LOL at you guys
I had to go out and collect some parts so used the 196 in the car. All seems to be working fine, although signal strengths were a bit lower than normal.
A mate is in charge of the comms for the World Rally Champs. The flare wiped out all VHF communication on this weekend's Catalunya Rally and knocked Inmarsat's satelite out of alignment, meaning they couldn't track the competitors. The Inmarsat guy told him 1/1000th of a degree is a enough to lose all signal from it.
Shame its cloudy, I was looking forward to seeing the Basildon Borealis.