I saw some lanterns in a car park in Bryn, near Wigan which had a very purple hue to them. They were very strange-looking conical lanterns too but mounted side-entry. I wonder what sort of lamps these purple-hued lamps are? I like them anyway, the light is very calming.

The lamps themselves will be a variant of Metal Halide at a colour temperature lower than that of cold white. As for the lanterns, I have no idea.
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I hadn't looked across at the Nestle canteen on my train trip... but my return ticket is still valid for a month, so I'll probably be in rochdale in a week or two again.

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Costco in Gateshead use metal halide lamps in the High Masts, this is something Iv'e never seen before. I didn't know they were Metal Halide until I drove along Scotswood Road last week they were easily visible from the other side of the Tyne. I am unsure as to the wattage but it must be high possibly 600 or 1000watt. If Costco can do this why couldn't the Newcastle PFI do it, when they replaced the high masts in Newcastle instead they use 400watt SON CU Phosco lanterns.

Costco Masts - http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&sourc ... ,,2,-19.32

I don't see any reason not to use Metal Halide in high-mast lighting, after all they use it in floodlights for illuminating sports pitches at a couple of schools near me.

Well there's a new Morrisons and Tescos getting built in Consett so I wonder what lanterns they use. At the minute Morrisons use Thorn Areafloods(SON) and Slimline 150watt Metal Halide floodlights on 8m poles. Tescos use Abacus Orions with two SON bulbs in. However the canopy blown off one during gales so they replaced it with a Thorn Sonpak 150watt (SON)

Halford's in Huddersfield has a couple of Gamma 5's. Sadly these no longer work, but when they did, both ran MBF lamps. Co-Op in Holmfirth has Albany -a-likes post topped running SON. The lanterns used at Tesco in Penistone runs MH but I am not sure on the lantern type.

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From streetlighting to radio, dance through the night whilst the streetlights are glowing outside.

Tesco usually use Abacus Orions. My local Tesco Extra also has Abacus Caminos on the approach road which are quite an attractive modern lantern. It's a pity they favour SON though.

My local B&M Bargains (won't mean anything to those of you outside the north west   ) recently replaced it's Urbis Albanys with some other similar cartoon-like Albany lanterns which have huge bowls and look even uglier and out of proportion than the Albanys were, believe it or not! A pity GSV was done before they got changed!

The B&M Bargain's place in Halifax which is oddly part of the Pennine Shopping Centre (which is just Horton Street) the car park has 'Sugarcube' type lanterns the last time I went to 'The Fax'. I don't know if anything has changed.

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From streetlighting to radio, dance through the night whilst the streetlights are glowing outside.

I didn't even know B&M's had spread as far as Halifax!    The first branch of that opened in my home town Cleveleys in the early 80s and was three lock-up garages down a back alley knocked into one (I kid you not!), now it seems they have quite an empire! Anyway, enough retail history.

Abacus must surely be the most-used lantern manufacturer for supermarket/shopping centre car parks in the UK! I don't think I've ever seen Sugarcubes or Orions on public roads which is a shame (in the Orion's case anyway) as it's a really well-produced and robust-looking lantern which also saves power. Why don't councils put an Orion at road junctions instead of using three or four side-entry SON lanterns? The newest version of the Orion is full-cut off as well as an attractive design. There is no excuse not to use these excellent lanterns on public roads!

Darlington uses Orions at midi roundabouts, just a single one on a 10/12m column in the middle.

The problem for installers is how to switch them. The control gear is in the lantern spigot; the lamp is run cap-down and so the lampholder is attached to the gear section, with only reflectors above the lamp. And so in a way it is similar to an Eleco Way post top... because to fit a cell on top means trailling wires up past a hot lamp (and considering it could be 250w-400w SON, it'd get VERY hot inside the lamp section) and so the cable would cast shadows on the ground. In addition, lamp access is obtained by lifting off the central section of the canopy - and so a cell cannot be fitted there as the wires would constrict opening. So this leaves two options... option 1 is to feed it from another lantern's cell, which is easier if the other lantern is gear-in-base as the wires from the cell is already coming down, but if it's a modern gear-in-head lantern then you'd need to drop another wire down the column - plus you then have to dig the road up for the cable to go to the orion (and this isn't even considering that some cells can only handle up to 400w load). Option 2 is radio control, with the side of the gear section drilled for the radio node to stick out (and preferrably have the master node on a normal lantern nearby, so there isn't a pigeon-sized cell sticking out the side of the orion!) - but that'd require space inside the drill for the node and for the compatiable ballast to be fitted.

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