Lou Schneider

Like others have said, stay longer and drive less. 4000 miles a month is 200 miles a day, assuming you take weekends off to catch up on laundry and housework. It's being behind the wheel 4 hours a day at an average speed of 50 MPH, a reasonable estimate if you include fuel and rest stops. Add an hour at each end to check into a campground, make and break camp and you're approaching the equivalent of a full time job just getting from one place to another. If I wanted to spend that much time driving I'd look at becoming an over the road trucker and let the company cover the fuel costs and pay me a little for my time. Back in the 1990s I worked at a job that required fulltime hours plus being on call 24/7. I negotiated a deal where I would do that for 3 months at a time, then take a month off to decompress. No one understood how I could afford to vacation 3 months out of the year until I pointed out living in my RV meant I didn't have a monthly mortgage payment and I was merely trading one expense (RV park rent) for another (free or low cost camping and fuel). I was living in an RV park where the managers were fulltimers taking a hiatus from being on the road so they understood what I was doing. They rented my space to overnighters while I was gone and made sure the space was available when I returned. I didn't RV every time I got the month off, twice I caught the right side of currency fluctuations and at the last minute put the rig into low cost storage and spent the time exploring Australia, living like a king at pauper prices. Then I watched my pennies for the next 3 months while I paid off the credit cards and was ready to take my next month off. Vacation mode is very different than extended mode RVing or fulltiming.

Not a bit, even if you could figure a way to beam that power back to earth with more than 0.00001% arriving at the destination. The best way to return power to the grid would be to turn off the satellite modems at each user's house. 37.5 Mw divided by 36,000 satellites is just over 1,000 watts per bird. Divide that by two since each satellite is in darkness half of the time and you have about 500 watts continuous power to run all of the onboard electronics including the earth link transmitter. Not a lot of power.

Many Class A's of that length have their holding tanks and plumbing tucked up higher in the chassis than a Class C. I'd be leery about taking a Class C or trailer off road if there's a possibility of scraping or puncturing low, exposed holding tanks or plumbing.

I installed Millenicom routers at about a dozen mountaintop sites to provide Internet service at our radio transmitters. Then Verizon cancelled Millenicom's master contract and I had to scramble to convert all of them to actual Verizon accounts. I've been leery of using third party resellers since then.

What you can use in a 30 amp RV is no different than what you can use when you plug your 50 amp RV into a 30 amp outlet. I have a 30 amp trailer and my rule of thumb is I can use two large heat producing appliances at the same time. That's my single air conditioner plus one other heat producer like the microwave, the electric side of the water heater or any plug in appliances like an electric skillet, hair dryer, etc. Usually I leave the electric side of the water heater off and just use the gas burner. The refrigerator also uses a fair amount of power in electric mode but this hasn't been an issue for me. Two air conditioners will have to be connected to a power management system so both compressors don't cycle on at the same time and running both will preclude running another major appliance. Check your trailer, some include a switch that allows power to go to the front or rear air conditioner but not to both at the same time. Or one air conditioner vs. the microwave, etc. The rest of your loads, the lights, TV, etc. don't use enough electricity to worry about and can be used without restriction. Living on 30 amps doesn't bother me, I just have to be aware of what I'm using. But if you don't want to do this, get a 50 amp RV.

Whatever. I'm not going to debate with you, just note that I've been involved with RF related stuff probably longer than you've been alive. Have a nice day.

Someone standing next to you in the checkout line can pass an NFC reader next to your wallet and steal a unique code to use in an immediate transaction. Or a skimmer adjacent to the NFC terminal you're using briefly disconnects the terminal to delay your transaction while it does the same thing before letting yours go through. How many people are going to question the need to resubmit a failed transaction? No thanks, I'd rather use a chipped card that requires insertion and a relatively lenghty hard connection to interrogate and read the code generated by the internal chip. It's the same mechanism as used by an NFC card but has much less chance of being intercepted or falsely triggered.

You have an air treadle (brake pedal) valve that's not fully releasing the pressure in the brake lines when you release the brake pedal, activating the brake light switch. It might be dirt keeping the brake pedal from returning to the fully released position or a defective valve.

Normal car brakes use hydraulic pressure produced when you step on the brake pedal to push brake shoes against the turning brake drums and stop the car. Air brakes use compressed air to do the same thing. When you step on the brake pedal you open an air valve that lets compressed air flow to the brake cylinders and press the brake pads against the brake drums. When you release the brake pedal the compressed air in the brake lines vents out, releasing the brakes. The air pressure comes from a compressor mounted on the engine and is stored in a tank until it's used. If you rapidly pump air brakes you can use more air than the compressor can supply, reducing the pressure in the tank and reducing how hard the air can apply the brakes. The same thing happens if the system develops an air leak, so you need a way to stop the vehicle if the air pressure falls too low for a safe stop. This is where the spring brakes come in. The brakes on one axle (usually the heavy rear axle) have large springs that are normally held off by the system's air pressure. If the pressure falls too low the springs automatically apply pressure to the brake shoes and bring the rig to a stop. The spring brakes also double as a parking brake - when you pull the yellow knob on the dash you release the air pressure that's holding the spring pressure away from the brakes so they apply and act as a parking brake.

Moving the Mobley SIM into another device is a technical violation of AT&T's Terms of Service, as is using the Mango if you're using it to send data to more than 5 devices simultaneously. They haven't actively enforced these terms yet but who can tell what will happen in the future. With more and more low cost plans coming out this may not be significant. My Mobley backup is my Visible phone with it's unlimited data hotspot. It's my only phone. Visible is a Verizon no-contract subsidiary. Their Visible R2 phone (ZTE 5151) is $19 or free with a working trade-in, they also offer higher end Apple and Android phones. The service plan has unlimited voice, text and data for $40 a month on the Verizon network. There are restrictions like being subject to data de-prioritization on crowded towers, a cap on the hotspot speed (fast enough to stream video), only one hotspot device at a time, etc. but so far it's perfectly usable for my needs.

I highlighted the "gotcha". You need a vehicle with a built-in OnStar hotspot that can interface to this plan. AT&T did offer an aftermarket unit called the Mobley on a similar plan. It plugged into the vehicle's OBDII diagnostic port and many people adapted it to work external to the vehicle, but the Mobley has been discontinued. It's replacement is the Harmon Spark and it can NOT be used outside the vehicle, it has several failsafes so it can only work in a running and moving vehicle and shuts itself off it it isn't.

What is the condition of your house battery? Do your interior lights dim or go out when you turn the ignition off or unplug from wall power? When the ignition is on the house and chassis batteries are connected together so the engine alternator can charge both of them and this can mask a bad house battery. If your house battery isn't working properly, it could be a bad connection going to the battery (corrosion on the battery terminals is common) or a bad battery itself.

Another classic RV to consider is the Revcon motorhome from the early 1970s. In the late 1960s, Revcon approached GM about using the Olds Toronado front wheel drivetrain in an RV. GM made them build a prototype and do extensive testing to prove the engine and transmission would hold up to the rigors of powering a motorhome. After Revcon did all of the R&D, GM decided to produce their own motorhone using the same kind of aluminum body and front wheel drive platform that Revcon had developed.

If this is the case there's even less reason for concern because the relay antennas will be at the top of the 300 ft. tower and aiming their signals towards the horizon, well above anyone on the ground. Nothing to worry about unless you're a bird or in a balloon and staying too close to the antennas.

I've been happy with my AT&T Mobley and it's $20 a month unlimited data plan. Same thing, it's not a state of the art cell modem and only uses a limited number of bands but it's worked fine for me. I watch quite a bit of streaming HD video (Hulu, Amazon Prime, etc.) along with doing other online stuff.

I had a 1974 18 ft. Winnebago I bought used in the early 1990s. I liked it, but like you said it was a little too short. I thought putting the toilet inside the relatively large shower enclosure was a clever idea. My first RV was a 1973 VW pop-top camper I bought in 1980. I forget the name of the conversion, but it's pop-up top was set up the opposite of Westfalia's with the luggage rack over the driver's seat. The raisable roof lifted straight up from the front of the sunroof opening to the rear of the bus and made the space under the pop-top long enough for a full length bed instead of the short cot in the Westfalia. I slept up there most nights instead of making up and tearing down the inside bed every day. The rear wardrobe was placed on the driver's side which left the right rear window open to the driver's view unlike the Westfalia which put that cabinet on the right side. In the late 1980s I replaced the VW with a 1971 Xplorer Class B on a Ford Econoline chassis. It was my first fully self contained RV with a 3 gallon water heater, an enclosed shower, a recirculating toilet and a queen sized bed across the rear. Hot showers and an inside toilet ... I thought I was in heaven. It had a bubble top to allow full inside headroom instead of the sunken floor on one side of the driveshaft Frank Industries used in later models. It was a Florida van and apparently had seen a lot of beachfront camping. I bought it for $300 and used it for several years until the rust got out of control and I had to junk it.

Do you have a link to Bruce's article? Will the tower really be 300 ft. tall? It's unusual to have a cell tower that large in an area with any kind of population because it simply covers too much area for a single cell. Also, anything above 199 ft. in height usually requires aviation obstruction lighting and orange and white stripes for visibility. Towers below 200 ft. height are exempt unless they're within the glide path of an airport.

Print version is at http://www.rvmobileinternet.com/visible?fbclid=IwAR1bE_FtT9_T6o1oZvRMxq1EdAoeuhfcpHs6hJM2pHzhJ6Z43RyfgLJkaCw

Also Goosenecks State Park.

I got a Walmart credit card because it offered a $25 credit on my first statement, and I happened to be making a $25 purchase with another CC. The cashier offered it pre-approved and would place that purchase on it. So I got that merchandise for free. When the permanent card arrived, the terms changed to 3% off orders placed on their website and 1% back on in-store purchases, the same as using it in any other retailer. Ironically, I only use the Walmart branded card at Smith's supermarket since it's a Mastercard and my other cards are Visas. Walmart purchases get a Visa card with a larger percentage rebate.

So you went to the grocery store and were inconvenienced because your magic card didn't work? What a shame. Going cashless is fine, except when it doesn't work. If/when you happen to be in an area where the Internet is down, you're out of luck. I use cash back cards for the majority of my purchases and pay them off each month. But I also keep enough cash on hand to carry me through a few days in case stuff happens. I've been in rural areas where the Internet has gone down for several hours to a day or more. One instance was last fall when I was in Chama, NM for a few days to ride the Cumbres and Toltec train. It turned out there's only one data link in or out of that little community and an unexpected mountaintop snowstorm disabled a relay station, taking out the local Internet provider and slowing the wireless services to a crawl. One restaurant still accepted charge cards because they had an old school telephone modem card reader. The local grocery store and most other businesses posted "cash only" signs because their faster card readers relied on the Internet. The wildfire that burned through Santa Rosa, CA a couple of years back took out Internet service for a couple of days throughout the Redwoods and along Highway 101 from Santa Rosa to Eureka. In both cases I just paid cash for the duration, then repleneshed my stash when I got to an area where the ATMs were working.

I'm sure you know, but unlike USB that requires an active repeater every 3-5 meters, Ethernet can go up to 100 meters (328 ft) before a repeater is needed. You can get 25 ft. and longer Ethernet cables off the shelf. <g>

Two 200 Amp-hour 6 volt batteries can deliver 100 Amp-hours at a 50% discharge level. Since LiFePO batteries can be almost completely discharged it only takes one 100 amp-hour 12 volt battery to do the same. 12 volts x 100 Amp-hours = 1.2kWh.

I use a desktop PC to stream video to my TV. Audio to my sound system goes via a Behrenger UCA202 USB sound card, which gives greater definition than the stock audio output. Evaluating audio quality was a part of my previous life so I can appreciate the differences. Anyway, since the latest Windows update the Behrenger has been delivering low level clicks and pops whenever the video changes. Not enough to be bothersome when audio is present, but noticeable when there is no audio. I haven't decided if this is worth rolling back the update or just put up with it until Microsoft issues a fix.

Updating the above ... My replacement R2 phone arrived on September 1, but did not come with a new SIM card. Visible says they are working on improving their Customer Service response times. I was able to reach a Chat agent after a short wait, and they overnighted the forgotten SIM. After another Chat session, I got the SIM card mounted in the phone and activated. What Visible failed to mention ("Just punch out the SIM card and insert it into the phone") is their SIM cards have two layers of punchouts. The first creates a standard size SIM that won't fit in the R2 phone, there's a second layer of punchout inside the standard SIM that creates a mini-SIM to fit in the carrier that slides into the phone. Anyway, after trying Visible for a couple of weeks, I'm happy. My old phone was a Total Wireless Samsung Galaxy Luna 3 on Verizon's 4gLTE and the new phone has faster and more consistent data service, even though they're both on the Verizon network. Visible's mobile hotspot is limited to one device at a time, and although Visible says the hotspot is limited to 5Mbs I had no trouble streaming video and doing other online tasks. I also got HD video on most streams, even though Visible claims to limit video to SD (CD quality). It's a good alternative to my primary ATT Mobley hotspot. Visible also reversed the charges for the first phone and for the month service I didn't get, with the new service starting when I activated the new phone. All in all, Visible seems to be a good deal, assuming you can get it up and running without needing any additional help.