Vladimir

Ours are drive-in...you never get out of the car. Took about 15 minutes to get tested, phone call with results about three hours later. On the other hand, I did order the test kits a couple of hours after they were announced. Still no test kits. Did get confirmation that they got my order!!1

If your in a rural area, stop by and talk to the PostMaster.

I use it all the time with wi-fi calling. Works well. I have NO CELL SERVICE at my second home. So in that sense Starlink does provide phone service. It is the major reason I got the StarLink service. I can drop the land line that I pay $50 a month for emergency use only. You can also get a VOIP phone for it.

Welcome to the new world. In the past five years I have had about a dozen credit card replacements. Only a couple have been to somebody stealing the credit card information. Most have been to corporations allowing the stealing of my credit card information. However, if you go to Alaska. Be sure to have a spare credit card in your wallet. I pretty much know where the card information got stolen....at a campground outside of Denali National Park!! Run by a bunch of Russian kids.....really you steal the credit card information from a guy named VLADIMIR!!! They didn't cut me any breaks!!! I have NO IDEA why they didn't pick on native born Americans!!! Anyway, they did go ahead and make FAKE cards that were processed in Omaha, NB!!! We got the call just as we were leaving a village in the Yukon. I had to immediately pull over and turn on the phone amplifier to keep the connection!! They can run up a huge bill while your out of cell phone range in Alaska or the Yukon. I did take to erasing the three digit code on the back so they cannot order over the phone or internet.

Lou, thanks for asking the question about charging temperature. I just assumed that they would charge in cold weather. The answer is YES. The answer from the dealer on charging temperature.............. Azimuth Solar March 13, 2019 at 3:04 pm Reply Hi Tim! Yes you can. The batteries can be discharged and charged anywhere in the range of -40 to 65C.

That is because in the entire world there is only ONE Wenatchee!! Google gave me the Rainbows End Coop on the Olympic Pennisula. Zulu, thanks for posting the graph. That was interesting.

Yes, StarLink will move the dish to her location. HOWEVER, when you want to move it back to your location there might ZERO OPEN SLOTS so you COULD be unable to use it at your location. Depending how far away your daughter is from your location, it might work at BOTH LOCATIONS. I moved my dish from my second home to my primary home. The distance as the crow flies is exactly TEN MILES. It works at both locations. Your just over the hill from me in Wenatchee. I wonder how far south they are filling orders??

Are you getting the Dish or the new rectangular model?? Where are you located?? The service address that you gave StarLink??

I had a Leer cap. It cracked and was no longer structurally sound. I believe I had it for 8 years or so. It did come with a lifetime warranty. So I took it back to the dealer and he remembered selling it to me!!! He said no problem I will contact Leer. Leer said, forget about it. The only way we will honor the warranty is if he can provide the original sales receipt. Which I did and Leer was none to happy about it. But eventually they relented and I got a new cap. Reminds me of Sears and their lifetime warranty. There I was told they NEVER expected somebody to keep a truck for 10 years. So offering it is just a marketing scam?? I needed to get a cap on short notice for a trip to Alaska for another truck and bought a CHEAP Leer cap. It is a piece of junk. Poor design, poor construction, but it covered the bed of the truck. So far it hasn't cracked, but really poor design. Their higher end models are suppose to be better. In the past, there were some great cap companies in the northwest, but they have all gone out of business. If you can find a used one, BUY it. You will never be able to sell a cap for much.

They do charge at low temperatures. I think I might buy a small one and test it.

Has anybody used these batteries......rated for operating conditions down to -40. https://azimuthsolar.ca/product/12v-100ah-sio2-battery/

The Tesla PowerWall was advertised as 7500 dollars. Plus installation.. I found out I could NOT buy it for the advertised price. Your paying 50,000 for the PowerWall. I would NOT pay that, but I am NOT surprised that the $50,000 price your paying matches EXACTLY the price my neighbors paid for their solar systems from independent electricians. It is a long, long way from 7500 to 50,000. StarLink works for me at this point. That doesn't mean that PowerWall works for me. Nor does that mean I am a fan of TESLA. Those are THREE independent products owned by ONE man. I won't buy a Tesla, and I have been trying to buy a 7500 dollar PowerWall for four years now. No luck. However, I am impressed with StarLink. One out of three is pretty good in my book. That will get you into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

I would have to build a new structure for heating. Then I spend money for the propane to heat the space as opposed to propane to charge the batteries. Not sure I would be gaining that much in the end, for the three months of cold weather. That is why the Canadian batteries were attractive to me. Plus they are a DROP IN replacement. All I have to do is change the charging parameters in the inverter. The other issue with Lithium was that the capacity is LESS than I thought. Because of the ability of Lithium to discharge almost totally, I discovered that the Lithium for 10,000 and AGM for 10,000 was a push when it came to amp-hours. I do like how quickly they charge and the fact you don't have to taper a charge. Going from liquid lead acid to AGM lead acid was huge. My shirts no longer have holes in them and I just don't fuss or muss with them. That was a technological innovation that I appreciated.

Linda, gets it. Here is the view from back door at the vacation house. Everything you see in the photo is public land. I almost bought a vacation house two hours away. That would have been a mistake. All that time driving!!! We do rent as a vacation rental business and having it 25 minutes away really helps with that. I do use it for astronomy since the sky is much darker there than my city house. The only real disadvantage, is that you tend to "day use" it. Go up for a BBQ dinner and then come down. For 25 minutes I take my dog up there for walks. It did come in handy during the early stages of pandemic. Lots of great places to walk without running into people and I moved up there for almost two months. I have a view from my city house, it is of sage and grass and the Columbia River. Lately, the view of the eastern Washington desert also includes more and more homes. There are advantages to being a forester. You know all the good spots before anybody else is even aware that they exist. It was a very inexpensive piece of property.

They have gone up. Douglas County is at 2.3 cents, Chelan at 2.7, and Grant way up there 5.64 cents. All of them are planning rate hikes in the future. The goal for all PUD's is to reduce debt load. That is what the county residents wanted for Chelan. I think will be soon at 3.0 cents. Li batteries have real issues with charging in cold weather that is below 32 degrees. I was charging my lithium battery operated dog collar in my unheated trailer and it just stopped charging at that point. RV did clue me into these batteries. https://azimuthsolar.ca/product-category/batteries/sio2/ Made in Canada and do not care about cold. They heavier than Lithium, but for residential application they are fine. I have only found them to be available in Canada. Not a problem for me since it is a short drive to the border, but it appears that they haven't made much penetration south of border for some reason. Hopefully, not reliability. I don't know anything about them. But they sound good, and right now I am leaning towards installing these in my current system. I am stuck between spending a LOT of MONEY buying new stuff and continuing to replace stuff as it wears out. $50,000 for a new system is a lot of money. Throwing $10,000 for batteries every five years might be a better deal until there is a break through in either technological batteries or panels. I have waited 25 years I guess I can wait under decade or so.

For those interested I started a new topic in the ....."Other Topics forum" Cost comparison Off-Grid Solar versus Grid Home.....it is the actual cost data for my in town grid house and my off-grid vacation home 10 miles away (as the crow flies) and 25 miles by road.

I have 30 panels on five pole mounts. Each panel is 80 watts. So that is 2400 watts. They are all 25 years old. The inverter is a Trace 2024 with a Bogart Engineering charge controller (that give you a clue on age). The batteries have been replaced once and now need to be replaced again. They are Trojan 8D AGM's. They are 800-1200 dollars per battery IF you can find them. I have eight of them. There is a very OLD Cummins generator that is set on auto-start. When the battery voltage hits a trigger point it runs to recharge the batteries automatically. Here is a cost comparison of the two homes I own.... Just got my yearly electrical use summary from my ALL-Electric house. No solar panels.Total Kilowatts Used.............................24,703Annual Cost of Electricity......................$575.58Washington taxes on public power.........$160.02Total cost of Electricity for the entire year.........$735.60.My vacation rental solar home....annual cost.Firewood.......................................... ......$500Propane..heat, generator, fridge, etc........$1850Solar system repairs................................$150Firewood system repairs & maintenance.....$250.Total annual cost of operating the house..............$2750 Replacement fund for solar system (annual cost) $2000The all-electric house is 2400 square feet and occupied year-round.The solar house is 1800 square feet and occupied for about 100 days a year. I suspect living there full-time would probably add maybe another 2000 dollars primarily for propane.The homes are 10 miles apart with the off-grid house being 2000 feet higher in elevation.The total cost for all electric is $735.60 versus $4,750 for the off-grid home. $6,750 for fulltime living at the second home.

I love traveling in spring and fall. Spring in many ways is safer since the weather will tend to get better, rather than worse like in the fall. When I worked for BLM we had a travel trailer stuck at 6000 feet in the Rockies. It did NOT winter well. The roof was actually over a foot lower by the following spring and it was a total loss. One thing about spring travel in the mountains is soft shoulders on the road. That is the one thing I keep a close eye on when pulling off pavement or gravel roads in spring. With a large, heavy RV you can be buried up to your axels just a couple of feet from the road. Yellowstone is truly a world treasure. No place on earth like it. The one similar area in Kamchatka got buried in a avalanche and the thermal features were ruined.

Go ahead and TRY to do it. I guarantee you it will be a learning experience!! My system is 25 years old. I did try to get bids to upgrade it. TWO electricians, including one that did 10,000 dollars of work for me, declined. They wanted the entire system replaced at a cost of $50,000. Panels are dirt cheap, it is the mounts, the piers, the copper wire runs, the generator, batteries that run up the cost. I finally found a electrician that was willing to LEARN on my system and it cost $2000 to hook up 12 panels, on the mounts and the piers ALREADY placed in the ground. That cost was for the electrician to hook everything UP, plus wire, conduit, and that type of stuff. He only charged me $95/ hour for labor. I did try to get a TESLA PowerWall, but again, nope can't just buy the PowerWall you need to BUY EVERYTHING again. Start talking and getting REAL BIDS. As I say it will be a learning experience. Don't get me wrong, I really like my solar off-grid home. BUT it is NOT cheap. It is very, very, very expensive for the electrical system......and I STILL need propane for the fridge, hot water heater, stove, furnace, generator for cloudy days, and clothes dryer. Propane ain't cheap these days. BTW... I have the second cheapest electricity in the United States at my city house at 2.7 cents a kilo-watt hour. I have the MOST expensive electricity in the United States at my off-grid home just 25 miles away.

Easy......my guess was 150,000 for a off-grid solar setup to charge a EV daily. I can't afford it. But if you can, go for it. As for the future....I have owned a off-grid house since 1997. I am still waiting for the future solar panels and batteries to arrive. I did upgrade my battery set in that time from liquid lead acid to AGM lead acid!!! There is nothing worse than waiting for the "future" to arrive when you own a solar house. It never happens. Here is my post... According to a brief search you need a solar array of 16-30 Kwh to recharge a car. My house runs on ONE POINT FIVE kwh. My RICH neighbors all put in 5 Kwh array's for their homes. That cost them 50,000 dollars for the complete setup. So to charge a EV car.....my estimate is in the neighborhood of 150,000 dollars. The panels are cheap, but the mounting hardware and wiring is very expensive. You do need a work from home job....since you need to charge the car during the day. Don't even ask the price for a 16 Kwh battery system. My 1Kwh battery system was 10,000 dollars. I love my solar off-grid system. It allows me to live comfortably in a amazing environment. Thanks to propane. I should post a picture of the view from my back door.

Read my post....you can't even come close to affording it.

I have an off-grid house. You don't do ANYTHING until the battery bank is fully recharged in my case on a sunny day about noon.......AND THEN you do the laundry, run the vacuum, play the stereo, check you emails, surf the internet, etc. etc. Everything happens when the sun comes out.....we party like it is 1999. According to a brief search you need a solar array of 16-30 Kwh to recharge a car. My house runs on ONE POINT FIVE kwh. My RICH neighbors all put in 5 Kwh array's for their homes. That cost them 50,000 dollars for the complete setup. So to charge a EV car.....my estimate is in the neighborhood of 150,000 dollars. The panels are cheap, but the mounting hardware and wiring is very expensive. You do need a work from home job....since you need to charge the car during the day. Don't even ask the price for a 16 Kwh battery system. My 1Kwh battery system was 10,000 dollars. I love my solar off-grid system. It allows me to live comfortably in a amazing environment. Thanks to propane. I should post a picture of the view from my back door. Can I do that on this forum?? Solar makes sense for the International Space Station, RV's and off-grid homes. Not much else.

I am shocked, shocked, totally shocked that you would believe that BIG TECH would lie!!! Or talk about things that don't exist!!! I am shocked that after 40 years of vaporware and lies, it appears that the first BIG TECH executive is headed to prison for lying in 2022. With Musk you never know what is real and what is not... however StarLink.... It works great with wi-fi calling. I did assume that the phone would require a StarLink system to connect for wi-fi calling. Not much different then the capability I have today....A phone that connects to StarLink in native mode, or wi-fi mode in urban areas and ALSO has connections to a cellular network?? I would buy it in a heart beat, even more important if after 30 years I can get rid of Verizon as my cell carrier. World-wide lots of people would buy the phone and its connection to StarLink to avoid government snooping. I suspect that is one reason that China has filed a complaint with the UN regarding StarLink. I don't think Verizon or the other cell carriers have a clue how much their customers hate their companies. The money is NOT is providing wi-fi services to rural areas. The only part I believe is the phone. The rest is just vaporware. BUT if you can provide cellular phone service in a seamless system world-wide. I suspect your going to make a pile of money....a very LARGE pile. More money than building cars. PS. Here is the link to the new StarLink dish at 19 by 12 inches. That is a small enough for a travel dish for almost everybody. Once the GeoLink fence is removed that gives anybody cell service throughout the world. A friend of mine has bought Android SmartPhones from China at $40 retail. The profit margin on cell phones is huge. Just ask Apple. Musk is too smart of a businessman not to offer a cell phone with the dish.

https://www.jackery.com/products/explorer-300-portable-power-station I bought this one for use with my telescopes, computers, etc. etc. Check out the front panel. USB ports, 12 volt output and 120V outputs. It is small. Check out the measurements. I keep it under the table in my Casita trailer. It is REALLY handy to be able to plug in my phone, my IPAD my computer, my dog's good citizenship collar and controller at the same time!!! I am impressed it works great. I can even charge it with my solar panel, while using it. The only downside. It is a Lithium battery. No charging under 32 degrees. I am not sure that I would buy a larger one. Those are as big and heavy as a Honda 2000. In that case, I want my Honda 2000.

I am not sure that is going to happen. I was reading in the Wall Street Journal, where HALF the Wall Street banks have now decided NOT lend money to the oil and gas industry due to climate change issues. Likewise, many endowment funds have also decided to SELL their oil and gas holdings. Of course, regional banks and small investors MIGHT decide to lend money to oil and gas companies to make up the difference. I don't know. But the lack of access to financing it going to make it very difficult for the oil and gas industry to raise new capital. In response, all the large multi-national companies are cancelling their exploration efforts and focusing on pumping only from existing wells. So the long-term supply picture is declining supply, unless Russia and the Middle-East countries make up the difference to catch up with demand and both those regions need higher prices to support their economies. Long-term gas prices are going up and up and up. Short-term for 2022. I think it really depends on the economy. We are long, long overdue for a recession and the Federal Reserve is making noise about raising interest rates this spring. If we end up in a recession I think you will see gas prices go down, but I firmly believe the long-term trend is gas prices increasing at a higher rate than inflation. Here in eastern Washington, gas prices have gone up significantly in the past week....by 40 cents a gallon.