound which I hope they have kept instead of them tuning it to be bright and tizzy or lumpy and bass boosted like many players on the market. The use of the Crystal D/A suggests that it might have a slight treble boost in the top-end that is heard in many designs using a Crystal part. Designs featuring DC decoupling usually present a cleaner bottom end due to the removal of the coupling capacitors, so I’m interested to find out if this is the case with the iPod Touch.

What it really comes down to at the end of the day isn’t what parts they have or haven’t used, it’s the implementation of the internal audio circuits. Hopefully Apple haven’t spent all their time on other parts of the devices and chucked any old textbook circuit with crappy parts in thinking that people don’t really care how it sounds, but they will love this because they can look at their photos now! (Wow)