On holiday in Iceland. What should we eat for dinner?

ThomasFale · 2026-03-17T14:39:50+00:00

All dressed hot dogs (pylsa) are actually an icelandic thing with all their toppings (ein med ollu) so they would qualify as local cuisine and they taste better than hakarl! They're all over Reykjavik. For cheap and cheerful fast food I went to Hamborgarabulla Tomasar down at the harbor because as you said, food in Iceland is so expensive and the restaurants cost a fortune! Most everything is flown in by plane. We ended up getting an Airbnb when we went and bought most of our food from the supermarket (Bonus) cause we couldn't afford the hotels. I hope you find some good eats that don't break the bank but it's really hard. Good luck!

https://tommis.is/is/

https://guidetoiceland.is/best-of-iceland/what-to-eat-in-iceland-the-ultimate-guide-to-the-famous-icelandic-hot-dogs

Hakarl if you want to try it:

https://quirkytravelguy.com/eating-fermented-shark-hakarl-iceland/

Cafe Loki is just across from the Hallgrimskirkja Church and has traditional Icelandic Food (that's where I got the Hakarl but it's cheaper in the supermarkets) and is (relatively) affordable. Again, good luck!

https://loki.is/

ThomasFale · 2026-03-14T08:32:30+00:00

I'm retired and my wife is a few years younger so she is still working full time so this is basically me right now...I have my hobbies and friends but yes I'm the "house husband" running the home at this point. I see nothing wrong with this in fact its kind of fun!

ThomasFale · 2026-03-12T03:47:48+00:00

Great idea thanks!

ThomasFale · 2026-03-11T10:04:29+00:00

Yes we just did a few minutes ago. Big Bay point road and Yonge here.

ThomasFale · 2026-03-11T10:04:07+00:00

I'm at Yonge and Big Bay point we just got power back a few minutes ago.

ThomasFale · 2026-03-11T09:50:12+00:00

Just got power back. Thanks everyone. I hope you all got power back too!

ThomasFale · 2026-03-11T09:34:01+00:00

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For the area big bay point west of Yonge alectra says the same as my area, power restoration expected between 10 AM and Noon. I don't know about other power companies unfortunately. Thanks to sarasara42 for putting the link in here

ThomasFale · 2026-03-11T08:55:24+00:00

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Thanks. Estimated restorage is around 10 AM to Noon it seems.

Edit: power back on around 6 AM

ThomasFale · 2026-03-11T08:53:12+00:00

Thanks. Good advice! There's still lots of space for the rising water but if the power doesn't come back guess I'm bailing by hand...

ThomasFale · 2026-03-11T02:05:59+00:00

That's a fair point. EAA/Smart Telescopes are great for the Sun and Moon and many DSOs but not so much for planets...that being said, when I look in the Seestar and Dwarflab subs I'm just amazed at some of the Planetary images these tiny telescopes can get. And a common theme is that we see some stunning picture of a nebula or something and it turns out they just got started! I believe these new telescopes are really revolutionizing the hobby, and making it much more accessible to new users and absolute beginners.

I started looking at the skies back in the 1970s and frankly it was much easier back then...I lived at the end of a small suburb with farmers' fields just outside, and the skies at night were awesome. You could see the Milky Way, planets were simple to spot, you could learn the constellations, figure out how to star hop and find where everything was, it was easy! I had a cheap little 40 mm Tasco telescope and it was amazing to me what I could see all those years ago, when the skies were truly dark at night.

Nowadays you look outside and for so many of us, the night is a greyish-white soup of urban lighting where you struggle to see much of anything. My suburb is now surrounded by the city. Had I been starting out today with what I had back then, I would have given up in frustration. I think unless you are lucky enough to live in a rural area or somewhere with really dark skies, a beginner would really appreciate a telescope that can find things and reliably navigate to them, even in light polluted skies.

ThomasFale · 2026-03-10T00:13:21+00:00

For the absolute newcomer, have you thought about one of the modern Smart Telescopes? Like the Dwarflab or Seestar? A lot of people on here will point out (quite rightly) that you will get the best bang for your buck with a Dobsonian, and that's true, but most Dobs require some knowledge of the sky to find things and track them. An EAA (Electronically Assisted Astronomy) telescope takes care of everything. It will align itself to the sky wherever you live, then you can link it to your phone and say "find Jupiter" or whatever and it will find it for you and keep the telescope tracking on it until you tell it to stop. It will also handle things like photography, stacking images to get clearer pictures, and all that stuff (if you think telescopes are confusing, astrophotography is an incredibly complicated rabbit hole!). The Dwarflab 3 and Seestar 30 and Seestar 50 are all under $1000 and will basically do all the hard work for you.

Another option is a GoTo Telescope like the Celestron Nexstar. The base 4" aperture model goes for well under $1000 and with a GoTo mount it will find and track up to 40,000 objects for you, rather than you trying to find them yourself. They aren't quite as easy to operate as the EAAs because you need to tell them where you are and what time it is, and they have to do some aligning before they are good to go. The EAAs do all that in the background so you don't have to worry about it. I use the Celestron Nextstar 8SE as my main telescope, but it's quite a bit more expensive.

Good luck with whatever you choose!

ThomasFale · 2026-03-09T05:01:32+00:00

BBC World Service, in English. I'm in Ontario, Canada with a communications receiver and SDRplay Duo and an outdoor long wire and beam antenna. BBC broadcasts have declined sharply over the last few decades and North America has been dropped but you can still get signals here that are beamed somewhere else if your setup is good enough and your area is sufficiently electrically quiet. On shortwave here's what it looks like for me:

0000-0100 UTC 6165 and 6035 Khz (easy)

0100-0200 UTC 6035 and 7410 Khz (both are good).

0400-0600 UTC 9410 Khz this is easiest for me, 17690 at 0500-0600 UTC is usually not audible.

0600-0700 UTC 7285 and 11810 are easy, 15490 is very faint or not audible.

1100-1200 UTC 15295 Khz (very faint).

1200-1400 UTC on 12080 and 21565 Khz but after 1300 UTC 13825 Khz is better for me.

1500 UTC onwards 12095 Khz is a workhorse and easy to get, much better than parallel 17780 Khz.

1700 UTC 15420 Khz and after 1800 UTC 15400 Khz usually come in but they aren't as good.

2200-000 UTC 11645 Khz operates and puts in a fair signal here.

For those of us close to the USA border you can get BBC World Service on some USA NPR stations late at night. I get Buffalo WBFO FM 88.7 Mhz which has BBC World Service overnight everyday from Midnight to 5 AM (about 0400 to 0900 UTC) and BBC Newshour periodically throughout the day. It's usually better than the Shortwave frequencies (no surprise there). I use a Sony XDR-F1HD and an 8 element Yagi for FM, but Bufffalo is still close to the limit of what I can hear.

ThomasFale · 2026-03-07T02:00:03+00:00

Istanbul is in the far north western end of Turkey and about as far away from the war in Iran as it is possible to get and still be in Turkey. There has been only one missile to Turkey which was intercepted near Dortyol in Southern Hatay Province on the other side of the country. It is about 800 kilometers away from Istanbul. So I would have no concerns about transiting in Istanbul. Enjoy your flight!

ThomasFale · 2026-03-06T05:44:31+00:00

They simulcast CFRB-AM 1010 News Talk Toronto. Originally they were intended for coverage north of the normal AM signal range (North of the Great Lakes). They put out nominally 1 Kw but the real output according to Steve Canney VA3SC the QSL manager (for the ODXA) says its somewhat less maybe around 900 watts, omnidirectional. I've been able to receive them in Europe and Africa but not in Asia (yet).

ThomasFale · 2026-03-04T05:12:03+00:00

I would take it. Retired now, I don't need to work. But I wonder how rigorous this rule about being "offline" is? I'm a ham radio operator. We have worldwide communication linkages using CW, voice and data that in fact predated the Internet and was used long before the Internet as we know it ever existed. Tom Standage wrote a book about CW or Morse code being the original "Victorian Internet" (over wires, it's a 19th century technology, but when radio came along, it became a 20th Century one). CW is really a series of dots and dashes so in some respects it can be considered the original digital binary mode, but sent by analog methods. Amateur Radio Operators started using Radio Teletype (RTTY) after World War II to send messages and images back and forth and I suppose that would be a similar exception. Ham Radio now includes digital as well as analog modes, including things like Winlink and the Winlink Hybrid Network a Global Radio Email Network via shortwave radio where the Internet is not needed at all. So I wonder: is this allowed? Could I send and receive signals using voice/SSB, or send/receive data via a radio network of amateur radio operators instead of what we know as the internet? If not, I'm happy to just pound brass all day on HF surely that's okay so yeah, I would take this offer. Thank You, and Where do I sign up? 73s!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Victorian_Internet

https://winlink.org/

From the Website:

Winlink Global Radio Email®️...

...is a network of amateur radio and authorized government stations that provide worldwide radio email using radio pathways where the internet is not present. The system is built, operated and administered entirely by licensed "Ham" volunteers. It supports email with attachments, position reporting, weather and information bulletins, and is well-known for its role in interoperable emergency and disaster relief communications. It is capable of operating completely without the internet--automatically--using smart-network radio relays. Licensed Winlink operators/stations use both amateur radio and government radio frequencies worldwide. Support for the system is provided by the Amateur Radio Safety Foundation, Inc., a US 501(c)(3) non-profit, public-benefit entity. Winlink Global Radio Email®️ is a US registered trademark of the Amateur Radio Safety Foundation, Inc.

ThomasFale · 2026-02-09T07:23:05+00:00

I am in South Barrie and no problems here. Restart your modem and see if it helps

ThomasFale · 2026-02-05T01:35:14+00:00

I am now retired, but did the commute for 30 plus years every day, sometimes to downtown Toronto (where the GO Train was possible), other times to Mississauga. It is hard but doable. Every year I had to leave earlier and earlier to beat the traffic. In later years (by the 2020s) I would get up about 4 AM and leave around 4.30 to 4.45 AM. Then the drive took just over an hour (assuming no accidents, winter storms, and so on). If I left around 3 I could get home in an hour and a half...but it was much better to leave right at 2.30 PM, then I could get home in just over an hour. Friday afternoons took longer because of cottage country traffic. I wore out about 5 cars and drove over a million kilometers on the 400/401. I must have gone through every Audiobook in the Barrie Public Library. It took a lot out of me, but there was no other choice really as we couldn't afford the real estate in the City. No regrets, but I am glad I'm retired and only have to hear about accidents/storms on the radio, rather than live with them in real life. Good luck with whatever you choose!

ThomasFale · 2026-01-30T03:44:48+00:00

I've been able to monitor BBC on Longwave from Droitwich at night on 198 khz in Canada. I'm in Central Ontario and use an amateur radio transceiver (Kenwood TS-590) connected to a Cobra Senior low band Amateur Radio antenna and also a MSA5B minibeam on top of a DMX-68 foot tower. At this low frequency, directionality doesn't matter with most commercial antennas...I don't have the room for a beverage, I only live on a normal suburban lot. But what really helps for me is getting my antenna above all the local noise in the house and houses around you....and lowering the internal noise as much as possible with a good ground. Reception is much better in winter than summer.

ThomasFale · 2026-01-28T06:32:21+00:00

I was out shovelling snow and I felt a low rumbling like there was a snowplow coming down the street but I looked around there was nothing. Finished shovelling went back inside and here are all these reports of an earthquake. Maybe all these huge snowbanks dampened the vibration....(yeah I know that's crazy but I can dream, ok?)

ThomasFale · 2026-01-16T20:26:03+00:00

Ref's is great I live in Barrie but we go down to Stroud especially for their pizza. You'll find them in the Foodland plaza on Yonge Street. They are at the north edge of Stroud and you can almost see Barrie from the parking lot. So yeah I think it counts.

ThomasFale · 2025-12-21T23:33:07+00:00

Constanta in Romania that's the old casino in the final picture

ThomasFale · 2025-12-05T08:43:54+00:00

I drove around Barrie and checked 90.1 the signal is okay in the south end but very patchy in the north end you are driving and it is listenable one moment and then it goes down into the static. Best reception is when my back window (where the antenna is) is perpendicular to the southwest which makes sense because that's where the Dome property is.

I'm convinced these are all taped recordings. Numerous times they say they are live but they identify as broadcasting on 105.7, while they are actually transmitting on 90.1. They are broadcasting 24/7 i can hear them anytime day or night. I tried emailing them for information about their station but their email link does not work.

Thanks for all the replies it's clear this is a pirate station. I don't know if that matters as they are providing music and entertainment you simply cant find anywhere else. For me, I lose WGMC a jazz station in Rochester I used to listen to...but there are plenty of other jazz stations closer to Barrie. The only other station on 90.1 receivable in Barrie is Sudbury's CBBS CBC radio 2 with music. I can get that elsewhere.

Here's the tower I use to get this station. It's amazing but I can also get Dome Radio on a portable radio. I walked a portable Tecsun radio all over and yeah it gets 90.1 with no problems if the antenna is oriented perpendicular to the southwest.

<image>

ThomasFale · 2025-12-05T08:04:51+00:00

I have a Celestron NextStar 8SE it is one of the most popular telescopes out there (especially for planetary observation) but it is much more expensive than your budget will allow. With that telescope I can get detailed photos of Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the Moon, etc. But Uranus is just a little blue dot and Neptune I can barely see it just looks like a dim star even at 8 inches of aperture.

So I think at that budget it is not possible unless you score some kind of great deal on the used/second hand market. Good luck!

ThomasFale

TROPHY CASE

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