Radschool Association Magazine - Vol 25

Page 10

   Privacy Policy    |    Editorial Policy    |    Join the Association     |    List of Members    |    Contact us    |    Print this page

USS New York.

This new USN ship was built with 24 tons of scrap steel from the World Trade Centre. It is the fifth in a new class of warship, designed for missions that include special operations against terrorists. It will carry a crew of 360 sailors and 700 combat-ready Marines to be delivered ashore by helicopters and assault craft. 

Steel from the World Trade Centre was melted down to cast the ship's bow section and was poured into the moulds on the 9^th Sept 2003.

The ship's motto? 'Never Forget'

Ballarat.

If you were on either 11 or 12 Radio Technician “Air” course, which was held at Ballarat in 1955-56, or if you know anyone who was, please contact Alan Gibbs on algibbs@optusnet.com.au

Do Hybrid cars save you money?

The short answer is NO!!!

It’s true that more and more people are shunning the traditional big Aussie sixes and lazy V8s in favour of the more frugal European, Korean and Japanese four-cylinder offerings as fuel consumption savings certainly help to keep the dollars in the wallet.

But what about taking it a step further? Hybrid cars are starting to make an impact on the car market across the globe and although only a handful are currently available in Australia, more will be arriving soon. So, surely hybrid cars will save you money! Well, actually they won’t.

The Toyota and Honda hybrid cars use both petrol and electrical power. They generally use small capacity petrol engines to power the car when under hard acceleration, or when the car is under heavy load. The electric motor is used either to supplement engine power; at very low speeds in its own right, and when the car is cruising at a constant speed with a small throttle application.

Hybrid cars carry rechargeable batteries which power the electric motor(s). They don't need to be 'plugged in' to recharge. They recharge by 'capturing' energy from the vehicle itself either via regenerative braking systems, or direct charging from the petrol engine itself. This sharing of work by the electric motor and petrol engine obviously lowers the fuel consumption considerably; usually by up to 30-40 per cent over a comparable petrol-engined model. So what's the catch?

Well, the catch is the price... Not the price of fuel, the price of the car!

Hybrids are expensive. If we look at the offerings from Honda, the latest Civic Hybrid retails at just under $33,000. The pure-petrol largely spec-equivalent Civic VTi-L retails at $24,990. That's an $8,000 difference! With Toyota, their basic Prius costs $32,990 while the Corolla equivalent costs $21,000 – that’s a whopping $12,000 difference.

So, in the case of the Honda, how long would it take for an average user to save $8,000 in fuel when driving a hybrid? At $1.50/litre, if you averaged 20,000km a year, it would take more than 11 years!

But what about other running costs? Hybrids are simply too new to comment with any authority but I for one would not look forward to changing a set of batteries every 10 years or so.

Hybrids undoubtedly produce lower emissions than comparable petrol engine vehicles, and they go a long way to giving your eco-conscience a boost, but it will be a while yet before their cost is equivalent to the petrol car.

Banks.

This is not a paid advertisement for or from the Bank of Queensland – it’s what I’ve experienced and I think it important enough that I pass it on.

I have an everyday type account with the NAB and use it to pay bills, withdraw cash from ATM’s, buy stuff from Coles/Woolies/Shell etc using EFTPOS – just the usual stuff that people do with bank accounts.

When I checked my most recent NAB statements, I found that Mr NAB had charged me a huge bunch of money for the privilege of having my money in his bank.

In August he charged me $20.80, in September it was $26.60 and in October it was $22.20. That’s $69.60 in only 3 months – that money could have gone a long way towards the cost of 2 cartons of VB.

I’d had enough!!

So I went looking and just down the road I found the Bank of Queensland which has an account they call the “Pension Plus Account”. This account is for people who are on a pension and it has absolutely no everyday banking fees – nil, zilch, zero, none, apart from a charge of $2 each time you use another bank’s ATM – but, if you need cash,  there’s nothing to stop you slipping into Coles/Woolies etc, buying a Mars bar and getting “cash out”. You will need $500 to open the account, but once it’s open there is no minimum amount you must have in the account. If you have one of their Debit Visa cards there is a $1.00 per month card fee and there are fees for withdrawing cash while overseas. Apart from that, it’s all free.

So, I’m in the process of dumping the old NAB account that I’ve had for yonks, and jamming everything into the BOQ – and if you’re on a pension and live in Godzone, (though there are BOQ’s in all States now) then I would strongly suggest you look at the BOQ too – it could save you heaps.  If you want to know more, you can see full details on the account HERE.

38 RMC.

We had the photo below in our last issue but we didn’t have all the names. Neil Hunter knew all but one, and he’s provided us with the following.

Neil says all the blokes, apart from Chris Quain, Graham Goodfellow and Mick Sickard went on to form 3TTC.

So, we’re one name short – surely someone can help??

Back     Go to page:  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10  11  12  13  14  15  16  17  18  19     Forward