Packman

I am FL resident and currently have my FW insured with Progressive. I have been considering selling the FW and getting an older Class A  pusher. I had heard that insurance is more, so I thought I'd get a quote on a theoretical rig. For a 2007 tiffin at $70k, the quote was over twice what I pay for the truck and FW. What do you pay for a class A, Full time?

Thanks - Rick 

We have a stationary place in the mountains of VA for the summers. On the road, I use Visible connected to a modem for internet with few problems. I also have a Verizon Jet Pack (post paid 30GB). I also have a weboost with a directional antenna. First, the jetpack works fine, being able to maintain a 10-20mbps down speed most of the time. The only problem is the data limit. The Visible connection is where it gets weird. I have a Blade A7 connected to a modem via usb cable and Network Cell Info Lite. The phone without the weboost wants to go to band 13. The signal strength is good, showing between -70 to -85 dBs, but can only transfer  <1mbps down and around 4 up. Using the weboost and depending on the direction of the antenna, I can most of the time get the phone to switch to band 4. While the Network Cell Info Lite shows less than stellar speed, somewhere around -115 dBs, the transfer rate, is 6-8 mbps, which is fast enough for me to stream and I'm happy with that. The problem is, I can't keep it on band 4. Sometimes I have success by rebooting everything. Sometimes I have success by trying to force a channel change from the maintenance keyboard (*#*#4636#*#*), but there are times when nothing works. I would be happy if I could keep it on band 4 or if I could get sufficient data on the jetpack. Any suggestions appreciated.

Rick

KOA Fancy Gap / Blue Ridge Parkway is open. In Virginia / NC border. Hope to see some of y'all!

I contacted a State Farm agent in Florida. When I told them I was full timer, they told me they can't insure me at all.

More interesting info:

So, I did get a Visible phone (ZTE Blade) and service. With a android, I know exactly what signal strength I'm getting. At first it was a bust because the router I was using only connected via wireless to the phone. Once I traded the router for one that connects via usb tether, vola, I have a good enough signal to stream to my Roku. With the Iphone, I don't know any way to know what band it's using, but I'm please with the Visible setup now.

Life on the road!

On 2/2/2020 at 10:14 PM, agesilaus said:

Are you camping in Florida? Or have a residence, if so why not use that address. Otherwise I'd just grit my teeth and follow the directions the mail forwarder gave you. It is a one time thing after all. But you could always call the local people where you are and ask them how they do it.

I did call them and still couldn't determine how they do it. I bit the bullet and made the trip to Green Cove Springs today. With an appointment they handle everything at once and are very used to doing full time RV'ers. I can't recommend enough the Clay county office and mail service in Green Cove Springs.

I am very tempted to try the Visible route with a cheap phone to use for a router.

12 hours ago, docj said:

I presume you told him that the Jetpack was surrounded by the same trees therefore the argument is meaningless as an explanation of the difference in performance between the phones and the Jetpack.

The only question I haven't asked is what model iPhones you have? Not that it's going to explain much, just simple curiosity on my part.

I made that point many times to no avail! I have iphone xs.

2 hours ago, docj said:

I agree -96 dBm is a pretty strong signal.  But I find it odd that both phones are having issues.  Since you seem like you're pretty much on top of things, I'm sure you have the phones u I'pdated to the latest firmware, etc. It will be interesting to see if the Verizon store guys have any suggestions when you get there. 

However,  my sense is that those folks are less technical than they used to be.  At one time there was sort of a "repair" section in Verizon stores, but that's pretty much gone away.   When I made a comment to a Verizon guy about "fixing" something with my phone, the response was that we don't fix things and "anything we do is at your risk."  I think phones have pretty much become disposable--they get replaced, if necessary, during the warranty period and then people simply dispose of them if they fail after that time.

And yes, while my conversations with tech support was interesting, very little, if any results were accomplished! First level support had me do  things like reset the network settings, the second level tech determined that I'm five miles from the nearest tower and that my booster needed to be registered. He basically offered two reasons: the difference in the jetpack and the phones is because the phones are processing as well as transmitting data. Then when looked at my location on sat view - "That explains it, you are surrounded by miles and miles of trees!" Again, results for my hour plus on the phone, about the same! I'm here for another month, guess I'll live with it 'till then.

11 hours ago, docj said:

I assume you know how to access the Jetpack's onscreen control panel which is usually found at 192.168.1.1  If you go About/Diagnostics on that control panel you will see the signal strength as the Jetpack is reporting it (if you are asked for a password, just use the Jetpack's PW regardless of what the text says).  This will be helpful to the Verizon technicians.  FWIW both my phones and my Jetpack are working fine with a -109dBm signal strength.

Thanks for that! I completely forgot that I do have one non-ios device! I'm at -96dbm! I see no reason why my phones shouldn't at work at that signal strength!

Appreciate the replies!

10 hours ago, docj said:

It's much better to use an app such as Network Signal Lite in order to understand the actual signal level your devices are encountering.

I would love to find a ios app that gives actual signal strength. There seem to be plenty android apps (such as NSL) that do that, but I've yet to find one on ios. I know how to invoke the diagnostic screen in ios, but when on the phone with weboost, I was advised that the measures in that are also not reliable.

6 hours ago, docj said:

One thing you didn't mention and might want to consider is rebooting the phones if you haven't done so in a while.  Smartphones are computers and are subject to developing errors.  Often people keep them running for weeks on end.  An occasional reboot is often a simple way to improve performance.

Yes I frequently reboot the phone at the first suspect of trouble. I also renew the lease on the wifi connection frequently. My next stop is at the verizon store, since their tech support phone number takes you to a chat.

I also know store personnel have varying levels of expertise on phone settings. We'll see!

9 minutes ago, docj said:

Alternatively, just let the phones connect by WiFi to the Jetpack since it is working well.  

Postpaid Jetpack only include 15gb of LTE data, where the phone gets unlimited.

We are at a campground where the cell service it terrible. We have a weboost and get between two and three bars most of the time. The speed test is between 1-2 mbs down. I have verizon post paid phones with a jetpack add on. While I can do most everything in need while surfing on the jetpack, using the phones I can hardly do anything. They phones work intermittently when I can connect to the cg wifi and it's working properly (rarely). My logic says that if I can surf on the computer using the jetpack, I should be able to turn the wifi off on the phones and get the same results. I have iphone xs.

As always - thanks!

Rick

Is anyone familiar with how Sumter Co registers full timers? Our resident mail service is in Clay county and on our trip to convert our registrations and drivers licenses, we were missing a document and couldn't get it don'e. My understanding from the Clay Co DMV rep, is they register the fifth wheel first, using the mail service address and then everything else has the tag number of the FW as the residence and the mailing service as the mailing address. She said all other DMV will mess it up. My problem is, Green Cove Springs is 2-1/2 hours away and Bushnell is 20 minutes. If Bushnell does it the way Green Cove Springs does, I can save myself the better part of a day. Appreciate all the advice of this group.

Rick

When I joined Escapees, I too planned on using their mail service and there address for domicile purposes. As I dug deeper into how the mail worked between Texas and Florida, that didn't exactly make sense to me. Based on that, I chose a different mail service. Now I'm staying in Bushnell, but plan to travel to Clay county to do all the DMV stuff.

For those of you who full time and aren't stationary, where do you have your primary care doctor?

Thanks - Rick and Dru

Full Time 3-1/2 months and counting!

I have just ordered Dish system from Amazon. I haven't had a dish account in years. What's the best way to set up service? Do I set it up as a residential account? I'm full time and not stationary.

Thanks - Rick

I'll probably see if they will put something funny on it.

On ‎11‎/‎17‎/‎2019 at 5:58 AM, fpmtngal said:

There is a difference between the question "where are you from" and "where do you live" in my mind.  

I'm "from" California (twice) but I've lived and have contact or ties to a number of other places.  If I were asked that question for a work camper name badge, I'd be tempted to put down the place where I had the most emotional ties to and knew the best. Right now I'd probably put down Texas as I'm a newly minted Texan, so my emotional ties are now to Texas and I can talk intelligently about Copperas Cove, having lived there happily for a few years in the 1980's.  I know California best for having been born and raised there, then moved back there 30 years ago.  However, I have few emotional ties left there and not sure I would want that state, that I couldn't wait to leave, on a name badge.

The answer to where I live is wherever I'm parked now.  Totally different question, totally different answer.

To my point, I'm from Maryland, but why would I want to be from somewhere I'm fleeing!

Rick

They are used to workampers, so they probably find the question entertaining. I'm sure they don't really care, but I find the whole inability to answer the question humorous.

Is it me or does this question trip up other newbie full timers? The question was posed by employer of workamper position in regard to where you want to be from on you name badge.

Let's see: We can go - originally? where I last lived? where I lived the longest? Were my domicile is (or will be)?

... I'll get back to you!!

Welcome! We just sold our house in August and will be headed toward Florida to arrive around Jan 1. We will be workamping next summer.

Rick and Dru

On ‎10‎/‎21‎/‎2019 at 12:36 PM, Packman said:

When I bought the jetpack and went to Verizon to activate it, we changed out plan to "Do More" plan. The rep added it with 15gb data for $10 ($8.50 with our gov discount) and another sims card with 15gb for another $10. So, we have 30gb, plus each of our phones have 30gb hotspot. If I want to stream, I connect my phone straight to the TV, because the phone doesn't pull from the hotspot data.

That's how we plan to do it, but granted we haven't been through a whole billing cycle yet. We'll see if the plan hold true.

Rick

As it turns out, the Verizon rep was wrong about being able to use two sims cards in one jet pack. Why can't they get their act together?

14 hours ago, kb0zke said:

Many years ago we signed up with Millenicom (anyone remember them?). At that time we were still working. I had a desktop computer and Jo Ann had a laptop. The deal was 20 GB/month. We put a small program on each computer to track our data use. We rarely went over the 20 GB. Fast forward to today. We're full-timers. Each of us has an iPhone and we have a hotspot, all with Verizon. The hotspot gives us 15 GB/month before it is throttled. The phones have 20 GB each of data use, but only if used on the phone. When tethered it is limited to 10 GB. Not sure how Verizon knows when that happens, but that's not my question.

Our data month begins on the 12th, and a few minutes ago we got texts from Verizon saying we've used 90% of the hotspot's high speed data. I think that's a new record.

Most of the time the throttling isn't a real issue, and when it is, we can just connect one of the iPhones, but it sure would be nice to have something that would give us more high speed data. Most of the campgrounds we visit do NOT have wifi, so using the park's isn't an option. Also, when doing banking or other business that requires some security we'd prefer not to use a public system.

Any suggestions?

When I bought the jetpack and went to Verizon to activate it, we changed out plan to "Do More" plan. The rep added it with 15gb data for $10 ($8.50 with our gov discount) and another sims card with 15gb for another $10. So, we have 30gb, plus each of our phones have 30gb hotspot. If I want to stream, I connect my phone straight to the TV, because the phone doesn't pull from the hotspot data.

That's how we plan to do it, but granted we haven't been through a whole billing cycle yet. We'll see if the plan hold true.

Rick

We are officially in this class. We have the fist week under our belt, but have much to do (get rid of more stuff).

22 hours ago, SWharton said:

There was a discussion either here or on IRV2 that it is better to not start your FT on 1/1, could raise a red flag from the state, better to start earlier or later and file a part-year residency income tax.

I wish I could set up domicile sooner but I plan to work (in MD) until just before Christmas.