CARAMAST Telescopic Caravan Mast for Aerial and Satellite Superb Product
07 June 2017
Poorly designed.
This telescopic pole is a good idea spoiled by lazy design.
For the price I feel that the locking of each section should be by twist-lock collets instead of by really flimsy plaztic thumb-screws. Likewise the fixings at the base of the pole should be by quick - release toggles instead of the supplied mild steel thumb-screws that instantly cause damage to the soft aluminium pole.
It is marketed as being suitable for satellite dishes. It is definitely not. There is no way to lock the pole to maintain the direction of the dish.
In the lightest of wind, with just a small Tv aerial, the pole is unstable.
Buy one only as a last resort.
To summarise:
Too tatty.
Too expensive.
Amateurish design.
10 September 2011
Gets you there and it gets you back. Worth every penny.
I bought the Binatone B340 as a stop-gap system whilst my in-built system was being repaired.
I found it to be very easy to set up. It picked up the sattelite signals quickly and followed the routes fairly efficiently. There were a couple of occasions when it became totally confused - usually at complex road islands like the one at the end of the motorway in Rawtenstall... I found too that it would sometimes, at the begining of a journey, want to navigate in the opposite direction from the one I needed to go in to get on to a motorway. This instead of going in the right direction to find the next motorway junction. - So not programmed with fuel-efficiency in mind.
It has a "Walking" mode and will run for four hours on it's internal battery. I found this to be really handy for finding my way around Birmingham and London. The jack-plug takes any standard earphones.
It's on-board instructions are a little sketchy and the instruction manual is in Chineese-English but that being said, the device is so easy to use that anyone who can operate a mobile phone will be able to use this.
It comes with a very strong windscreen mount. Easy to attach and easy to remove.
It has a good loud, clear voice and a clear screen. Perhaps it would have been better to use the wide-screen format vertically to show more of where you're going - doesn't matter about what's on both sides!?
It shows, at most traffic islands, a blown-up plan with a clearly marked path to follow. However. If you do stray off it's planned route it will just go very quiet and let you drive on for miles... It bleeps to warn of speed cameras, traffic-light cameras etc.
All in all. For the cost I really can't complain and it really does compare well with up-market units that sell for more than twice the price.