Rover

We carry two 2000 watt generators in the back of our truck bed so we can pair them when we need to run the air conditioner. Vicki

We spent most of the summer in Alaska and crossed back into the states around the end of July. Just in time for things to start going wrong with the RV and truck. Didn’t think we’d ever get out of Washington with all the repair appointments we had to schedule. As we are making our way east and south toward Indiana we continue to have to stop for irritating problems (bought new tires in Washington and the tire place cracked a rim resulting in a leak and the purchase of a new rim in South Dakota). We aren’t in a rush to get back, but would like to have a few dollars left when we get there 😁. We will be attending the Escapees Indiana chapter Rally in September so we do have to make it back by then. Hope everyone else is doing well. Vicki and Mark

We’ve been up here almost two months and are just about ready to head back toward the USA. Yesterday we visited McCarthy and the Kennecot Historical Mine. Today we made our way to Valdez and will be here for a few days. These are our last stops in Alaska unless we venture off the Cassiar Highway on the way back. However, most of those areas we have visited before on Alaska cruises. It’s been a great adventure! Vicki

Our panels are 160W so 1920 watts of solar and we did have it professionally installed except at that time we had 8 Trojan T-105 6v batteries. Mark did the switch over to the Battle Born batteries about a year later. We actually do have small window air conditioner we can use on solar if it gets too warm and able to run it for several hours or overnight. I’ll have Mark look at the article and see if we are hooked up the most efficient way. Definitely want to protect that investment! Thanks. Vicki

They all hook together in parallel then into the inverter to power everything in the 5W except the air conditioning and the fireplace. We have 12 solar panels on the roof. Rarely have to run the generator. Love our solar and Battle Born batteries! Have boondocked almost the entire summer in Alaska. Vicki

Sure wish they would have had this discount before we bought our 10 Battle Born batteries!! 🤨

We go overseas for 8-9 weeks every year. We find an outdoor storage yard so our solar can keep our fridge, WiFi and satellite system running. We record programs and watch them remotely from where we are in the Caribbean. We also leave our truck there and will take an Uber or Lyft to the airport. Cheaper than airport parking. We have also checked out using storage space in RV campgrounds but storage lots have been cheaper. For a one week trip we just left the RV at the current RV CG where we were with the park’s permission and payment of course. Vicki

We put Goodyear Endurance on our 5W over a year ago and have been happy with them. No problems and they are wearing well. Vicki

Ok thanks everyone. Guess we will just deal with whatever we can get. Vicki

We’ve had our Trav’ler for 4 years and have had very little problems with it. But now it seems to work but just will not lock onto the satellites. Mark (DH) says we are just too far north but seems to me if you can see the satellites in the app using your phone, shouldn’t the dish on top of the RV be able to see them? I just can’t believe we have to go the entire summer while in Alaska and Canada without using the Dish. Vicki

Al, Did you have any problems with your Trav’ler? The last 2 days we have only been able to get 119 and we had no obstruction of any kind. App shows all 3 satellites visible. Wineguard had no suggestions for troubleshooting. Vicki

Zulu, that’s a nice website, thanks. The Sacramento CONUS locals worked. We switched to them today. Thanks for the list Dutch. Vicki

I added on to Mark’s original post above about the problem with our Trav’ler but then thought that if others are like me and just use the “unread content” feature, they wouldn’t see the edit to the post. So if you would take a look again at the problem and have any suggestions that would be great. We decided to stay an extra day to see if we can get it working. Thanks - Vicki

Looking for a way to change the setting or finding different Dish Satellites while traveling through Canada and Alaska. We are just about 700 kilometers into Canada and the Trav’ler is only finding satellite 119. I understand maybe not finding 129 but it’s not finding 110. Can I get any suggestions? Thanks edit to add: has anyone run into this problem of the dish only locking onto one satellite? Looking at the app Satellite Pointer all 3 satellites are visible in the sky and can’t see any reason the dish shouldn’t be able to lock on them. Checked connections at dish on roof and control box. Tried to troubleshoot with Wineguard and they were no help.

It worked for the New York one but we are in AB Canada and the east coast time is just not working out. Haven’t got to change to a west coast address yet because we are having Dish problems with our Travelr and couldn’t get locked on last night. Winegard pretty much blew us off this morning saying they won’t help us while we are in Canada or Alaska. So will start a different thread with problem to see if anyone has some ideas.

Thanks!!

Does anyone know of any Dish Network locals on a national feed (CONUS) from the west coast? I know about New York, Jacksonville and Ft. Wayne but I need something in a later time zone. I have checked the website that lists all the locals but I don’t know how to tell if they are CONUS or just spot beam. TIA for any help. Vicki

We have kindles and Amazon Prime. I subscribe to Bookbub listing the genres we’re interested in reading and they send a daily link of free or discounted books each day. Between that and the Prime free first of month pick I have more books than I will ever be able to read. But if I did run out there is also Prime reading where you can borrow books to read from a list that constantly changes. Besides the 2 day shipping, this is one of the additional benefits I like with Prime. Vicki

We held 2 garage sales but did better with the larger items by listing them separately. People wanted us to give them away at the garage sales. We did sell a lot of things but were practically giving things away by the second sale. Vicki

We lived in a small town so there really wasn’t a local Craigslist for us and I’d never had much luck listing things in the one for the larger city near us. Our community did have a buy and sell Facebook page that we had good results with for large items like furniture and appliances. Even just posting them on my own FB page seemed to get pretty good results but again that could be attributed to it being a small community. Vicki

We had a small vendor discount and got our Battle Born 100ah batteries for $925 each. We just had one of them we purchased 2 years ago repaired and shipped back to us free of charge by Battle Born. They were very responsive when we contacted them and emailed us the label to ship them the battery with them paying the shipping. They said they would fix or replace the battery and they did! Great service and warranty! Vicki

I have gotten two personal responses to my comments on the surveys in the past, but have stopped responding to them anyway since we move so often. But it does show that someone is reading at least some of them. Vicki

The taxes you are charged on your account each month are based on your billing address so may be higher if they have changed it to your current service location. Of course it’s not a lot, but if you’re on a retirement fixed income, every little bit adds up. Vicki

We met up with dirtyboots (Donna) today for a nice lunch in Congress, AZ. It was great to meet another member of the 2016 class and put a face to the name! She also gave us some great ideas of things to see while we are in the area. Vicki

We had a Class C that had the latch system on the belts on the sofa. I don’t remember for sure, but I don’t think the dining booth seatbelts had latches. A car seat wouldn’t fit well there anyway. We did use a car seat and had no problem securing it. Vicki