LindaH

We spend at least a few days at Lake Mead twice a year -- once on our way down to Arizona for the winter, and again in the spring when going home. It seems that each time we're there, the water level has gone down. Yet, they're busy building houses -- lots of houses. One of these days -- probably sooner rather than later -- the lake level is going to be so low, it won't be able to generate electricity, not to mention provide the surrounding area with water.

I had it for a few months, but discontinued the service. I was primarily using it for a hotspot connection, not calls, but I was trying it out thinking that if it worked, I'd quit our Verizon service and move exclusively to Visible. I ended up having too many problems with the service -- things that it wouldn't do on particular websites that would work on my Verizon phone. I got one problem solved by an hour+ chat with a CSR at Visible, but another problem they were never able to solve for me. It was at that point that I discontinued the service. I would suggest that, if you want to move to Visible, you get a phone and try it out for a few months BEFORE you cancel your Verizon service.

That's exactly what we did when we had "regular" water heaters (we now have a tankless water heater). We'd drain the water heater, add the required amount of bleach to the fresh water tank, fill the water heater with the bleach water as well as run it through all the lines, and let it sit for a few hours or overnight. Then we'd drain the water heater again as well as the fresh water tank, fill up the fresh water tank with water, fill up the water heater and run fresh water through all the lines. At this point, some people use a second fresh water fill up using either vinegar or baking soda, but we never minded the small remaining bleach smell that remained and it quickly dissipated, so we never did a second rinse. Of course, during all this the water heater is turned off -- you don't want it trying to heat water when the tank is empty!

We try to travel with empty gray and black tanks, but because we spend most of our time boondocking, we travel with a full fresh water tank.

We have our DPH42 on the roof. It's my understanding that it creates quite a bit of heat, so if installed inside, it needs to be someplace with good ventilation (we had absolutely no place inside our rig to install the switch, so it had to go on the roof...as it is, the cabinet where the receiver and Power Inserter reside are so crowded we have absolutely no room for anything else).

I don't see from your route that you're planning on visiting the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, but it's unlikely to be open in mid- to late-April, anyway. You can always check the National Park/Monument websites to get information on what's open, what's closed, camping, etc. For any National Park/Monument, use the URL http://www.nps.gov then add the first four letters of the park's name -- or, if two words in the name, the first two letters of each name. Therefore, Grand Canyon's website is http://www.nps.gov/grca Bryce Canyon: http://www.nps.gov/brca Zion: http://www.nps.gov/zion

If you're looking for a fifth wheel or travel trailer, I'd suggest looking at Northwood Manufacturing, maker of Arctic Fox, Nash and other lines. Northwood | Northwood Manufacturing (northwoodmfg.com) Also worth considering is Northwood's sister company, Outdoors RV. ORV | Outdoors RV Manufacturing (outdoorsrvmfg.com)

What recipe are you using?

What provider are you using (Dish or DirecTV)? What satellite dish do you have on the roof of your RV (or are you setting up a portable dish...if so, which one)? What receiver are you using?

We used one of these for our previous Basenji (the one in my avatar) and it worked like a charm. We started out using one with our current Basenji and he ate through probably six of them before we finally wised up and got a travel cage!

No, I said I chatted with Dish about changing my service address.

I never said I was trying to stream Dish. Not sure why you thought I was. What I said was that I had never gotten around to trying to stream (in fact, I don't even know how to do that where I can see it on my TV rather than the small screen on my phone).

I finally quit Visible because there were too many problems with it. I never got as far as doing any streaming, but the first problem I ran into was when I tried to do a chat on the Dish website in order to change my service address. I couldn't get chat to work, so I did a chat with Visible (which DID work...go figure). The person had me do some stuff and he did some stuff on his end and we finally got Dish's chat to work. The second problem I ran into was apps stopped working. I had downloaded some apps in order to watch/listen to a particular news channel. In each case, the apps would work for about a week then completely stop working. I tried another chat with Visible, but was never able to get the problem resolved. That's when I terminated the service. I did use a travel router so that both my DH and I could get online with our computers at the same time. That worked like a charm.

You might try posting over on the Winnie Owners Forum to see if anyone has run into this problem.

One thing you will want for your brand new RV is Total Loss Replacement (TLR). In the case of a total loss during the first 5 model years, TLR will replace your RV with a new one. After the 5-year period, you'd get the price you paid for the RV -- in contrast to current market value which will be quite a bit less. It's doubtful that your auto insurance company offers this type of insurance, but ask them. If not, then you'll want to find an insurance company that specializes in RV insurance. One place to start is to contact insurance agencies such as Miller RV Insurance, Home | Miller RV Insurance. You'll want to make sure that the TLR is for a period of 5 years. When we were shopping for new insurance for our current RV (in my signature), one company we talked with offered TLR, but it was only for a period of 18 months!

That was the other problem for me. We leave to head south at the end of October, and there's no guarantee we would receive the equipment by then.

Thanks, Dutch. That helps.

I got an invitation to Starlink this evening. I'm not sure I'll take them up on it right now because we're still snowbirds so I wouldn't be able to use it for 4-5 months each year. However, this paragraph was in the email...can anyone give me an idea of what kind of speeds and latency these numbers represent because I don't have a clue: "During beta, users can expect to see data speeds vary from 50Mb/s to 150Mb/s and latency from 20ms to 40ms in most locations over the next several months as we enhance the Starlink system. There will also be brief periods of no connectivity at all."

That will mean Winterhaven, CA for us. It doesn't really make any difference for this device. Now, if it were a phone, that would be a different matter.

I did finally find it. First, I went to the pre-paid website because that's where everyone was saying they found it. I did find the PLAN, but not the M2000 MiFi device. I spent some time on the phone and found out that the device was on their post-paid website. Went to the post-paid site and found the DEVICE, but not the plan. I talked with someone on the phone and she was able to set me up with both the plan and the device. It's being shipped, but from Indiana, so no telling when it will actually get here considering the weather, even though it's *supposed* to be 2-day shipping.

Barb, did you try and order the M2000? And if so, where did you find it on their page? The other 2 mifi's that show up aren't 5G which is what I thought the M2000 was.

Thanks Bill. This is where I was looking, but I don't see the M2000 which is being discussed here.

Can someone post the URL to the T-Mobile site where this is offered? I can't find it on T-Mobile's prepaid site.

Today in Yuma, it is sunny with a light breeze, high 79F, low 50.

With few exceptions, I use autopay for all my bills. I get an email every month from whatever company it is (cell phone, satellite TV, utilities, etc.) telling me what the amount of the upcoming bill is...I don't have to go online to look at the statement to figure that out. I've been doing it this way for years and have never had a problem with it. I also have all my bills set up for paperless billing. I get an email each month when the bill is ready for viewing. I then go online and download it to a file on my computer.