Sounds real Gucci kit there Andy....we have some hi-tech stuff in the Services...but the manufacturers take the prices into the stratosphere....I suppose it is the robust aspect of the laptops/sat-phone models which cost so much. Ironically most of the guys on the ground go for their own kit as far as phones which carry iPAQ ability....you are more conversant with these and can use them better...certainly for ballistic programmes...although the Sat phone is a great asset.

The thing is you need to be "techi" conversant to pick up these things on E-bay etc....I would probably end up with an incompatible key board for the phone I had! lol..I think I will probably do the cop out thing and go for a phone package where I get an Apple i-phone or whatever supplied with the line rental...the "pay through the nose" package....

Anyway....don't want to go off topic here...is it not usual to have some form of "sit-rep" as to where things are on the release front from Dan when people are asking what's going to happen and when?