docj
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Posts posted by docj
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11 minutes ago, Chalkie said:
It is in the app but you have to go to your account by taping the little person outline at the top left.
Thank you for that; I hadn't found it except by using my laptop.
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3 hours ago, GlennWest said:
Been so long since I wrote a check I would likely do same
I wrote one yesterday to the place I use for small RV repairs. They charge extra for credit cards, so I search out the checkbook and write them a check. Hard to remember how to do it!
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36 minutes ago, Chalkie said:
RV subscriptions are exempt from being wait listed.
Not to quibble but RV service is deprioritized and there have been plenty of complaints posted about slow speeds.
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2 hours ago, durangodon said:
If you'll look on the availability map for Starlink, you'll see that a large part of the USA in the Easter half is not even eligible for Starlink service yet.
I think that the Eastern portion of the country is "sold out" of service, rather than still awaiting service. Interested potential users are waitlisted as new capacity open up.
However, I think you are correct in that reliable, mobile service requires a more advanced (hence, more expensive) dish.
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1 hour ago, Chalkie said:
Wow! Just wow! First the price is ridiculous, and second:
The High Performance Starlink receiver is designed, and FCC certified for in-motion usage. The Starlink Standard system only unofficially supports in-motion usage, and Starlink has made moves toward blocking this capability.
So at this time, while interesting, it is a non-starter for me.
I think it would be rather absurd for Starlink to continue to block mobile use when introducing a dish designed for mobile use. In fact, IMHO the existing prohibition on mobile use is primarily to force users to purchase the expensive dish in order to have mobile capability/
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Starlink has announced a new, low-profile dish designed to be used on vehicles in motion. The device cost $2500 but the monthly service is the same $135/mo that Starlink has been charging for RV service.
Winegard is a dealer for this new Starlink product. Winegard is the parent company of WiFiRanger. You can pre-order it here: https://winegard.com/flat-high-performance-starlink-kit-with-wedge-mount/
Here's a link to an Mobile Internet Resource Center article on the topic: In-motion low profile Starlink Dish -
1 hour ago, JimK said:
Sorry I cannot help with prescription drug plans. My wife and I have been through several plans. Costs for some drugs can still be very high with limitations and overall benefits are often marginal. In addition even generic drug costs have been skyrocketing. I have often found the lowest costs are not even through a plan but simply by going to the right pharmacy and using GoodRx.
This may be true for you but I would be cautious about generalizing your experience to others. I, too, usually compare our Part D plan's prices on specific meds with those available through GoodRx. Sometimes, GoodRX is, indeed, less expensive. But more than half our meds are "name brand" and their prices on GoodRx are quite high. Without a Part D plan we'd be paying a lot more.
As for comparing plans, there are a number of Part D comparison sites (one run by Medicare) where you can enter your Rx and let the system calculate the annualized total cost to you (premiums plus deductible, plus cost of Rx). We often change carriers or subplans within a carrier each year, but doing so is a simple one-page form and acceptance is guaranteed during the annual open enrollment period.
When comparing Part D plans this year, it should be noted that a recent change in federal law will require all plans to price a month's worth of insulin at <$35 regardless of deductibles, etc. Because this change occurred just a few weeks ago, the comparison data available online doesn't yet reflect the change. So it's a bit more complex to compare plans this year.
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1 hour ago, Chalkie said:
Fair enough. I guess I got confused when I was talking parts A and B and you jumped in with D.
I put that in because penalties for late enrollment had been mentioned and lot of people don't enroll in Part D plans when they become eligible because they think "I don't take a lot of meds" so they defer enrollment and then discover they have a non-trivial penalty to pay.
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2 hours ago, Chalkie said:
This is straight from the Medicare website as regards part C and D. So the same timeframe exists for Parts C and D. Open enrollment periods do not apply if this is the initial sign up for coverage.
If you join Your coverage begins During one of the 3 months before you turn 65 The first day of the month you turn 65 During the month you turn 65 The first day of the month after you ask to join the plan During one of the 3 months after you turn 65 The first day of the month after you ask to join the plan My comment had nothing to do with when your coverage begins, but. rather, the penalty you pay if you don't sign up during the intervals shown.
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38 minutes ago, Chalkie said:
You can sign up for Medicare parts A and B 3 months before and up to 3 months after you turn 65 without any potential penalties.
Part D prescription drug coverage has a "late enrollment penalty" which stays with you forever, I htink, if you don't sign up for it right away and aren't covered by an Advantage plan. Part D late enrollment penalty
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39 minutes ago, spindrift said:
I'm about to turn 64 and a half. What's the best way to start this process? I understand it's complicated as I've been getting emails every day from "consultants" more than willing to take my money.
The basic choice you have to make is do you want to deal with managed care insurance or not. The answer to that defines whether you choose Medicare Advantage or "regular" Medicare with supplements. I think that currently about half of Medicare beneficiaries choose each.
Once you've decided that major choice, you can then go through the different plans to decide which one(s) work best for you. My wife and I have Supplement F plans (currently replaced by Plan G). For a variety of reasons, we're not fans of managed care, but lots of others swear by it.
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We updated two Dell laptops to 22H2 without any problems at all. No different than any other Windows update. Both machines did have recommended BIOS updates roughly concurrent with 22H2. I don't know if the BIOS update was in any way related.
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44 minutes ago, Blues said:
With supplements, it's one of the rare times in the insurance world where customer service doesn't matter, and all coverages are the same. That sounds great, except for the medical underwriting if you want to switch plans. So even in this rare case of apparent obviousness, you still can't just pick the cheapest because it might be a teaser rate from a company that intends to close the book in a few years, and if your health declines you might not be able to switch.
We're SD residents and switched our Plan F supplements in the 2021 open season in order to realize a significant savings. I had been prepared to have to respond to lots of medical questions, but the ones that we were asked were all about far more serious medical conditions than we currently face. I guess that's good news for us. We were able to change without any issues.
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5 hours ago, Wrknrvr said:
When I was doing rv repair I carried a clear 90 elbow for the sewer line. So I could see what or if anything was flowing out. I recommend that you get one and install it so you can see what is happening. There has been more than once that I was called for a plugged black tank. Installed that clear fitting. Had the customer fill the bowl in the toilet.. Dump the bowl of water and. Th
I have found that this accessory is worth its weight in gold (or poop!) Flush King
The beauty of this item is that it both serves as a clear section of drain pipe, while, the same time, providing a way to inject water into the tank even if it acts like it is totally blocked. For example, our gray tank tends to develop soap scum clogs where the 1.5" gray line enters the "drain manifold". With this device I can easily push a few gallons of water back past the clog which almost always gets things flowing again. Other "reverse flush" devices rely on the force of water squirting up the drain pipe to dislodge clogs; having a valve you can close so the water can be forced in makes all the difference IMO.
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On 10/9/2022 at 7:22 AM, Chalkie said:
A study by the State of Florida found that cardiac related mortality was higher in males 18-39 within the 28 day period following an mRNA vaccine. I believe this would be the pFizer and Moderna vaccines with the Johnson & Johnson and Astra-Zeneca vaccines being acceptable. They found an 84% increase in cardiac related deaths in that age group. The study this guidance is based on can be found here.
Not everyone agrees with this so-called study and and many of the objectors have medical credentials that are at least as good or better than these of the FL surgeon general. https://www.politico.com/news/2022/10/11/medical-experts-reject-florida-surgeon-generals-covid-vaccine-guidance-00061352
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13 hours ago, Vladimir said:
jI ust came back from camping in a marginal area. My Verizon signal was a two bars WITH the amplifier. My friends ATT phone had zero bars without the amplifier. FOUR bars with the amplifier and he got to get on a zoom call for over an hour without any issues.
Cellular devices are usable over a signal strength range of >50 dB (50 dB is a factor of 100,000). There is no way that the simple graphic on a phone is ever going to provide more than a qualitative representation of the signal strength. Furthermore, there is no reason to expect that comparing displays in phones of two different models and/or types will provide any meaningful data.
If you want to understand your available signal strength in more detail, try using an app such as Network Cell Signal Lite (for Android phones) which will display actual signal strength in dB.
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If, by any chance, it is a Spendide, then the way to get it "unstuck" is to hold down the Start button until all the LED lights flash. You can then set it to any cycle you wish.
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When we returned our DTV equipment ~3 years ago we were told to take the receivers to a nearby FedEx shipping location where we saw an enormous pile of returned receivers. It didn't appear as if FedEx was taking any care to prevent them from being damaged; they were piled at least 10-20 high. Maybe DTV decided it wasn't worth the pretense of acting as if the hardware was going to get reused.
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18 hours ago, RV_ said:
We too are still wearing masks indoors when out, and are very glad that Joel and Ray and their much better halves came through the cross infections relatively OK.
Although our symptoms weren't all that severe, the bug did, most definitely, take the starch out of us. We're both finally testing negative and are beginning to act nearly normal again. It has been a full 2 weeks of being under the weather!
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My wife and I both have had COVID vaccines and two boosters each. We are pretty careful to mask when out shopping.
Despite that we both came down with COVID on the last two days of our Alaskan cruise last week. Both of us had what would be considered relatively mild symptoms. My wife tested negative yesterday; I'm hoping to do that tomorrow.
We'll get our next boosters after we wait the required 90 days from this infection!
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We just came back from a cruise to AK that left out of Vancouver. We flew into VC on United from Houston. United had us upload all our vaccination information into our reservations and, as I recall, some of the same info was required for the ArriveCAN app. For fully vaccinated travelers no COVID tests were required going or returning.
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On 8/8/2022 at 1:05 PM, RV_ said:
We used to buy Moen but now we use nothing but Delta because of that.
Moen also has a guaranteed for life policy. I've had several items replaced on my kitchen faucets, both the original and the one we have now.
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A peer-reviewed paper has now confirmed results from a year ago, that an experiment at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) last August did achieve "ignition" which means that the fusion reaction became self-sustaining, for a brief moment. The LLNL experiment is the latest achievement of the inertial confinement fusion work at the lab that began in the 1970's. Although it isn't as well known by the public as is the work with magnetically confined plasmas, the LLNL experiments have always been focused on re-creating, in a controlled manner, the conditions which occur in a thermonuclear weapon. As a Department of Energy technical staff member, I played a small role in the development of the Shiva laser facility in the 1970's which was the distant predecessor of today's National Ignition Facility.
It should be noted that being able to utilize inertial confinement fusion as a power source would require development of a facility which could recreate such an experiment on a rapidly repetitive basis with an accompanying mechanism for extraction of the energy produced. There are many steps yet to go.https://www.newsweek.com/nuclear-fusion-energy-milestone-ignition-confirmed-california-1733238
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FWIW Moen uses a 7/64 inch Allen key to remove the handle. Don't know if this will be of any help.
Verizon Jetpack
in Internet Access on the Road
Posted
This isn't analog TV; all signals are digital. If there resolution is "blurry" it's not because the signal is too weak. It is possible that the data rate was so slow that your TV was defaulting to a lower resolution. Did you try using your phone as a hotspot to compare how well it performed (assuming that your phones are on the same carrier as the 8800)?
The bottom line is that it could have been a poor cellular signal at the location where you were or there could be something wrong with the device. I would try performing a factory reset on it to see if that resolves some issues. Usually there's a recess you can get to when the battery cover has been removed. Hold down the reset button while restarting the hotspot.