East coast f**king rules!

WELL !!!!!!!! Now it's looks i may have some beta here.

I'm glad it only took a short amount of time to get some REAL input.

To those who helped thank you. You know who you are.

Those who didn't.... well you know where I stand.

I've used the BD ATC Guide in autoblock mode as a lead soloing device as shown in the NZ guy's webpage.

It works ok but the drawbacks are significant compared to a real soloing device. The biggest issue is that it will not catch an inverted (i.e. head first) fall. The rope will just run freely until you hit your back up knot so back up knots are mandatory and, if you want a reasonable margin of safety, you'll need to tie them frequently.

If you are going to do much rope soloing, I'd a get a real device. I like the Silent Partner but there are advantages and disadvantages to each device. For example, you can't use the SP in really cold weather and, as Steve C points out, you can't just lock yourself off on the device as you can with the Soloist at least not easily.