Lou Schneider

You're defeating the purpose of the MIMO inputs by connecting both to a single antenna, Radio signals vary in strength over their wavelength from nothing to maximum - remember how you had to adjust an old TV rabbit ear antenna for the best reception? Moving the elements just a few inches often made the difference between a good picture or nothing. MIMO antennas work in much the same way - when one antenna is in a null, chances are the other is getting a good signal. Cellular signals have a shorter wavelength than the old analog TV signals so even an inch or two between the two antennas can make a huge difference in the signal strength each receives. You'd be better off connecting the yagi to a single input and putting any antenna, even the stock one, on the other input.

If you transfer the minutes to another phone you'll close that phone's account. Connecting to wifi is just another way to access the provider. You'll connect via wifi instead of 3G but it won't do any good if the phone no longer has an account there.

I agree. Flat cable may be OK when you're receiving a signal like from a dish to a satellite receiver or downlinking from the cell tower but transmitting is much more sensitive to cable irregularities. It's likely to seriously compromise the power you're sending back to the tower.

When you're connected to shore power, it should flow directly to the 110 outlets in the RV. The inverter creates 110 volts from the 12 volt batteries, so it only needs to be on if you want to use 110 volt appliances while you are NOT connected to shore power. If the inverter was on it may have drained the batteries instead of drawing power directly from the shore power cord.

Why not just use what you pay for instead of trying to game the system? Visible is plainly selling an inexpensive cell phone plan with a hotspot as an added feature. Trying to get more than that is no different than people who abuse free overnight parking - eventually the carriers will crack down and eliminate it for everyone.

Satellites use circular polarization - the received signal rotates in either a clockwise or counterclockwise direction. This allows two transponders to share the same frequency, doubling the satellite's capacity as an LNB tracking one will reject the other. If the 110 satellite is working properly, one of the polarizations in your 110 LNB is going bad. If this continues the cure is to replace the LNB.

Pair-A-Dice allows non-guests to dump during office hours. I'm not sure of the cost but it's in the range of $5 - $10. Or you can just stay in a full hookup spot for a night. If you're staying overnight the laundry charges $1 a load to wash, $1 to dry. Or hang your wet clothes on the outdoor clothesline. They dry quickly in the desert.

State taxes are another issue you or your employer may run afoul of if you don't tell them you're going on the road. The state which you declare as your residency or domicile has a direct effect on whera and how much state tax and local taxes you'll pay, which can affect your payroll deductions.

Antennas are frequency dependent, the type of signal they transmit/recieve is determined by the equipment inside the building. So a "sub 6 GHz" 5G antenna is identical to a "sub 6 GHz" 4G antenna or a "sub 6 GHz" 3G antenna. The current 5G expansion is by re-purposing 3G spectrum, that is shutting down 3G and using it's spectrum space for 5G. So they're just replacing equipment inside the building, not necessarily changing out the antennas. Later on the companies will increase their 5G capacity as needed by sub-dividing existing cells into smaller and smaller cells. Each cell can support a given number of users, so by making each cell smaller they can support more users in any given area. Expect to see millimeter wave 5G cells in places like crowded city centers or even in individual buildings where it's short range is an advantage, not a disadvantage. This cellular shrinkage has been done before. The original cell phone implementation used mountaintop sites to cover entire cities with a single cell, later as the number of users grew the antennas were moved closer to ground level so each cell served fewer people within a smaller area. When I was working in radio several of our mountaintop FM transmitter sites were in very nice buildings and towers that were erected and then abandoned by the cell companies as they added multiple cells instead of covering everything with a single cell.

I'm also in Quartzsite. Decided to hunker down in a full hookup park until pleasant weather returns tomorrow. Seriously, though - wind gusts up to 50 MPH are expected all the way from Yuma to Las Vegas today, not a good time to be on the road.

Looking at the specs, they say it will perform down as low as -40 degrees (F or C, doesn't matter). Most all LoFePo4 batteries will do so. The problem is recharging them at low temperatures, which the web page doesn't address. Most battery manufacturers use generic rectangular prismatic LiFePO4 cells. Battle Born is the exception, they use spiral wound cells like the ones found in Teslas and other electric vehicles. Battle Born is assembled in the US, but their cells are made in China like everyone else's.

Thor is a holding company. that buys up idependent manufacturers, usually when the original management ages out and is looking to sell. They usually leave the companies they acquire intact as mostly seperatly functioning entities. Except for making production "improvements" to increase their profitability - i.e. make them cheaper. If I was looking to buy one of the Thor brands I'd first take a careful look at a used model that was made before the Thor buyout, then compare it to present production.

Be careful you don't move the trailer's center of gravity behind it's axle. There are several demonstrations on YouTube that show what happens if you don't have sufficient hitch weight. The amplifying sway isn't caused by the lack of hitch weight per se - it's if you have positive hitch weight the trailer's COG is ahead of it's axle. Moving the COG behind the axle causes the amplifying sway. Even if the Freedom Hauler is supporting the weight on pivoting wheels, it's still adding inertia behind the axle. Maybe it's not enough to become critical on a large motorhome or a 5th wheel that has significant hitch weight, but it can if you mount a workshop full of heavy tools on one at the tail end of a trailer.

You're OK with the mechanical complexity of assembling/disassembling a two unit trailer every time you move but you're against sliding a box in and out of a larger box to expand the living area? Doesn't make sense.

That's the big question, Dutch. Will the Connected Car plan continue past the 3G shutdown? Will it be restricted to approved OEM installations? Is there an approved replacement device for other vehicles if the Mobley sunsets? Neither the ZTE Mobley or Harmon Spark (it's replacement) are listed as being able to work after the 3G sunset. Swapping a Mobley CC SIM into another device was specifically disallowed under the original Terms of Service, though AT&T has mostly turned a blind eye up until now. That could be explained, wait for the vast majority of authorized devices to sunset instead of tracking down individual violators. If the Mobley and Spark sunset, any CC SIMs active after the 3G shutdown will stick out like a sore thumb as being in probable violation of the TOS.

Scroll down to Page 9. If your hotspot isn't there or hasn't been patched by the manufacturer then the answer is probably YES. Page 7 shows the tablets that will continue working. Sorry for the quality, I had to shrink the image to fit the upload limit.

If anything the 5G airport controversy may hasten the 3G shutdowns. The issue is putting 5G in formerly lightly used C Band frequencies adjacent to those used by radar altimeters. 3G frequencies are further away and have been heavily used for quite a while so 5G expansion there shouldn't be a problem.

Maybe not. I see other ZTE devices, but not the VM6200 (Mobley) listed under "These Wireless Home Phone (WHP) and AT&T Wireless Internet (AWI) devices will still work on our network after we phase out 3G in February 2022" https://www.att.com/idpassets/images/support/wireless/Devices-Working-on-ATT-Network.pdf The question is which mode does it use to log onto the cellular system? I guess we'll find out soon. And how did I get into / get out of Centered Text mode?

Same here, I've been debt free almost all of my life and my credit rating is also 800+. The key factor is responsible use of credit. I use credit cards judiciously, mainly for convenience and to take advantage of cash back rebates but I religiously pay them off before the due date every month.

Don't worry, RVing isn't just for straight white people. Kay Peterson's philosophy was to cast the net wide, to make Escapees as inclusive as possible. Take a look at Xscapers and the 30-something year old Escapees Stonewall BOF group, there are lots of folks out there.

There are many ways to stretch your fulltiming budget. One way is to spend the winter months in the desert Southwest while the rest of the country is snowed in. Places like Quartzite, actually most of Arizona south of the Mongollon Rim (I-10) have warm winter weather. There are nice, inexpensive RV parks along the Colorado River and in Yuma if you want a more urban experience. Or just chill out and boondock on BLM land for a while.

Welcome to the Escapees Forums! Like Kirk said, check out the Escapees' Xscapers subgroup for ideas. http://www.xscapers.com Can you pay off your RV before you start out? The amount you can save versus continuing to make payments can be astonishing! It's best to start out debt free, IMO. I did something similar in 1990 and again in 2000, well before remote work was available. The first time I found a clause in the union contract that said I could take up to 3 months off and have my job waiting for me when I returned. It was originally intended as maternity leave but the qualifing conditions were eliminated when all of the sex specific language was taken out of the contract. So I took two months off and toured Australia. When that error was corrected in the next contract, I changed jobs and negotiated with my new employer for similar terms. They were originally looking for someone to work half time without success. I explained that the stresses of past jobs in that field made me burn out and quit. We settled on 3/4 time, my working fulltime for three months followed by a month off when I would be available for an occasional telephone consultation. Again, this was before remote work and widespread Internet access. I worked there for 5 years, reducing my expenses by continuing to live in my RV in a local mobilehome park and banking the surplus. This only works if you're in an area with mild winter weather, RVs don't do well when temperatures are consistantly below freezing. When the company sold in 2000 the new owners didn't want to continue that arrangement so I quit and travelled fulltime for a year and a half until the money ran out. Then I found another job, negotiated a similar package and worked until I retired in 2005 at age 55. A divorce in 2011 wiped out most of my savings, so I returned to RV life and travelled for a year mostly on credit cards until I got my head back together. Then I found another job in Los Angeles where the good weather meant I could live year round in my RV, found another monthly RV park, paid off the credit cards ASAP and retired debt free in 2016 at age 63. Today I'm comfortably retired and the minimalistic lifestyle I developed over the years allows me to live and travel comfortably in my RV on Social Security with a nice nest egg in reserve. A big factor in this was joining one of the Escapees Co-op Parks which provides a secure home base at minimal cost where I can come and go whenever I like. The main things I'd recommend is to minimize your living expenses before you set out and bank the rest to accumulate a nest egg for unexpected expenses. Nothing lasts forever, vehicles break down, etc. Have an exit plan - it would really suck to decide you want to return to a stick and brick life but can't afford to do it. Start out debt free, in my case I used part of my savings to buy a used RV for cash instead of taking out a loan for a new one. Actually, I've bought and sold several RVs over the years and the total cost is still substantially less than if I'd bought a new one when I started out. These days groups like Bob Wells' Cheap RV Living website and YouTube channel and their annual Rubber Tramp Rendevous promote a similar, if more extreme philosophy. I guess I was just a few decades ahead of the curve.

And just to reinterate, the overriding factor in how heavy of a trailer you can tow is the bus chassis' GCWR (Gross Combined Weight Rating), the most the combination of truck and trailer can weigh. This is in the Towing Guide. The maximum trailer weight you can tow is directly affected by how much the bus weighs, including the weight of everything it's carrying like passengers and cargo. Other factors also come into play like axle and tire capacities, etc. This is why you need to start by finding out what the bus actually weighs loaded for travel. 10 people, if they weigh an average of 100 lbs each, adds 1000 lbs to the weight of the bus, subtracting a like amount from the weight of the trailer it can tow without exceeding the GCWR. Increase the average passenger weight to 150 lbs and you've added 1500 lbs to the bus weight.

Joining the Escapees RV Club and moving your domicle to another state are two completely different things. Escapees does not offer legal advice and joining Escapees does not automatically give you the right to claim Texas domicile. All the Club offers is education and if you sign up for their Mail Service, a valid address you can use as part of the process of changing your domicle. Escapees has published several articles to help members wanting to establish domicile in Texas, here are a couple of them. https://www.escapees.com/education/domicile/ https://www.escapees.com/domicile-for-rvers/ Here are other articles by Susie Adams, law partner at Loring and Associates in Livingston who specialize in Texas domicile law. You may want to call and ask her advice. https://www.escapees.com/establishing-domicile-for-rvers/ https://www.escapees.com/domicile-for-full-time-rvers/

The National Studebaker Museum and the old factory location is in South Bend, about a half hour west of Elkhart. The Studebaker Bros. started out making highly regarded horse drawn wagons before the automobile age. I found it interesting to take a driving tour of the former factory grounds, the 6 story, 800,000 sq ft main assembly building and several smaller buildings are still standing. It seems a main fiberoptic data trunk runs directly underneath the big building and it's being transformed into a major data center. https://www.studebakermuseum.org/. RV/MH Hall of Fame museum is a must see. https://www.rvmhhalloffame.org/