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What is this?
If you come to this website, you might be wondering what is going on here. Well first off, welcome to my site. It is a collection of stuff about two primary things, our travels in our RV and about my Role-playing Game hobby, which at this point I am attempting to do some stuff while we traveling.
Last 5 Travel Journal Entries
Broken A Frame Trailer Jack
Well we broke the trailer jack on the trailer. I think I over extended it and striped the worm gear or something. Really hard to say exactly. I just now that I raised it up to put the trailer on the truck and luckily when it failed it was right over the ball and it seated.
Finding a replacement was both easy and hard. It was easy because we needed just an A Frame Trailer Jack that has a mounting plate with three bolt holes. It's a pretty standard item. The hard part was because we have a box on the tongue, we needed one with a side mounted crank. That was a little harder to find. When I was calling around. the places that had a side crank ranged from 40 dollars to 120 dollars. Needless to say we went with the place that had one for 40 dollars. It took all of about 10 minutes to replace.
On a side note, the place we got the jack from can also lift the trailer if we want. It's something that the wife has been thinking about. When she talked to them, they were better priced than other places she had gotten a quote from last year and they were only a week or so out. Which is super reasonable. So know we have another thing to think about.
Rethinking Starlink
Lately, we been hitting the same issue we always do. We can not seem to go where we want to go because of lack of cell / Internet Service. Right now we have two hotspots. One is on T-Mobile and the other is on Verizon. This provides us with a lot of coverage but it is not perfect. There are still a lot of areas where there is till no service.
Which leads us back to the discussion on if we should get Starlink. There are some things that make Starlink a hard thing to even try.
First of of course is the cost. Right now for RV it's about 135 USD per month. That's a steep fee per month and the one that makes it really hard to try. Still it might be worth it. And I know some people with regular house Internet that speed about that. When I cable Internet it was about 90 USD per month. So I would just be spending about 50 USD more per month. Also if we did it then I could reduce the cell bills by reducing the number of devices we have. Of course I would not do it right away, but it is something we could do after a few months of testing.
Second is the power requirements. This is a tough one since we don't really know how much power it really pulls. The specs say 60 Watts but I've seen reports of about 40 Watts. The best mitigation I could think of is to add another battery and perhaps add some solar panels. Both of which is something I really want to do anyways. I would like to have about 1000 watts of panels and a lot more battery storage.
Third is the equipment cost itself. Right now the dish and router cost about 600 USD. That's not a small thing to think about. That's a major investment. Here is where we might get lucky. My brother has/had Starlink but in his area it was over taxed and didn't work well. So we might be able to get his equipment transferred to us and all he wants is for us to pay shipping. Which I can not imagine would be more than say 50 USD or so. My brother and I would just have to deal with the hassle of the transfer with Starlink.
Speaking of overtax, that's the forth thing that we have to consider. If you look at the Starlink map you will see area where there is low availability or the need for more coverage. The map you will see depends on if it's fixed or an RV. Luckily many area that we will be are in the High availability areas. And the Low areas right now are slated for more coverage in 2023. I feel that even if we only got 5 Mbps down and up, we would do fine since that's all I normally get on the Cell hotspots and I have even worked with less.
Finally there is how much open area do you need for the antenna. You need an area that clear of obstructions. I have been using the Starlink app to figure out what we would need at places we have stop and for us what I have found so far is that the same open area we need for solar is what we will need for Starlink. That's not to say that there are not areas where we will need more, but so far where we have been for solar will work for Starlink as well.
While there is still a lot of consider, I think that if my brother can transfer us the equipment, then I think we can try Starlink, since then we will only have the monthly fee to worry about.
Camping Laws And Regulations The Things You Do Not Know
In the last two months while boondocking, we have been asked to move by various officials from various agencies.
In the first case, it was a US Forest Service person telling us that we were camping include a recreational exclusion zone and that the only camping was in the nearby free campsite. In the second case, Game and Fish came out to tell us we were camp too close to water hole for the animals.
In both cases they cited rules and regulations that unless they told you to leave, you would have no idea that they even existed. Even the officials had a hard time telling us were to find the rules or where the exclusion zone were. They would try to tell us maps that you could get online but we looked at those maps, they had nothing about those exclusion zone. Or they couldn't tell you were the regulations were actually posted.
Generally speaking, I tend to follow the guideline that if there are no signs and there is a fire pit/fire ring , then it is likely safe to camp there. It seems sometimes those sites in places that violate the laws and rules that as a camper you will be unaware of. So never assume that where you camp is 100% good I guess.
I really wish you could put in a Lat and Long in a website and it could tell you the camping regulations for that area (in general) and/or if you can even camp there. Sadly, there is not central clearing house for those sort of rules. So my take away is for everyone to be aware that even if you think you can camp or boondock somewhere, there actually might still be laws and regulations against it so be careful.
Battery Bank Issue
This one was hard one to notice at first because we been getting good Sun in the morning but rain and clouds in the afternoon. We thought that we were not getting enough charge in the afternoon, so early in the morning the inverter low voltage alarm would go off and we would have to turn it off.
Slowly after many days, we decided something was wrong because even if we ran the generator in the evening to help top off the batteries we would still get the alarm.
So when we were driving through town and saw an Autozone, we quickly stopped by and had them test the batteries in the bank. Neither of us were surprised when they found one of the batteries bad. What shocked me was it was one of the newer batteries. On the plus side at least it under warranty and they just swapped the battery for us.
Now that the battery is replaced, it seems like the bank is once again holding the charge through the night like it use to. Only time will tell if there are other issues. I may look into getting my own battery tester because has happened too often and it would be nice to able to test while we are out and not have to rely on Autozone to tell us.
Solar Charger Issues
This is the second time I have had the same issue with a solar charger. The positive wire from the battery gets loose and melts part of the solar charger case.
The loose wire also causes issue with charger itself. giving it bad reading. This cause the it to think it was 100% charged and the panels didn't charge the battery. This is how we discovered it. We got a low battery warning and was like the panels should have charged things up.
So we looked at the battery bank and charger. When I looked at the charger I noticed the melted plastic. So I disconnected the solar panels and then when I went to disconnect the battery cables. I noticed the positive wire was pretty much not connecting and pretty much fell out of the hole. I had to take the cover off the controller and luckily it looks like there was just melting around the gate that is used to hold the wire in place. I was able to clean that up and get the gate working again. I think cleaned up the wires and shortened the exposed wire a little, so that none of it was extended past the wire gate. I got everything reassembled.
As of right now, everything seems to be working. I will still have to wait and see how long that lasts. I am certainly going to have to keep an eye on it.
Last 5 Trailer Conversion Entries
Lack of Updates on the Conversion
I really meant to do a whole slew of pages on the conversion process. Needless to say, doing the actual conversion took priority over doing a series of blog entries.
In the end, we did get the following hooked up into the conversion.
- 45 Gallon Fresh Water Tank
- 40 Gallon Black Tank
- 40 Gallon Grey Tank
- 20lbs Propane Tank
- 2 Burner Stove Top
- On Demand Hotwater Camping Shower
- On Demand Water Pump
- 800 Watts of Solar Panels
- 3 Deep Cycle Batteries for Storage
- 2000 Watt Inverter
- Power Center
- 5 AC Outlets (1 outside/ 4 inside)
- Shore Power Connector
- Inside Toilet
- Mini Fridge (We also have a small freezer in the truck bed)
Overall, we did pretty good. It should be noted that we also have two 55 gallon water barrels in the truck that we only fill to about 50 each. So when filled between the RV and the truck, we have about 140 gallons of fresh water (which should be enough for about two weeks).
Finishing Up Storage Platforms
I have to say the waste tanks have been the hardest to work on so far. We have a lot of starts and stops. Some of it had to do with that flooring we are going to put down. Or which sink we were going to put in.
In that later case, we needed to figure out which sink we were going to do so we could finally decided where the drain hole was going to be. That was not easy by any stretch of the imagination. We look at many different options and finally decided on one that was cheap and allowed us to install it the way we wanted to install it. Once we knew that, we were ready to go on the drain pipe hole.
That in turn finally allowed us to screw all the boards down and put sidewalls on the platforms.
Now the fun is installing the flooring. Which will allow is to put the sink in, put the shower pan down, and install the toilet. Not to mention the vent pipes for everything.
Waste Storage Install Part 3
What a week. We have not gotten as far as I would have liked on things but where the tanks were going to go kept moving around as we were undecided about where other things were going to go.
Finally after we decided to not use a few things were going to recycle, we come to a design that we initially had. We finally got some screws in some wood and we got started. The hardest part has been getting the tank box built in a way the wife approves of. Now that we have that done, I think we can make progress. I know the wife fears will will not have this done until next year. I don't think we can survive the current RV that long. I know I do not want to.
Waste Storage Install Part 2
Well after some discussion, we are going the route of two different waste discharge valves. It just sort of needed to be that way. There was just no way we could get the required connections working the way we wanted them to be.
The biggest issue now is just the weight distribution of the tanks. We will just have to see what we can do about it. However, I think it is just going to be what it is.
Waste Storage Install Part 1
So we did not get as far as I would have liked on the conversion over my vacation. One of the biggest things we have to contend with is the actual frame of the trailer.
We putting the grey and black tank inside the trailer and going to build a platform that that the shower and toilet sit on top of them. One challenge has been the discharge, how do we hook it up. The drain pipes were not going to be in the right place, so we had to move the tanks around a bit.
Now the issue is we either need to combine the waste discharges together in a manner so that the do not hang low enough that it will not hit anything on some of the roads we want to take it on.
I am leaning towards two connectors one on each tank.
Last 5 Gaming Blog Entries
Nothing New Here
Nothing new to report, Gaming is on hold for now.
Starting a Play by Email Game
One of the disadvantages of being on the road all the time is the lack of ability to play Role-playing games with a steady group. After we are not in one place long enough to really play with a face to face group.
Of course there is the obvious solution of using one of the virtual table tops system. It is one I really thought about doing but once I got on the road I found that I really did not have as much time as I thought I would. I was not going to be able to play online once every week or even every other week. So this put me in a situation of what to do?
So, I decided to go back in time a bit and start up a play by email game with some of the players I had on Roll20. I was originally going to try to use the Roll20 forums for a setup game but the players were not getting notifications about posts. So, I decided to setup an actual mailing list. The upside for me being that I can easily check email via my smartphone anytime on the road and I can reply with it too.
The hardest thing was deciding on a system. It needed to be system lite for sure. After all, the Play-by Email was going to be a lot more heavy on Role-playing than dice rolling. After thinking about it a while, the final decision was to run Tremulus again. If nothing else, it provided a good story-telling foundation for the PbEM.
So far we have only gotten to the character creation and the first emails. I will post more as we play more and I will let you know how things go.
Last 5 Radio Blog Entries
CB and Other Radios
Not that I plan on getting one, but it was interesting to see that at the Flying J the other day, I saw a bunch of stuff for CBs. Things like power cables, microphones, antennas, and antenna mounts.
I guess I am surprised that some truckers still use them or have them. The only thing I can assume is that since it still requires no license some of them still find it useful.
I have had a CB before but never really used it. I have also had my Amateur Radio (HAM) rigs in my car/truck before. That was not something I think the wife wanted in current truck. So I paired down to some handhelds for this adventure. I would have liked to at least have a GMRS mobile rig but it was the same as the HAM radio too many wires for the wife, so handhelds again. Although to be honest, none of the GMRS mobiles look that great to me. Most are basically just the handhelds with an external antenna. Most do not even allow you to hit GMRS repeaters. You are almost better getting an illegal radio modification to do GMRS on a radio with another service as well. Not that I recommend that, I am just saying that I can understand why people do it.
Starlink Goes Mobile?
I just saw an article this morning that Starlink is going to allow for mobile operations. The cost will be an additional $25 per month. This on top of the $110 fee per month and the $599 in equipment.
The big issue is Starlink all that it is cracked up to be? There are already reports that it is not. One big thing for sure is the power usage. The new units have a lower power usage about 60-70 Watts but that is still a lot for someone in an RV full time, who is boondocking it. A rough calculation would put that at 5 amps per hour. Which for 24hr service would be around 120 ampH. That's my whole battery system. Even if I just did 12 hours a day , it would still be 60 ampH and that's a pretty impressive drain. I certainly would need a 4th battery in my current battery bank. Because of the way we use Internet, during the day work and at night streaming, it is more likely that we would be running it at least 18 hours and in some cases 20 hours.
One other things is that you still need a pretty good view of the sky. So depending on where we are at, we may or may not get the Internet still.
I am also not sure if I want to pay $135 per month in fees combined with the power usage. This is going to be one of those things I will have to talk over with the wife.