Category Archives: Ham Radio

Posts that have something to do with our amateur (ham) radio hobby including the American Radio Relay League (ARRL) and the South Lyon Area Amateur Radio Club, our local ham radio group.

2015/06/26 (F) Field Day Setup

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I was up at 7 AM and ready to leave for breakfast with the other SLAARC members who would be setting up our temporary field site for the ARRL Field Day event. I called the SLAARC repeater and Steve (N8AR) came back and wanted to know if I had the site use permit from the township? No, I did not. Paul, N8BHT, got on the air and said he gave it to Linda so I went back home. Linda was up but had no recollection of receiving it. We looked through the materials she got from Paul but could not find it. I left again for breakfast but after more radio QSO went back a second time to retrieve all of the records and bring them with me to the field day site. (Our best guess is that he gave the permits to the other Linda (NF8C) who is the club secretary.

SLAARC’s Field Day setup begins in earnest when Steve’s equipment trailer arrives.

By this time it was too late to make it to breakfast so I stopped for coffee and fueled my car. Mike (W8XH) also did not go to breakfast with the group in South Lyon so we were the first to arrive at the site. Another 10 guys showed up shortly thereafter. John’s Sanitation then arrived and dropped off our rented porta-potty.

We had 12 people for most of the day and 14 total who were there for at least part of the day. It was a good group and just the right size for the task. We worked steadily from 9 AM until almost 5 PM except for an early afternoon lunch break. By the end of the day we had erected two towers and set up six antennas (20m beam and 6m beam co-located on the taller tower, two off-center fed dipoles from the taller tower, a 40m crossed dipole from the shorter tower, and a 40m 1/4 wave vertical with four elevated counterpoise wires). We also put up three radio tents, a screen room, and the big food tent.

Larry (K8UT) holds the 6m beam while Steve (N8AR) and others attach the 20m beam to the mast of the taller tower.

The weather was cloudy and dull and not the best for taking photographs but I took pictures anyway. I had to be deliberate in my shot selections, however, as both of my memory cards were almost full. All of the work that needed to be done today was finished by 4:30 PM and most of us took off. Our Field Day chairman, Paul (KD8SNZ), and a new member, Ron, setup their tents as they would be spending the night and keeping an eye on the site. Steve (N8AR) and Eric (K8ERS) stayed a bit longer to test the antennas using the mobile radio in Steve’s SUV.

Back home I took a nap for an hour before dinner. Linda grilled Portobello mushrooms and corn on the cob and cut up some fresh strawberries and cantaloupe. After dinner I went to my office and transferred all of our recent photographs from the Sony alpha 100 DSLR to my computer and then to our older NAS device which we had with us this past winter. I then started backing up all of the photographs we had taken since December 2014 from the old NAS unit to the new one. This involved a significant number of images, a lot of gigabytes of data, and took a bit of time.

Rather than sit around waiting for file transfers to finish I decided to turn on the Icom IC-7000 ham radio and see if I could figure out why I could not hear the Novi 440 repeater on Wednesday when we tested the antenna and coax installation. I checked the Nifty guide for the Icom IC-7000 and, as Mike had suspected, I did not have the Tone Squelch frequency set correctly for the Novi repeater. I changed the mode on the 440 MHz band from ‘Tone’ to ‘TSQL’ and then caIled Mike (W8XH) on the phone to see if he could help me do a radio check. We spent about an hour going back and forth between the Novi and South Lyon repeaters.

With the correct settings I was able to work both repeaters although I had a lot of background noise (static). I played with the noise reduction (NR) and pre-amplifier functions and both seemed to help. Mike tried various combinations of power and simplex operation and we determined that the basic problem seemed to be a weak signal in both directions. I am still suspicious of the fact that I do not have the Go Box grounded as I vaguely recall from three years ago having noise problems with this setup until I grounded the box, which is tied to the radio ground.

Field Day is an “all hands on deck (antenna)” event for our SLAARC group.

Mike was suspicious of the coax I used to go from the lightning arrestor to the radio but looked up the specifications on my Diamond X-50N antenna and suggested that an antenna with more gain might be in order. We also discussed the location where I placed the antenna on the tower. Although most of the antenna is above the tower it is on the northwest leg. The two repeaters lie to the southeast so the tower may be ‘blocking’ some of the signal although that does not seem likely to me. Of more concern to me is that I mounted the base of the antenna so that two of the three counterpoise (ground plane) rods are even with, and parallel to, two of the three topmost crossbars. If anything is being blocked it is likely those as the crossbars are between the rods and the repeater locations.

Ed (KD8OSM) jumped in briefly to let us know that I also had a ‘hum’ that sounded like the 60 Hz power line frequency only higher pitched. I have a small fan installed in the back of the Go Box so I hummed the same pitch as it was producing into the microphone and both Ed and Mike confirmed that this was the tone they were hearing. The fan is audible, but not that loud, and was two feet behind the microphone so I would be surprised if it was picking up the fan noise. It is possible that the fan is inducing the hum electrically, but I believe it is a DC fan, so that seems unlikely. I do not have an AC line filter installed on the fan, or anywhere in the box, so that may be a next step.

The larger of the two towers is up and secured. It has a 6m beam antenna on top of 20m beam antenna on a common mast with a rotator. We also attached one end of an off-center-fed dipole to this tower.

At the SLAARC Field Day site atop the Lyon Township Atchison Memorial Park the larger of the two towers is up and secured. It has a 6m beam antenna on top of 20m beam antenna on a common mast with a rotator. We also attached one end of an off-center-fed dipole to this tower. Tents are being erected to house the various operating stations. The weather was overcast and forecast to get much worse before Field Day as over on Sunday.

Mike and I wrapped up our QSO and I shut the radio off. I checked my e-mail and saw that the May 2015 issue of Bus Conversion Magazine was available. I logged in to the website and downloaded both the standard and high definition versions of the April and May digital editions. By the time I got to bed it was well after 11PM. I finished up yesterday’s blog post draft and outlined as much of today’s post as I could before I lost the sequence and details of the day’s events.

2015/06/25 (R) The Mouse

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Brighton Honda called yesterday in the afternoon to get permission to do additional work on my car. Since we plan to keep the car for a while, and then perhaps give it to our son, it was the kind of work that needed to be done regardless of the costs. They called back later to indicate that they would not have it aligned before closing time. That was fine with us as it would have been inconvenient to impossible for us to get there by 6 PM to pick it up. Linda told them to call in the morning when it was ready.

The top of the 40-foot tower from the WNW showing all of the antennas and the pulley with the haul rope. The weather had definitely deteriorated from the day before.

It is amazing how attuned we become to routine sounds and how sensitive we are to non-routine ones, even (especially?) while sleeping. So it was last night that I was suddenly aware that one of our cats was making a repetitive sound that was unusual. I turned on my flashlight, hoping to not disturb Linda, and got out of bed. Both cats were hunched down on the floor on Linda’s side of the bed with Jasper in front. He was the one responsible for the sound and the reason was next to his head and about 3 inches away; a little dark gray mouse.

My first thought when I see one or both of the cats with a mouse next to them rather than in their mouth is that it is dead but that was not the case. This mouse was alive and apparently not injured. I have seen this behavior before in which the mouse basically “plays dead” and the cats leave it alone but watch it carefully. Mice seem to know that cats are triggered by movement and that if they sit very still the cats just sit there and guard them. It was 4:30 AM and I was not fully awake so I do not recall the exact sequence of events, but the mouse somehow ended up in our master bathroom. I do not recall what I did with the cats but I think I went and got a box with high sides and tried to get the mouse to go in it and it made a run for it towards the bathroom. Linda was awake by this point so she got a towel for me. I went in the bathroom and used the towel to block the gap under the door and prevent the little critter from getting back into the bedroom while I tried to get it into the box. I was unsuccessful and it managed to find a place to hide in the hot water baseboard radiator.

Linda got one of the live traps we recently purchased and baited it with the recommended saltine and peanut butter. We set the trap near the radiator, turned out the bathroom light, shut the door, and tried to plug the gap with the towel from the outside, figuring we would deal with the mouse in the morning. Juniper kept pawing at the towel and pulling it back from the door so we put both cats out of the bedroom and shut the door. They found that confusing as they sleep with us and generally have the run of the house. One or both of them pawed at the door meowing to get back in for quite a while. It wasn’t the best night’s sleep we have had and the timing was unfortunate given the hard day of tower work.

Brighton Honda called at 8:01 AM to let us know the car was ready. Hello, I’m awake now! I checked on the mouse and it was now safely tucked away on top of the radiator fins inside the housing where neither the cats nor I could get to it. We decided to leave the live trap in place, sealed the gap under the door, and kept the bedroom door shut to keep the cats out.

I had planned to drive to Isringhausen’s U.S. headquarters in Galesburg, Michigan today but first we had to get my car. As long as we were headed that way we decided to go to the Brighton Panera for coffee, but had toast and juice for breakfast at home before we left.

The 100,000 mile service is extensive and includes changing the spark plugs. Beyond the routine service items the Element needed a new ball joint and tie rod and had a stuck brake caliper pin that had to be repaired. Given the front end work I also had them align it. Butch and I rebuilt the front brakes last year so I was surprised that there was an issue with them, but the car has been towed and driven in some harsh environments since then so that may have been a factor.

The Panera at Grand River Avenue and I-96 is not one of our favorites. More often than not we end up with coffee grounds in our cups and the bathrooms are not maintained as they should be. Today was not the first time we have been to this location that the men’s restroom was out of toilet paper. It is also often freezing cold inside the restaurant and today was no exception. The weather was overcast and a bit gloomy but the outside temperature, while not warm, was much more comfortable than inside. We were also unable to connect to their Wi-Fi signal, which is generally useable. That’s pretty basic stuff to not be able to get right and falls squarely on local management in my opinion.

While we drank our coffee I called Rick Short at ISRI to make sure he would be in but I got his voice mail again. I asked for a call back but never got one so I did not make the trip to Galesburg. Apparently they have better things to do than be of assistance to me. I only want to buy one chair, not a fleet of chairs, so I understand my relative unimportance, but I don’t like it just the same. We decided to spend the day at home completing the work from yesterday, which had made a mess throughout the house.

One of the things we needed to do was register our cellular booster system. Given that it is a five band device I was not clear on whether we had to register it only with Verizon or with all of the carriers. I called the company we bought it from, Cellular Solutions, and talked to Judy who said we only had to register it with the carriers we personally use. For us that is Verizon Wireless. Registration was via the Verizon Website and was simple enough. It did, however, require me to log in to our My Verizon account and navigate through a couple of screens to a page where we could enter the information from the label on the box. The serial number was on two peel off tags, so one of those went on the booster and the other one went in the manual.

With the unit registered I turned the power switch on and watched the ‘Alert’ lights all go solid yellow. As I mentioned in yesterday’s post solid yellow lights are not described anywhere in the manual. I called Cellular Solutions back and said I had a technical support question. The woman on the phone took my name and number and said someone would call me back.

Since I was apparently taking care of phone chores I decided to call Universal Towers and inquire about their B-30 base. The woman who answered the phone never gave her name but was able to answer some questions. She indicated that their base might or might not be compatible with older Heights Tower products, depending on exactly which product I had, and that I would have to talk to the owner, Bill, who wasn’t there at the moment. She did know that the outside-to-outside measurement of the legs on a B-30 base was 30 inches and the base cost $290. She also told me that the larger bases, like the B-30, consisted only of the three rods with the mounting yokes on top; the three rods were not otherwise connected together in any way. She also confirmed that the ‘U’ shaped yokes at the top of the base rods were welded on and not adjustable. The normal installation procedure involved connecting them to the bottom of the legs of the first section of the tower, setting them in the hole as the concrete is poured, and adjusting them by moving them around until the legs of the tower were plumb. That sounded to me like a process where a lot could go wrong and not be repairable.

I pulled a 75 ohm coax out of the ceiling of the basement yesterday. We laid it out in the basement to see how long it was and it looked to be at least 60 feet. Linda suggested we test it before running it through the basement ceiling which was a very sensible idea. I unplugged the power adapter for the TV amplifier power inserter, detached the coax that feeds the TV in the bedroom, attached the downstairs cable, and connected the other end to the basement TV set. Linda set up the TV for Antenna input, did an All Channels scan, and got the same stations we got yesterday, minus a couple.

In spite of what appeared to be acceptable performance I decided I wanted a new coax cable and Linda wanted to return three of the ropes I bought at Lowe’s but never used. She found the receipt and we went to Lowe’s. They had a good quality RG-6 quad-shield coax (75 ohm) in various lengths including 50 feet, which is what I needed. At the register I decided to buy two more 40 pound bags of solar salt. I am not an impulse shopper as a rule but their supply of Morton Solar Salt was very low and stocking up seemed like a good idea.

We stopped at Teeko’s to order coffee. Mary took our order and rang it up; one pound each of the three different half-caff blends that have become our standard. We took note of the fact that the Bennigan’s restaurant building on the northwest corner of Grand River Avenue and Latson Road was gone and a sign said a Panera would be coming soon to that location. We didn’t say anything to Mary, but that cannot be good news for Teeko’s. We will continue to buy our custom roasted beans at Teeko’s as long as they are open but it is going to be difficult for them to compete with a $2.25 cup of bottomless coffee, free Wi-Fi, a restaurant, a bakery, drive through service, and ample parking with great access to I-96.

When we got home I checked the live trap in our master bathroom and we had captured the mouse. We took the trap to the northeast corner of the property, towards our neighbor’s pond, and set it free. It did not want to leave the trap and I had to encourage it to go. Once it hit the ground, however, it scampered away looking for a place to hide.

We then worked on running the new coax from the basement TV to the sump pump room above the suspended ceiling. I disconnected the power inserter for the amplifier and disconnected the old coax we had tested earlier. I notched a ceiling panel at the corner of a boxed support column behind the basement TV to allow the ceiling tile to go back into place around the coax. We then installed one of the wire channels to contain and hide the coax from the ceiling down to the TV set and connected it to the back of the set.

In the sump pump room I attached the coax from the cable entry box (CEB) to the input of the new 1-to-2 signal splitter. I attached the coax for the bedroom TV to one output from the splitter and the coax we just ran to the other output. I mounted the splitter on the wall of the sump pump room and secured the cable coming from the CEB to the ceiling. I then plugged the power supply for the power inserter back in to an AC outlet. Linda scanned for channels and verified that everything was working correctly. We then installed the other wire channel alongside the trim on the bedroom doorwall to route and hide the cable coming up from the basement.

I continued to fuss with the cell phone booster gain settings. We had not gotten the promised return phone call from Cellular Solutions Technical Support so I called them. I got Judy again and explained what I was seeing with the solid yellow lights. She checked with her tech support people and they said the manufacturer (SureCall) told them the solid yellow was the same as the blinking yellow; that the booster was adjusting the gain and it was “normal.” The manual says that normal is when the light is off, so I’m not sure I buy this explanation, but based on that I left the booster turned on.

With all of that done we started cleaning up the tools and materials we had scattered over two floors of the house. I decided that was also a good time to start a load of laundry, although it was actually rather late in day for that. I did three loads by the time I was done and it was sometime after 10:30 PM before the last load was dry. I needed to be up at 7 AM to be at breakfast in South Lyon at 8 AM as our SLAARC group would start setting up for the ARRL Field Day event at 9 AM.

2015/06/24 (W) Up The Tower

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Today was the day to finally climb the tower to remove an old TV antenna, reposition an amateur radio antenna, and install two new antennas, one for OTA TV and the other for a cellular booster system. But there were other things to do before I was ready to climb.

I was up at 7 AM and on my way to Lowe’s in Howell by 7:20 AM in search of a solution to the problem of how to mount the outdoor cellular booster antenna. I ended up buying two 2-1/2 inch U-bolts. Although the tower legs are 1-5/8″ in diameter the angle bracket attached to the bottom of the antenna is 2-1/4 inches wide. Thus I needed the 2-1/2 inch spacing for the threaded ends of the U-bolt to clear the bracket.

Back at the house Linda was up and had the coffee made. We had a quick breakfast of homemade granola. I removed the tire pressure sensors and GPS from my car and headed to Brighton Honda to drop it off for its 100,000 mile service appointment. Linda arrived at the dealership about 10 minutes later. We then headed to Adams Electronics in Wixom. While Adams Electronics primarily serves the public and business communications markets owner Scott Adams, AC8IL, is a long-time ham and a member of the South Lyon Area Amateur Radio Club and Novi Amateur Radio Club. Well known in the local amateur radio community, Scotty is the local go-to guy for certain kinds of equipment. I ordered two coaxial cables from him the other day and we were here to pick them up.

We left to return home at 10 AM so I called Mike (W8XH) to let him know we were running a little behind. So was he, but thought he could be at our house by 11 AM. That gave me time to drill a hole in each of the two U-bolt retaining plates and cut a short piece of 1″ square aluminum tube to use as a spacer. That was the last fabricating I needed to do and we got busy staging all of the materials we were going to need to get the tower work done efficiently.

Mike (W8XH) setting up the tools and parts outside the “drop zone” of the 40-foot tower on the east end of the house. (Photo by Linda)

Linda set out a sheet near the tower but not in the “drop zone.” We spread out materials and tools on the sheet and used it to make sure we could find things quickly and keep them from getting lost in the grass. I also brought all of my tool boxes to the tower area. With everything assembled it was time to climb. I set up our 7 foot step ladder on the east end of our rear deck to provide access to the roof near the tower. Mike helped me into his climbing harness and got it adjusted. Once on the roof I took the harness off temporarily as my first task was to remove the 2m/70cm base station antenna. After clipping the plastic cable ties I lowered it down to Mike while Linda took photographs. (She helped with many aspects of the work today but was the only photographer.)

Starting up the tower from the roof of the house. (Photo by Linda)

I put the harness back on and Mike tossed me one of the 100 foot ropes which would eventually be used to haul materials and tools up and down the tower. I secured the haul rope to one of the unused seat clip rings and Mike instructed me on how to secure the harness while climbing. I put the waist strap around the tower and clipped it in. I then put one of the two fall cables, attached to the ring at my upper back, around one of the legs above one of the cross bars above my head and clipped it into the ring at my chest. The tower is adjacent to the east end of the house and is attached to it by two pipe assemblies just below the soffit (the house has hip roofs) so it was easy to step onto it. After that things got tougher.

The horizontal trussing on the tower is two feet apart vertically. That spacing was right at the limit of how high I could lift my right foot and required me to pull myself up part way until I could push with my right leg. Once up on the next rung I attached the other fall cable, moved the first one higher, and slide the waist strap up to position myself for the next step. I repeated this pattern with the two fall cables and the waist strap as I worked my way slowly up the tower, clipping old plastic cable (zip) ties as I went. The tower definitely had some give but I was quickly acclimated to the amount of sway and found it to be acceptable so we decided not to guy the tower with the other three ropes, which would have slowed my ascent even more.

When I finally reached the top of the tower I untied the haul rope, looped it over one of the southeast facing horizontal bars and hauled it up allowing the free end to lower down to the ground. Mike then tied the rope to the standoff pulley I had fabricated and hauled it up to me. I already had cable ties, a diagonal cutter, and a pair of slip pliers with me. I set the threaded rod on the northeast and southeast cross bars, inside and against the two legs that were parallel to the side of the house, and secured it with cable ties. This was a three-handed job that I had to do with two hands but I got it done while only dropping one cable tie. With the pulley rod secured I undid the rope and then undid the knot tying the two loose ends together. I fed one end through the pulley and retied it to the other end. We now had a way to haul materials and tools (in a bucket) up to me at any needed height while keeping it 18 inches away from the tower.

Three-quarters of the way up ad working with the haul rope. (Photo by Linda)

The next task at the top of the tower was to remove the old TV antenna, mast, and rotor. When I finally had a close up view of these old components it became apparent that my best course of action was to try and unclamp the base of the mast from the rotator, lift it off of the rotator, and toss it to the ground.

The mast clamp parts were all very rusty so Linda got the WD-40 and Mike sent it up in the bucket. I sprayed the nuts on the mast mounts and also the rotator leg clamps. I tried undoing the mast clamps with a slip pliers but it was no good, so Mike sent up three open/closed end wrenches. One of them was the right size and to my surprise the rusted nuts broke loose and started backing off. One of them did not want to come off but unscrewed the entire bolt instead. Fine. The bolt had a screwdriver slot in the top and was threaded into the rotor housing and I did not care how it came out as long as it did. I got the mast clamps loose enough that I could work the bottom of the mast free from the top of the rotor. There was a lot of rust there too. After clipping some coax cables, rotor control wires, and plastic cable clamps I repositioned myself up one rung on the tower so I could get enough leverage to the lift the mast clear of the rotator collar and control it well enough to make sure the antenna fell to the ENE away from the house and my helpers down below. And that is exactly what happened.

The first antenna to get mounted was the outdoor antenna for the cellular booster system. Mike sent the antenna up in the bucket along with the various pieces I needed to secure it to the short top/center mast support tube so the entire antenna, which is omnidirectional, was above all parts of the tower. What would have been an awkward assembly on the ground took on added difficulty 40 feet in the air but I got it secured with good access to the N-female connector on the bottom.

At the top with the pulley in place and using it to haul up a bucket with tools and parts. Mike is controlling the haul rope on the ground. (Photo by Linda)

We decided to run the coax on the outside of one of the tower legs rather than down the inside of the tower. Mike tied the LMR-400 coax to the rope and hauled it up to me. In addition to the haul rope Mike tied a second control line to the bucket to keep it from swinging all over the place. I connected the coax to the antenna feed point and then wrapped the connection with coax seal tape. I then routed the coax down the east leg of the tower and zip tied it to take the weight off of the antenna connection.

Next up was the 2m/70cm amateur radio base station antenna, often referred to as a 2m/440 dual band antenna. (In this nomenclature the “2m” refers to a range of wavelengths for one of the VHF ham bands and the “440” refers to a range of frequencies for one of the UHF ham radio bands, so it is a mixed units designation.). The antenna is about five feet long with three short counterpoise (ground plane) rods near the base. It had an LMR-400 style cable connected to it but with PL-259 male connectors on each end. The antenna feed point is an N-female connector so I had an adapter installed to make everything compatible. Mike removed the coax and the adapter, zip tied the antenna to the haul cable at three points, put the 10mm wrench in the bucket, and hauled it up to me.

The ham radio antenna was also tricky to get mounted. I installed it at the top of the northwest leg so that most of the antenna was above the tower and two of the three short counterpoise were parallel to the west (N-S) and northeast (NW-SE) crossbars. The antenna by itself is light in weight but it is five feet long and mounts at the bottom nine inches, so most if it was above me with a tendency to wave around in mid-air. With the coax connected, however, it weighed quite a bit more. I temporarily zip tied the coax to take the weight. I then had to hold the antenna with its base against the northwest post at my head level, push a U-bolt through the mounting bracket and past the tower leg, slip the mating clamp over the two ends of the U-bolt, and then get a small lock washer and nut on each threaded bolt end. I then had to repeat this for the second U-bolt. Again, a three-handed job that I had to do with only two hands.

The old OTA TV antenna and mast on the ground. It came down by the gravity method. (Photo by Linda)

The bonus to this work at the top of the tower was a commanding view of the surrounding countryside, which was mostly trees in every direction. I even saw two towers far to the north and was kept company by a soaring vulture just to the NNE. I was also able to determine that the tops of the large white pine trees behind the east end of our house are about 10 feet higher than the top of our tower, putting their overall height at about 55 feet as their bases are lower than the base of the tower. We plan to put the 70 foot tower at a spot that is surrounded by these trees on three sides (W, S, and E) so the top of the tower, and any antennas mounted there, will be well above the tree tops. That is especially important as we plan to eventually put an HF beam antenna up there on a mast attached to a rotator and it will need to be able to rotate freely for 360 degrees.

The final antenna was the hardest. The Antennas Direct DB8e OTA UHF/digital TV antenna was very large and heavy by comparison to the other two. In this case ‘heavy’ meant a few pounds. It is actually two UHF antennas mounted at the end of a dual support arm structure. The support arm mounts to a vertical pole, such as a tower leg, at its midpoint and there is a combiner box located there as part of the mount. A short length of RG-59 (75 ohm) coax connects each antenna to the combiner box and the main coax connects there as well.

How tall the tower appears (and feels) depends on where you are standing. (Photo by Linda)

How tall the tower appears (and feels) depends on where you are standing. Pulley and haul rope in the upper right. Lots of coaxial cables to be dressed (secured) on the way down. (Photo by Linda)

RG-59 is a different kind of coaxial cable from the LMR-400 used for the first two antennas. LMR-400 has a 50 ohm characteristic impedance and is used for receiving and transmitting RF energy with considerable power if needed. RG-59 is much smaller in diameter, more flexible, has a 75 ohm characteristic impedance, and uses F-connectors that are the standard for OTA TV, video, and satellite cables. But I have gotten ahead of myself. I had to come down a few feet on the tower to install the TV antenna but before doing that I had to start securing the transmission lines to the tower legs with cable ties.

Mike rigged up the haul rope in a ‘Y’ to lift the antenna from its center of gravity while actually attaching the rope to its ends. That allowed the haul rope to both support the weight of the antenna and keep it oriented correctly while I positioned and clamped it to the southwest tower leg with the dual support arms pointing in an east-west direction. Because of where I had the pulley mounted, and the length of the ‘Y’ in the support rope, I had to mount the antenna a few feet lower on the tower. Fortunately the slightly lower height was not going to affect its performance.

Like the ham radio antenna, the OTA TV antenna mounted to the tower leg at two points. The upper assembly was a U-bolt with a retaining bracket on the back side. The lower assembly was a pair of straight bolts that went through the combiner box past the tower leg and had a retaining bracket on the back side. The antenna came with wing nuts instead of washers and regular nuts, which helped a little, but I really needed three hands to get the antenna into position and tighten the mounting brackets.

Mike ties off the DB8e OTA TV antenna with an inverted “Y” so it will haul up in the proper orientation. (Photo by Linda)

Once I had the antenna sufficiently attached to the tower I was able to position the support arm close to the southeast facing side of the tower. I then pointed the antenna on the east end of the arm ESE towards the Detroit area TV towers and tightened the two nuts on the mounting studs. (The horizontal dual support arms are about 3 feet long so I was able to reach through the tower to get to the mounting studs and nuts.) I left the antenna on the west end of the support beam loose and turned it out of my way so I could complete other tasks.

Mike attached the end of the main RG-59 coax to the haul rope, put the amplifier and a 2-foot length of RG-59 coax in the bucket along with lots of zip ties, and pulled them up to me. The amplifier is about 3″ wide by 2″ high and 1.5″ thick including the concave plastic backplate. The backplate accepts two zip ties for mounting to a pole. I positioned the amplifier about 8 inches below the antenna combiner box and cinched up the two zip ties. I then connected the short coax to the combiner box output and put the combiner back it its protective, weather-gasketed plastic box. I connected the other end of the short coax to the amplifier input and wrapped the connection with coax seal weatherproofing tape.

Installing the DB8e OTA TV antenna required three hands. Note that I am installing it at the highest point possible when suspended from the pulley with the haul rope in an inverted "Y" attachment. (Photo by Linda)

Installing the DB8e OTA TV antenna required three hands. Note that I am installing it at the highest point possible when it is suspended from the pulley with the haul rope in an inverted “Y” attachment. The yellow waist strap allowed me to lean back and work while the two red security straps would catch me if something broke. (Photo by Linda)

I attached the main RG-59 coax to the output of the amplifier, which is also the DC power input, and wrapped the connection in coax weather seal tape. I then dressed the cable and secured it to the tower leg. I aimed the antenna on the west end of the support arm WNW towards the East Lansing TV towers and tightened the nuts to lock it in position.

At this point I was finally done working on the antennas but had three coaxial transmission line running down the outside of the tower, one by each leg. As I descended the tower, reversing the protocol I used going up, I secured all three cables every few feet. I finally had my feet back on the roof at 2:20 PM, almost exactly 2 hours and 30 minutes from when I started climbing. Projects usually take me twice as long as I think they will but this was about half as long as I thought it would take, so we were all pleased that the work had gone smoothly and relatively quickly. My main objective was to get the old TV antenna down and the three antennas up but my secondary objective was to only climb and descend the tower once. Mission accomplished, at least for now.

By now we were all hungry and thirsty so Linda made chickpea salad sandwiches and set out fresh sweet peppers, sliced apples, baby carrots, and cold water. After a suitable lunch break we returned to the next phase of the work which was routing the coax cables into the cable entry box (CEB) and making the connections.

We started with the RG-59 coax from the OTA TV antenna. I coiled the extra cable and hung it on the tower (with zip ties, of course), routed it into the CEB and connected it to the power inserter / lightning arrestor. We purchased this cable from a Radio Shack store in Florida two winters ago to hook up our bus to the RV resort cable TV system. Besides the coax it had a separate ground wire. The amplifier and the power inserter both had connections for a separate ground wire so I connected it on both ends.

Routing coaxial cable into the cable entry box from the tower and the basement and making the connections. (Photo by Linda)

We had already routed a 75 ohm video cable from our bedroom TV to the sump pump room in the basement. I selected a suitable length of this same type of cable from our existing inventory, connected it to the other side of the power inserter, and routed it through the back of the CEB into the sump pump room where Linda guided it. Conveniently, I had a double-ended F-female barrel connector designed to connect together two cables with F-male connectors. I plugged in the AC power adapter for the power inserter, which was already in the sump pump room, and we went upstairs to see if we were receiving any TV stations.

We set the ‘Source’ on the TV to ‘Antenna’ and did an ‘Auto Scan’ for digital channels only. There are very few analog TV signals still in use and the ones that are reside in the old VHF TV spectrum which our new antenna cannot even receive. The scan found 58 signals, which obviously included the sub-channels. Besides the main Detroit stations and the East Lansing PBS station we got other Lansing area stations and even a station from Flint. The nice thing about digital TV is that if you get a picture at all it is very good.

There is a large TV tower at I-96 and US-127 on the southeast corner of Lansing so we were probably picking it up. There are several TV towers SSW of Lansing about 35 miles that serve Battle Creek and may serve Lansing and Kalamazoo. They are 50+ miles from us and I did not have the west antenna pointed in exactly that direction but it may have been close enough to pick them up. Flint is at least 35 miles away straight north off the sides of both antennas so theoretically we should not have received any stations from that direction. We will have to check the AntennaPoint.com website and confirm by station identifier what stations we are actually receiving.

Feeling good about our success so far we routed the coax for the cellular booster across one of the support arms that brace the tower to the house just under the east soffit. We dropped it down next to the wall and brought it into the bottom of the CEB, replacing the hole plug with a rubber grommet. Routing it this way kept it out of the way of future foot traffic, or lawn and garden work, in the space around/between the tower and the CEB. I connected the cable to the lightning arrestor and coaxed it unto position inside the CEB. LMR-400 is stiff and bending it sharply will damage it.

I connected one end of the 15-foot LMR-400 cable to the other side of the antenna arrestor and routed it into the sump pump room where Linda guided it into position. I secured it to the ceiling, brought it down the opposite wall, put a large 180 degree bend in it, and attached it to the connector on the bottom of the cellular booster. I turned it on and watched the lights blink for a while. All three of us then started checking signal strength throughout both floors of the house. All five of the ‘Alert’ lights went from blinking yellow, which means the unit is adjusting the gain on that band, to solid yellow, which is not described in the manual. Since we had not yet registered the device with Verizon Wireless I turned off the booster.

Back out at the CEB I removed one of the hole plugs directly below the input of the Morgan VHF lightning arrestor. We routed the coax for the 2m/440 ham antenna across the tower brace, down the wall, and around through the bottom of the box where I attached it to the lightning arrestor input. I had an old piece of 50 ohm coax with an N-male connector on one end and a PL-259 (male) connector on the other end. I attached the N-connector to the output of the VHF lightning arrestor and fed the other end through one of the 2″ conduits into the sump pump room where Linda routed it out into the ham shack.

We set our “Go Box” on the desk, plugged the PL-259 into the SO-239 socket on the back of the case, plugged it in to AC power, turned on the power supply, and turned on the radio. The radio, an Icom IC-7000, came up tuned to the South Lyon (K8VJ) repeater. I transmitted and successfully triggered the repeater, which is currently at a secondary site about 20 miles from our tower. Mike went out to his car and used his mobile radio to verify that we could transmit to and receive from the repeater. I had a lot of background static (white noise) so Mike switched modes and transmitted directly to our antenna. The signal was full scale and full quieting. I have a ground lug in the Go Box but did not have it connected. I vaguely recalled that I had to ground the box at the previous house to eliminate a noise issue. (The radio and power supply are grounded to the box.)

I switched the radio to UHF and it was set for the Novi repeater. I listened but did not hear anyone transmitting so I transmitted, giving my call sign and a brief message, and then listened. I did not get a reply even though Mike was also monitoring the Novi repeater so I switched back to the South Lyon repeater. Mike indicated that I had, indeed, triggered the repeater and that a couple of other hams acknowledged hearing me in addition to him. It thus appeared that I did not have something set up correctly on the receive side of the radio for the Novi repeater but the system (radio, cables, arrestor, antenna) was clearly working.

That was enough work for one day so we gathered up all of the tools and unused materials and put them away. We offered to take Mike to dinner as a ‘Thank You’ for his assistance. It was more than helpful to have someone on the ground who was familiar with tower operations. We considered several dining options but opted for Olga’s in Brighton. Linda and I had small salads, sans the Feta cheese, veggie Olga’s that were excellent, and curly fries without Tabasco sauce for the ketchup. Warning: As inconceivable as it may sound, Olga’s does not have any kind of hot sauce in its restaurants. Mike had a dish with chicken in that he said was very good.

Mike headed home from the restaurant as did we. We were tired but very pleased with what we had accomplished in the course of the day. We celebrated our accomplishments by watching several programs on Detroit PBS, something we have not been able to do for more than two years.

2015/06/23 (T) Grounded

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As I wrote in yesterday’s post we did not turn off the lights last night until almost 1 AM because we were keeping a close eye on the weather moving across the lower portion of Michigan’s Lower Peninsula. Although strong to severe storms were still forecast from 1 AM to 5 AM they either did materialize at our exact location or we slept through them. We had the house closed up and the air-conditioning on, so that cut down the sound level of outside noises.

A cold front had pushed through by sun up and we woke to a cool morning with blue skies and noticeably lower humidity. We did not have any trees, or even big limbs, come down and there was no damage to our brand new roof. The forecast yesterday was threatening enough, however, that in the morning we took the potted plants, and as much of our outside lawn furniture as we could find room for, inside including our sun umbrella and trash cans. I planned to be gone most of the day, and Linda was leaving mid-afternoon to go to dinner and a movie with Diane Rauch, so our first chore was to put all the lawn furniture, plants, and other outdoor stuff back outdoors.

This week is mostly being devoted to ham radio with the ARRL Field Day as the crowning event this weekend. My specific focus for most of the week, however, has been the “communications tower” adjacent to the east wall of our house. As described in previous posts we installed a cable entry box (CEB), mounted the cellular booster in the basement, mounted the inside cellular antenna, and ran coax cables. The antennas will (hopefully) be mounted on the existing 40 foot tower tomorrow, cabled into the CEB, and cables run from there to devices inside the house. With any luck by the end of the day tomorrow we will have decent cellular service inside the whole house, the ability to watch OTA TV programs on two different TV sets, and finally be able to connect one of our radios in the ham shack to an antenna. Today, however, was planned to mostly address other things.

I had an appointment with our dentist at 10:20 this morning and left at 9 AM. I planned to stop at Chuck’s bus garage and check that the key he lent me worked, but I needed gas for my car. I did not have time for both and did not really have a choice; I would have to check the key some other time. I ordered two cables yesterday from Scott (AC8IL) at Adams Electronics. Later in the evening I was unsure if I had specified the connectors correctly so I called and left a message. I called again this morning to make sure the message got through. It did, and my original connector specifications were correct.

I arrived at the dentist’s office about 10 minutes before my appointment time. I called Rick Short at Isringhausen USA to make sure he was going to be in before I drove two hours to Galesburg, Michigan after my dentist appointment. I got his voice mail a left a message. “ISRI” makes very high tech air suspension driver’s seats that are used as original equipment in motorcoaches, semi-tractors, heavy equipment, and locomotives. I would really like one for our bus, but it is not proving easy to get.

Dr. Steve and his assistant, Leslie, made molds of my upper and lower teeth and a bite impression. The molds will be used to make a mouth guard that I can wear while I sleep. Dr. Steve has a strong suspicion that I am clenching my teeth and the mouth guard will reduce or eliminate the irritation it causes. I will have to ask if I can wear it during the day too as I am occasionally aware of clenching my teeth while I awake.

I had not heard back from Rick by the end of my appointment so I called the main number at ISRI and talked to the receptionist. It turned out that Rick was not in today and she transferred me to Jeff Woodworth. Jeff was willing to meet with me but thought it would be a better use of my time to wait until Rick was available. My next opportunity to drive to Galesburg will be Thursday and I will likely go as the ISRI seat is holding up our ordering of Flexsteel seats through Coach Supply Direct.

I stopped for coffee and then re-routed for Chuck’s bus garage in Novi. The key to the garage worked perfectly. I called Linda to let her know about the change in plans and headed for home. There is too much to do at the moment to waste much time so I installed the #4 AWG bare copper ground wire I bought yesterday at Lowe’s. I mounted an offset copper wire lug using the center support stud for the copper back plane in the CEB. I replaced one of the plastic hole plugs with a rubber plug with a small hole in the center. The hole I chose in the bottom of the CEB allowed the ground wire to come straight up into the lug.

Another view of the cable entry box on the east end of the house by the 40-foot tower showing the bare copper ground wire that runs to the ground rod and then to one of the tower legs.

Outside the CEB I routed the ground wire around to the existing ground rod and secured it using the new clamp I bought yesterday. There was an old ground wire connected from a clamp on the tower to the ground rod. I removed that wire along with some coax and control wires that I had clipped when we removed the old satellite dish. I then attached the new ground wire to the clamp on the tower. While we were at it Linda trimmed back a small bush that was growing between the tower legs and I pulled leaves, grass and other stuff out from around the Day Lilies that we transplanted last year around the tower base.

With the CEB grounded we looked at how we might get a video cable up to the TV/monitor in our bedroom. The wall where the TV is mounted has a hot water baseboard radiator that comes almost to the trim on the door wall. That end of the radiator has a copper pipe that goes through the floor into the basement and it was easy to locate the pipe in the basement. I determined that there was enough space behind the pipe to safely drill a hole but I had to drill it from the top side at an angle. A 5/8″ wood boring drill bit created a hole just big enough for the molded F-connector on the end of the cable to pass through.

We fed the video coax cable above the suspended ceiling in the ham shack area to the location of the hole. I then fed the cable up from the basement as Linda pulled it up into the bedroom. We adjusted the amount of cable in the bedroom to allow the wall mounted TV set to move through its entire range of motion. The other end of the cable was then routed into the sump pump room.

By the time we finished pulling this cable it was 3:30 PM and time for Linda to leave to pick up Diane. They were headed to Royal Oak for dinner and a movie as the movie they wanted to see was only showing at the Royal Oak Main Theater.

While I was out during the morning Lynch Carpet had called to let us know our Armstrong vinyl tile was available for pickup so after Linda left I closed up the house and went to get it. The 12 boxes of tiles, container of vinyl adhesive, and container of vinyl grout were all neatly arranged on a small pallet and tightly wrapped in shipping plastic. Rather than break this down and load each thing individually they used a fork lift to set the pallet in the back of my Honda Element. The rear suspension settled at least two inches when they transferred the full weight of the pallet to the floor of my car.

When I got back to the house I backed the car up to the garage. I cut the shipping plastic loose and unloaded the tubs and boxes of tiles. I put the pallet on the garage floor and then neatly stacked the boxes of tiles on it to keep them off the floor. Each box contained 14 tiles measuring 16″ by 16″ for a total area of 24.89 square feet. The Armstrong Alterna tiles are a “luxury vinyl” product, and are about 1/8″ thick. Even so, the boxes were heavier than I expected so I decided to weigh one. It tipped the scale at just under 42 pounds. That meant the entire pallet weighed close to 500 pounds, and, ignoring the weight of the cardboard box, that is about 3 pounds per tile.

When I drew out the design I determined that I would need 158 tiles, some of which would be partial. Figuring conservatively at 150 full tiles equivalent, and ignoring the weight of the underlayment, adhesive, and grout, the floor tiles will weigh about 450 pounds. I have no idea what the carpet and ceramic tile that I have removed weighed but the tiles were heavy. I also have no idea what the furniture weighed that we have removed but also have no idea what the new furniture will weigh. The intent was that the new floor and furniture would weigh less than old stuff but we will see.

I traded phone calls with my dad and we finally got to talk for a half hour starting at 4:30 PM. He turned 90 this past Sunday. Mike Fearer from Bid-Rite Concrete called at 6 PM and arrived about 10 minutes later to discuss the foundation for our 70 foot ham radio tower. I had printed off a page from the Universal Tower website showing their tower base. I also downloaded and printed their base and tower installation instructions. I had a set of these to give to Mike so he would have some idea of what the project is about. We looked at the proposed location for the tower and access for his dump cart. We also talked about the base, a rebar cage, a form around the top of the hole to allow the concrete to be slightly above ground, and a jig to make sure the base is level and the tower is plumb.

He said he was interested in the job and would work with me and Phil Jarrell (the excavator) to get it done. Rather than bid the job he would just do it for time and materials. He also said the current price of concrete was about $100 per cubic yard. We will need about six (6) cubic yards to fill the required 5′ x 5′ x 6′ (deep) hole. He thought he might be available the middle of next week but I don’t think I could have everything pulled together that quickly.

After Mike left I went to Lowe’s and picked up five 40 pound bags of topsoil, a 1-in/2-out signal splitter (rated for 5 MHz to 2.4 GHz), and a plastic snap cover channel for hiding the video cable we ran up into the bedroom from the basement for the TV set. I then went to the Meijer’s supermarket just across Grand River Avenue for soy creamer but they did not have what I was looking for. As long as I was there I had a salad for dinner at the in-store Subway.

While I was sitting there I called Mike Sharpe (W8XH) to confirm that he was available tomorrow to help with the antenna installations on our 40 foot tower. I mentioned that the only thing I lacked was a standoff with a pulley at the end of it for hoisting stuff up to me. He suggested that something like that was essential and I agreed, so I headed back to Lowe’s to see what I could figure out. What I ended up with was a three foot long 7/16-14 threaded rod, a pulley that had a closed eyelet on top (and was big enough for the 3/8ths rope I bought), some 7/16ths washers, and some 7/16-14 nuts.

When I got back to the house I unloaded the topsoil near the part of the east yard that needs to be filled in, took the other stuff inside, and then assembled the threaded rod pulley system. I secured the pulley on one end of the rod using two of the nuts, one on either side of the eyelet. I threaded a nut onto the other end, put on two washers, two nuts, two more washers, and another nut. I ran the first two nuts, with two washers between them, part way down the rod. I left the second pair of nuts, with washers between them, near the end of the rod.

I took the assembly out to the tower and adjusted the position and spacing of the two pairs of nuts and washers so they would bracket two of the horizontal tower members. In use I will secure the rod to the tower at each pair of nuts/washers using plastic cable ties. This arrangement will put the pulley at least 18″ from the tower which should be far enough out that we can hoist the DB8e OTA TV antenna to the top of the tower without it banging into the tower or hanging up on something. This antenna is the largest thing we need to hoist up. The old TV antenna is considerably larger and heavier, but it is coming down via gravity.

There was a message on our answering machine from Linda’s sister, Sr. Marilyn, who lives in St. Louis. She was listening to the news earlier today about the storms that went through our part of Michigan and wanted to make sure we were all OK. By the time we finished talking it was dark and I was done working for the day. Linda called shortly thereafter to let me know she was on her way home and I mentioned the call with Marilyn.

I finally opened the box with the vertical omnidirectional outside antenna for the cellular booster system and discovered that I should have opened it sooner. The mounting bracket was designed to be mounted to a vertical surface, such as the side of a house, not a tube, such as a tower leg. I did not want to postpone tomorrow’s tower work so I will have to get up early and figure out a way to adapt the existing bracket so I can mount the antenna to the top of the tower.

My initial thought was that an aluminum U-channel of the correct size might solve the problem very nicely. I could drill two holes in the bottom of the “U” to match the two holes in the bracket. I could then drill three pairs of holes through the sides of the channel. The antenna would be bolted to the bottom of the channel. With the open part of the channel held against a vertical tube I could secure it with three long plastic cable (zip) ties. Conceptually it should work and be easy to fabricate, but will take time which I won’t have a lot of in the morning. We have to get the two coax cables from Scotty (AC8IL), drop off my car at Brighton Honda for its 100,000 mile service, and be back in time to have the mount fabricated and all of the antennas and tools ready to go by 10:30 AM when Mike shows up.

Linda got home at 9:45 PM, earlier than she thought she would when she left. She and Diane ate at Luigi’s and had a very nice meal. They also enjoyed the movie. We had a big day on tap for tomorrow and we asleep by 10:30 PM.

2015/06/22 (M) Cable Me This

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We turned the air-conditioning off last night and enjoyed the fresh air, pleasant temperature, and lower humidity. The overnight low was 58 which made for good sleeping. We awoke to blue skies and what we thought would be a picture perfect Michigan summer day until Linda checked the morning news (iPad). There was a story about a storm that moved through the upper plains yesterday and had a bead on Michigan for later today and this evening. What had been a 10% chance of rain for today had been replaced by a forecast for strong-to-severe thunderstorms with the possibility of strong winds, large hail, and tornadoes. Ahhhh, summer in Michigan.

Not ones to sit around and wait for the apocalypse we did what any sensible couple would do, I made coffee while Linda reheated the last of the Baked French Toast from yesterday’s brunch. We had breakfast and then sat on the deck enjoying our coffee and contemplating the end of the world, or at least the possible destruction of our brand new roof. But it’s insured, so “no worries, maan” as they say in Jamaica. More coffee please.

We have a whole house generator that runs on natural gas so as long as a storm doesn’t damage it we can survive for a very long time without electric utility power. Losing our AT&T Internet connection, however, would be a genuine hardship as that would require us to use our Verizon Mi-Fi (without the benefit of the new Fusion5s cellular booster which I plan to install on Wednesday) or go to Panera, McDonalds, or one of the libraries to get online.

Keith showed up around 10 AM to cut the grass. We were hoping he would make it as we have not had too much rain this past week and the last few days in particular have been dry. I think this is the first time this season he has been able to cut our grass without it being wet. It looked nice when he was done.

I got a call from Phil Jarrell. He had been successful in reaching Mike Fearer of Bid Rite Concrete on Mike’s cell phone. Based on Phil’s description Mike was interested in looking at our tower foundation project and was expecting me to call so I did, using my cell phone, and this time I was able to reach him. It turned out that the information about his business on the Internet is out of date. He is no longer in Whitmore Lake but now operates from near M-59 and Latson Road, not far from us. We agreed that he would stop by tomorrow at the end of the work day to look at our project.

I did not want to do a lot of heavy work today, as I was still a bit tired and sore, but I needed to mount two lightning arrestors in the cable entry box and mount the cellular booster in the sump pump room so I could figure out what coax cable lengths I needed and go get them from Scott Adams (AC8IL) at Adams Electronics in Wixom. But first I called Mike (W8XH) to let him know I was planning on Wednesday for the tower work, assuming he was still available and the tower was still standing.

Cable entry box showing copper ground plane with Morgan lightning arrestors (lower left), control line arrestor (center top), and cellular and OTA TV arrestors (center).

I determined that I needed two coaxial cables and ordered them from Scott by phone rather than take the time today to drive to his place of business. They will both be LMR-400 with N-connectors on both ends. One will be 50 feet long, for our 2m/70cm Diamond X50-N VHF/UHF base station antenna, and the other will be 15 feet long, to get from the cellular booster lightning arrestor in the cable entry box to the repeater (amplifier) in the sump pump room. I will pick them up early Wednesday morning and install them.

One of the lightning arrestors was for the SureCall Fusion5s cellular booster system. It has N-connectors on both ends, one of which is intended for bulkhead mounting. It came with an angle bracket that fit over the bulkhead end and I used that to mount it. I used the 2′ length of LMR-400 that came with the booster installation kit to position the lightning arrestor so the cable from the repeater could exit one of the 2″ conduits and bend around and connect to it. LMR-400 is a low loss, 50 ohm impedance, coaxial cable that can handle high RF transmit power. The cellular booster only has a 1 Watt transmitter but is operating at frequencies where energy losses in coax cables become significant. To do what it does LMR-400 is just under 1/2″ in diameter. It is fairly stiff and does not make sharp bends so cable runs and connections have to be carefully planned.

The other lightning arrestor was for the Antennas Direct DB8e OTA TV antenna and serves a dual purpose as the power insertion device for the tower mounted amplifier. The coax cable for OTA TV signals is typically 75 ohm impedance RG-6 with F-connectors. It is half the diameter of LMR-400 and much more flexible. It is also typically used to receive low power signals and convey them in one direction; from the antenna to the TV. Because we are 25 miles from the nearest TV tower and some of the towers are 50+ miles away, I ordered a signal amplifier to go with the antenna.

Ideally you want to amplify an OTA TV signal as soon as it comes out of the antenna and this amplifier does just that. It will mount on the same tower leg as the antenna about two feet below the antenna feed point. However, being an active electronic device it needs electrical power to operate. There are two basic ways that could be done.

One way would be to have power wires, such as +5 VDC and DC Ground that are separate from the coaxial cable that carries the radio frequency (RF) energy. The two OTA TV antennas on our bus are set up this way with three wires to supply power and control the enclosed rotor.

The other way is to provide DC power through the coaxial cable itself, which is how this amplifier is set up. The nice thing about this arrangement is that the amplifier only has two connections and they are both coax connectors that can be weather sealed. To get the DC power into the coax cable, however, requires a special device called a power inserter. The power inserter, in turn, requires the coax to be split into two segments so there end up being four connections instead of two. The power inserter for this amplifier very conveniently acts as a lightning arrestor as well, which is why I mounted it to the copper back plane in the cable entrance box.

By boosting what I presume will be weak signals from distant towers the amplified signal should be strong enough to survive the trip through the coax cable to the power inserter, from there to a 1-in/2-out signal splitter, and then through additional lengths of coax to the two TV sets.

After getting the two lightning arrestors mounted in the cable entry box I took a break for lunch and then went to Lowe’s for some supplies. When I got back home I turned my attention to mounting the SureCall Fusion5s cellular booster (repeater amplifier) in the sump pump room. The sump pump is in the northeast corner of the basement, which is also the northeast corner of our ham shack and office. (The ham shack occupies the north wall and my desks occupy the east wall. Most of the rest of the room is storage.)

I gutted and rebuilt this space, with the help of long-time friend John Rauch, before we moved in and created the large closet (small room) around the sump with insulated walls to contain sounds. I installed an electrical sub-panel in this room to provide power to the office and ham shack desks and to an RV outlet by the pull-through driveway. I fed the power for the RV outlet through the bond on the east wall just above the concrete block foundation and ran it underground to the far side of the driveway. It was my intention from the beginning to mount a cable entrance box next to the power feed and have all of the coax cables and control wires for outside devices enter the sump pump room in the same manner as the power.

The ham shack/office walls are finished with T-111 exterior plywood with 4″ groove spacing and I finished the interior of the closet the same way as I knew I would eventually want to mount things to the walls. I mounted the SureCall Fusion5s booster on the west wall of the closet about a foot inside the door and just below my eye level so I could see all of the connectors, switches, and indicator lights on the top and front of the unit. It had four mounting tabs, two top and two bottom, that attached easily to the wall with short wood screws.

There is a duplex AC electrical outlet on that wall and one on the opposite (east) wall. The power supplies for the cellular booster and OTA TV antennas will plug in to these along with the sump pump and the charger/controller for the battery powered backup sump pump. One of the things I bought at Lowe’s were two outlet expanders which I installed in these two duplex outlets. I also bought a switch with a pilot light to replace a single pole Decora switch that will eventually control the light in the closet. I installed the switch but did not complete the wiring as I have to tie it in to the light fixture which requires me to cut the power to that circuit. I would also like to replace the bare bulb fixture while I am at it but have not yet purchased a replacement.

Although it was late afternoon I decided to install the inside antenna for the cellular booster system and run the coaxial cable that connects it to the booster. The antenna is designed to mount to a flat ceiling and provide a hemispherical coverage area below the plane of the ceiling. I had previously figured out that if I mounted this antenna in the main floor hallway near the midpoint of the house I could connect it to the cellular amplifier using a 50 foot length of coax cable that came with the system.

The desired mounting location was opposite the door to the hall closet and the access to the attic is through the ceiling of that closet, so that was very convenient. We emptied the closet, removed the clothes rod, and setup our six foot step ladder. I removed the piece of foam insulation we currently use to seal the attic access opening and climbed up, flashlight in hand to check out what was on the other side of the ceiling.

Our desired location for the antenna was free of problems on the back side so I drilled a 3/4″ hole for the mounting stud and used a piece of rebar to poke a hole through the insulation for the coax cable that came out of the stud. Linda fed the coax and stud through the hole and I put the retaining nut on the stud from the attic side of the ceiling. The antenna is shaped like a coffee filter, is about six inches in diameter at the ceiling, and tapers down to about four inches in diameter about four inches from the ceiling. The housing is white plastic and blends in well with the ceiling paint.

About four feet from where we installed the antenna is a chase that runs from the attic to the furnace room in the basement. It appears that once upon a time something having to do with the furnace ran through this chase, such as the combustion air intake. The combustion air is now drawn through the back wall under the deck and the exhaust goes out through the east wall of the basement via a double wall stainless steel flue pipe. The chase is no longer used for furnace or other utilities although there are electrical cables to switches mounted in the bathroom walls and it still contained a piece of 4″ plastic pipe.

I positioned myself near the chase and guided one end of a 50 foot length of LMR-400 coax down through the pipe and through the hole into the furnace room while Linda held the roll of coax near the top of the ladder and unrolled it. At one point the coax bunched up and Linda had to go to the furnace room and untangle it. At another point the 4″ plastic pipe slipped through the bottom hole into the furnace room which caught me by surprise. Once the cable was mostly fed through I routed it to the location of the antenna, connected it to the pigtail coax from the antenna, wrapped the connection in weather seal tape to keep moisture out, and secured it with a cable tie.

With the antenna installed Linda started preparing dinner while I dealt with the 37 feet of coax in the furnace room. The furnace room does not have a finished ceiling so I had access to the areas above the suspended ceilings in all of the adjacent rooms. In particular I was able to feed the free end of the coax above the ceiling in the office and into the sump pump room. I secured the cable with plastic cable ties at two points in the furnace room to keep it away from the flue and various hot water pipes. I had about 8 extra feet of cable so I made a large coil with two loops such that the free end came off the loop straight down into the connector on top of the booster. I hung the coil on the wall above and to the right of the booster making for a very neat installation.

I took a shower to try and get rid of some of the fiberglass itch while Linda finished the dish she was making for dinner. It was a complex Indian style dish with Basmati rice, garbanzo beans, Swiss chard, onions, and shallots, seasoned with salt, black pepper, cayenne pepper, cumin seeds, garam masala, fresh lemon (zest and juice), and fresh dill that Linda grew herself. The house was filled with the aromas of all these ingredients for a couple of hours as they were prepared and combined into the final dish. It tasted as good as it smelled with many flavor layers.

Our beautiful blue sky gave way to high, thin clouds through the morning and then to lower, thicker clouds during the early afternoon. By 2 PM the clouds to the west were dark as I drove to Lowe’s in Howell and the first, heavy rains came as I got to the parking lot. I waited a few minutes and they stopped so I got into the store without getting wet. I had the same good fortune on my way back to the car. The sustained rains came later in the evening along with a tornado watch. We went to bed before 10 AM but did not go to sleep. It took me a long time to write this post and we kept a watchful eye on the weather radar. Although thunderstorms were forecast as a certainty from 1 to 5 AM with the possibility that they might be severe, we finally turned the lights out around 12:45 AM and tried to get some sleep.

2015/06/21 (N) Father’s Day

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Today was Father’s Day and also the summer solstice, which is the official start of the summer season. Climatologically and culturally, at least in this part of Michigan, summer is more closely aligned with the period from Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day. The summer solstice is, of course, the day with the most hours of daylight but it is not the day with the earliest sunrise nor the day with latest sunset. Regardless of that detail, one of the things I like about this time of year is that the evening twilight lasts for a long time and fades to the blackness of night very slowly. By contrast, the sun seems to set quickly in the winter and it gets dark very quickly after that.

Linda arranged for our son and daughter, and their families, to come over for brunch today. It was a combination Father’s Day and happy birthday gathering as our daughter was out of town last week on her 34th birthday. Linda spent last evening cooking, which minimized the amount of work required today. I requested pie for Father’s Day and she found an excellent recipe for a vegan apple pie with a crumb topping. She also made a dozen small chocolate birthday cupcakes. The star of the show, however, was a Baked French Toast made with French bread and topped with streusel of ground pecans, cinnamon, brown sugar, and nutmeg with vegan “butter.” It soaked overnight and all she had to do this morning was bake it. She made a large bowl of fresh berries (strawberries, blueberries, and black and red raspberries) and sliced up some cantaloupe.

Company was due at 10 AM so I made a full pot of our Cafe Europe half-caff blend coffee. We each had a cup and Linda transferred the rest of it to our insulated dispenser. I was brewing a second pot when Meghan and Chris arrived around 9:45 AM followed by Brendan, Shawna, and Madeline around 10 AM. Birthday and Father’s Day cards were exchanged but Madeline was the center of attention. She pulled out her toy box and built a Lego tower with her aunt Meghan. We walked around outside a bit, looked at the new roof and the cable entrance box, and played hide and seek in the backyard with Madeline doing the seeking, assisted by her mom. I was hiding behind our gas grill, which had a cover on it. Madeline saw my reflection in the rear door walls of the library, walked right past me towards the reflected image, turned away from my location, and was walking back towards Shawna before she spotted me. Reflections are one of those things that we have to learn about.

The French Toast was done baking at 11 AM and we sat down to a fabulous brunch that included Prosecco and orange juice. The Baked French Toast was outstanding and everyone had more than one piece. By 12:30 PM no one was hungry for dessert so Linda packaged up four cupcakes for Meghan and Chris and four cupcakes for Brendan, Shawna, and Madeline along with a quarter of the pie for each group. By 1 PM Madeline was showing signs of being tired, that being her normal nap time, so everyone gathered up their things and made their way to their cars.

After everyone had left we had some pie. It was also outstanding, as good as any non-vegan pie I have ever had and, frankly, better than most. Linda went for a walk while I settled in to finish the draft of yesterday’s blog post and start writing this one. When Linda got back from her walk she read for a little while and then took a well-deserved nap. By 4 PM I could not keep my eyes open and took a nap that lasted until 6 PM. I have never been into “Hallmark Holidays” but I like Father’s Day. 🙂

For dinner Linda made a salad and reheated the last of the angel hair pasta and black beans and rice. We each had one of the vegan cupcakes for dessert.

Today was my dad’s 90th birthday so after dinner I called to wish him a combined happy birthday and Father’s Day. He did not answer, which is not unusual as without his hearing aids he doesn’t hear the phone ring. I left him a voice message.

I have been busy enough with things the last two years that I have not read any of the magazines we receive as part of our various organizational memberships. Tonight I went through the July 2015 issue of QST, the monthly publication of the American Radio Relay League (ARRL). Although my main focus this summer is the remodeling of the interior of our motorcoach, I am trying to get ham radio antennas up and useable. We are also trying to get a base built for the 70 foot tower we bought last summer, get the tower assembled and erected, and at least get some sort of HF wire antenna attached to it.

Linda was tired by 10 PM and trundled off to bed. As a result of my nap I was not sleepy and stayed up using my iPad until well after midnight.

2015/06/20 (S) Cable Entry Box

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We had not been to our local ham radio club breakfast the last two Saturdays because of the GLAMARAMA rally and a visit from Linda’s brother, Ron, and his wife, Mary. The club was conducting VE testing today, rather than the usual 4th Saturday of the month, because the ARRL Field Day event is next weekend. When we got to breakfast at 8 AM there were already a lot of people there and seven more came in after us. We did not take a head count but it was somewhere between 25 and 30 people. We also did not have our usual waitress but the substitute very efficiently got everyone’s order taken and delivered.

The 40 foot tower on the east end of the house with the old OTA TV antenna on top.

I checked with Mike (W8XH) and he is available to help us get the antennas mounted on the small tower on Monday or Wednesday, assuming I have the cable entry box (CEB) installed and all of the necessary coaxial cable on hand. Getting the CEB mounted was my main goal for today, but not the first thing I had to do. I called Chuck as we were leaving breakfast at 9:15 AM. He was at home and suggested we stop by there and pick up a key to his shop. He was working on landscaping when we arrived so we did not stay long and we were back home by 10 AM. Linda finalized her shopping list and headed off to gather the things she needed to prepare tomorrow’s brunch. I changed into my work clothes, gathered up the laundry, put a load in the washer, and got to work on the CEB.

The CEB is designed to mount on the outside of the house, allowing wiring to pass between the inside and outside of the house in a way that is weather tight and animal proof. Coaxial RF cables and control lines enter through the bottom, connect to lightning arrestors in the CEB that provide a path to ground if/when needed, and then continue through the wall of the house and thence to various devices. Those devices might include cellular phone signal boosters, Wi-Fi systems, TV sets, satellite receivers, personal weather stations, or amateur radio gear such as radios, remote antenna switches, and antenna rotators.

The general area on the east end of the house at the base of he 40′ tower where the CEB will be mounted.

Superficially the installation looked simple. With the copper back plane removed there were four mounting holes, one near each corner, and two large holes in the back. All we had to do was hold the box against the wall, mark the locations of the four mounting holes and the big cable entry holes, set the box aside, drill the holes, put the box back up and secure it. Right. Sort of, but not exactly. Mounting the box took seven hours to complete.

The first step was to remove the copper back plane with the three lightning arrestors installed on it. I took care of that yesterday. The next issue was that the house has shiplap siding, i.e., the east wall where I needed to mount the CEB was not a flat surface. I decided to use 1″ square aluminum tube, installed vertically along the back of the box at the outside edges, to span multiple siding boards, ensuring that the CEB would be plumb. I also decided to leave the tube long enough to go all the way to the ground and use it to support some the weight, in effect creating legs for the CEB. That was Linda’s idea. She’s a smart girl and a licensed amateur radio operator.

The back of the CEB with one of the vertical mounting bars.

We had some surplus pavers and garden blocks and I found one that was just wide enough to catch the bottom of the legs. I also had some left over paver base material, which meant I did not need to make a trip to the store. The paver base material was from a project long, long ago (in a place far, far away) and I used it to create a base for the foundation paver, which was approximately 18″ x 12″. I leveled the base side-to-side and pitched it away from the house for drainage.

Yesterday I purchased a 3′ long aluminum tube at Lowe’s and a 4′ long tube at The Home Depot. Three feet turned out to be a good length, so I cut a foot off of the 4′ tube. Things then got trickier. The positioning of the CEB was critical as the two large holes in the back were for adapters for 2″ plastic conduit. I was going to have to cut 3″ diameter holes through the bond that would come out above the plate on top of the concrete block foundation. In the chosen mounting location the bottom corner holes in the CEB would be below the siding. The lower right leg would be at least an inch away from the concrete block foundation and the lower left hole would be in front of a basement window opening so neither of these were going to be screwed into anything.

The CEB in position on the east end of the house with the door open. The copper backplane has been removed.

I wanted the CEB anchored at more than two points so I decided to drill two additional holes in the back, one on each side, approximately half way between the existing top and bottom holes. I measured the spacing between the top and bottom holes as carefully as I could. I measured down from the top end of each leg a distance for the top holes that was just sufficient to make sure the door of the CEB was below the 2″ iron gas pipe that runs horizontally along the outside of the house. I measured down from there for the new middle hole and the bottom hole. I then drilled the three holes through each leg by drilling opposing sides. I had to use a powered hand drill for this work as my drill press was stored behind a large pile of RV furniture that we took out of the bus and was inaccessible.

I attached one of the legs to the back of the box using two short bolts through the top and bottom holes. I then used the middle hole in the leg as a guide and drilled through the back of the CEB. I repeated this procedure for the other leg. I drilled the holes in the legs as accurately as I could but they did not quite line up so I had to enlarge them slightly by using the drill bit like a router bit. Not ideal, to be sure, but aluminum is relatively soft and it worked.

The east end of the house with two 2″ holes for the conduit.

I attached each leg to the back of the CEB using 1.5″ 1/4-20 bolts through the bottom corner holes. I snugged these up but left them loose enough that we could move the legs. The top and middle holes were located in positions that would allow lag screws to be screwed into the siding and underlying plywood. We had to tilt the legs to get them under the 2″ iron gas pipe and then straighten them and set them on the foundation paver. We had to do this multiple times but it was easy once we figured out how to do it the first time.

With the CEB in position I marked the location of the holes for four 3″ 1/4-20 lag screws. We removed the CEB so I could drill the holes for the lag screws and then put it back in position and screwed it to the wall. I marked the locations of the two holes for the conduit as best I could and then unscrewed the box and removed it again. I used our 1/2″ Craftsmen corded drill for the 3″ hole saw. I bought this drill in 1978, along with a lot of other Craftsmen tools, when we moved into our house in Farmington Hills. I still have almost all of those tools and they all still work.

The CEB in position with both pieces of conduit through the back.

With the conduit holes drilled I cut one of the 18″ lengths of conduit in half, inserted the pieces into the adapters, and placed them in the holes. We then put the CEB into position, got the adapters through the holes in the back of the CED, and tried to line up the holes in the legs. The conduit was being forced up as it went through the bond, especially the one on the left, and would not allow the holes in the CEB to line up with the holes in the legs. We took the retaining rings off of the adapters and removed the CEB, again.

I shortened the conduit pieces to approximately 5″ and checked the fit in the holes. We wrapped two bands of adhesive backed foam weather-stripping around each piece of conduit and placed them back in the holes. I then applied a bead of adhesive caulk all the way around each adapter at the wall. We put the CEB in position for the final time, got the conduit adapters through the holes, snugged up the retaining rings, and put the four lag screws in. After tightening the four lag screws I tightened the two bolts in the lower corners. I then tightened the adapter retain rings and put the open end caps on. The conduit ended up getting pulled back out of the wall a bit so I used the thin end of a 10″‘wood shim to try and force the caulk back into the gap around the conduit adapter. It did not go back in very well so I will have to figure out something else to seal around the conduit.

The CEB was finally installed and very solidly anchored. I got the copper base plate and remounted it to the five studs (four corners and one center) using some antioxidant/anti-seize compound on the stud threads. The last step (for today) was to install the snap in covers for the 16 cable entrance holes in the bottom of CEB. I also ordered 16 grommets and will remove the caps and replace them with grommets as I install devices and run their cables and wires into the CEB.

The CEB with the copper backplane installed and the three Morgan lightning arrestors mounted (two lower left, one top center).

The two pieces of conduit open into the sump pump room (large closet) in the northeast corner of the basement just above the wood plate that sits on top of the concrete block foundation. I plan to install the SureCall Fusion5s 5-band cellular booster (amplifier) in this room to keep it close to the CEB and because there is AC power available there. I bought an installation kit for the Fusion5s that includes a lightning arrestor which will get mounted in the CEB. I also bought an amplifier for the OTA TV antenna that will mount on the tower a few feet below the antenna. The amplifier will get its power through the coax from a power inserter that doubles as a lightning arrestor and will be installed in the CEB with the AC power supply (wall wart) in the sump pump room.

I did not get these two additional lightning arrestors installed today. By the time we got the CEB installed we were tired. The high temperature was OK (near 80?) but the relative humidity was very high. I was also very sore the whole time, especially my left knee, undoubtedly the lingering after effect of using the power chisel earlier in the week to remove thinset and mastic from the floor of the bus. Getting down and up at least 50 times during the afternoon did not improve matters, but we got it done.

Even though she was also tired, once we reached a point where I could finish up alone Linda got busy making several food items for tomorrow. In the midst of all that she heated some Amy’s Lentil Soup and made grilled cheese sandwiches with Diaya cheese or dinner. Diaya makes an excellent non-dairy cheese that works well cold or cooked into dishes.

After dinner I returned a call from Butch to find out more about their new property and buildings, and discuss bus and ham radio projects. One of the things Linda made was an apple pie so we stayed up until it was cool enough to wrap up. That turned out to be 10 PM, by which time we ready to turn in for the night.

2015/06/19 (F) Roof Box

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The Apex roofers were back again this morning just before 8 AM and we were up and ready for them. I made coffee but we deferred breakfast until after we settled the bill with owner Pat Davidson. By 9 AM he knew what the added costs were over and above the base quote. The major one was the 32 sheets of plywood they used to repair/replace bad areas of the roof deck. He left around 10 AM and took half the crew with him to start another job. The other four guys stayed behind and finished roofing the garage and cleaning up the job site. The job was pretty much wrapped up by noon. Sergio (the foreman) did the final walk-around and cleanup and left around 1 PM. There is very little evidence that they had been here except for an attractive new roof and two skylights in the living room that light up the space in a nice way.

I spent the morning inventorying coaxial cables. We have quite an assortment of 50 and 75 ohm cables in lengths from 1 to 100 feet. I need to have all the necessary cables on hand when I climb the tower next week to remove and install antennas. If we already had appropriate cables I wanted to use those instead of buying new ones.

The custom cable entry box from Chris at KF7P Metalwerks arrived today. I opened it after lunch, which consisted of fresh apples and leftover black beans and rice. We both agreed that the beans and rice dish was even better than when it was fresh. We unpacked all of the parts that were stored inside the cable entry box and checked them off against the spreadsheet I used to order them. Everything was there but I was initially concerned because the box was turned 90 degrees from what I ordered. I specified a 16″ wide by 20″ tall box but got a 20″ wide by 16″ tall instead. I suspect that Chris buys the boxes with the door/hinge already attached but it would have been nice to know that ahead of time.

We took the box outside and held it in place to see if it would be usable. The lower left corner will hang down in front of the basement window in the sump pump room but that will be OK. The horizontal orientation of the box will actually make it easier to get coaxial cables through the access holes in the bottom.

There were two a Morgan Lightning arrestors mounted on the copper back plane for amateur radio use; one for HF and one for VHF/UHF. The UHF arrestor was upside down so I unscrewed it, rotated it 180 degrees, and screwed it back down. The box also had a Morgan M-348 lightning arrestor. I ordered an M-348B, which is the 12-wire version, but the installed arrestor had 12 terminals on top (3 strips of 4 each) plus one on each side. There were no instructions, however, on how to wire it up so I sent Chris an e-mail regarding the anomalies and missing information.

While I was working on that e-mail, and a couple from Josh at Coach Supply Direct, we got a call from Curtis Coleman of RVillage. The development team had launched some new features and he wanted to walk me through them. He had just been to Prevost in Nashville for some repairs on his tag axle brakes and was headed back to Cleveland, Ohio. He thought he might be headed in our general direction after that.

I spent some time thinking about how to mount the cable entry box on the east wall of the house which is sided in a shiplap fashion, i.e., the horizontal siding boards are angled (not plumb) and overlapped. I needed a hole saw and arbor for my 1/2″ drill to drill the holes for the two 2″ conduits that will pass from the box through the bond into the sump pump room in the basement. I probably already have one but I cannot get to most of the stuff in the garage and can’t afford to delay getting this box mounted; there are too many other things that need to get done that require this box to be in place first.

I was suffering from a decided lack of patience which is not the proper frame of mind for working on scale drawings of custom furniture so I went to Lowe’s to get a hole saw. The fitting measured 2-3/4″ OD and I decided to get a 3″ hole saw just to make sure the hole would be big enough. While I was at the store I considered how I might use different materials to mount the box. I ended up buying a 36″ length of 1″ square aluminum tube and some stainless steel lag screws, bolts, washers, and Nylok nuts. My plan was to cut the tube into two 18″ pieces and use them in a vertical orientation between the box and the house. They would span multiple boards, creating a plumb mounting surface, and provide support for the lower left corner which would otherwise be unsupported.

When I got back to the house I took the tube out to see how it would work. The idea was a good one but the 18″ lengths would be too short. I bought the only piece of 1″ tube that Lowe’s had so I knew I would have to find another one somewhere else. Linda suggested that we try the Lowe’s in New Hudson after breakfast tomorrow but I was still feeling impatient about the whole thing.

I had a long chat with Michele Henry from Phoenix Paint. I then relaxed with a small glass of Moscato, a nice pre-meal wine, while Linda prepared a wonderful dish for dinner of roasted red potatoes with onions, garlic, rosemary, and power greens. It was a simple dish but so delicious and hearty.

The meal concluded and the table cleared I went to The Home Depot in Howell where I found a 48″ length of 1″ square aluminum tube. If 24 inches turns out to be long enough to support the box the way I want I will cut the 48″ piece in half and return the 36″ piece to Lowe’s. I called Chuck on the drive home to follow up on a text message I sent him yesterday regarding the delivery of our new refrigerator to his bus garage in Novi.

Feeling like I had finally accomplished something today we relaxed for an hour and then settled in to watch a movie. Linda had borrowed the DVD of Wild, starring Reese Witherspoon, from the Howell Library earlier in the week and we reserved this evening as movie night.

My goal for tomorrow is to get the cable entry box installed. That sets the stage for climbing the tower and installing three antennas once I have the proper coax cables and some rope to temporarily guy the tower. But those details will wait until Monday as family is coming to brunch on Sunday for Father’s Day and a belated birthday celebration for our daughter.

2015/06/16 (T) More Stupid

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Linda was scheduled to go to the bakery this morning but rescheduled to tomorrow due to last night’s weather forecast and the possibility of flooded highways in Detroit. The morning rush hour traffic is bad under the best of conditions and flooded roadways can make it near impossible. She also did not sleep well and woke up tired.

The Apex roofing crew started showing up just before 8 AM and the Wimsatt truck showed up with the shingles a little after 8 AM. They brought a conveyor truck this time and were able to get the shingles off the truck and onto the roof without difficulty. The Apex crew did not waste any time getting to work. It turned out to be a great day for roofing; clear skies, no rain, moderate temperatures, lower humidity, and some breeze. Even so, it is work that is done without the benefit of shade and roofs are hot places to work even on the nicest of days.

Wimsatt unloads shingles onto the garage roof.

Linda continued working on the financials for our amateur radio club while I checked my e-mail. I had a reply from RV Critter Guard telling me what to order and how much it would cost. I placed the order through their website and used PayPal to complete the transaction. I tried calling the concrete contractor that Phil recommended (Bid Rite Concrete LLC in Whitmore Lake) but the phone would disconnect after the first ring and revert to a dial tone. Perhaps the recent storms caused a problem but I e-mailed Phil to see if he had a different number for them. I called the Henry Ford Medical Center in West Bloomfield and made dermatology appointments for myself and Linda.

With all of that taken care of I turned my attention to the bus. The toilet is a Microphor LF-210. It uses pressurized air to operate the waste valve and the water valve and to help push the waste through the drain pipe and into the black tank. To remove the toilet I had to undo three connections—air, water, and waste—and take out the four screws securing it to the floor. If only it was as easy as that makes it sound.

The plumbing at the back of the Microphor toilet in our bus.

Undoing the air line was easy and undoing the water connection only a little less so. The waste connection was another matter. The 1.5″ black plastic drain pipe was routed from the water bay through the floor and into the HVAC chase that runs along the driver’s side of the coach. The converter, Royale Coach, brought it out through a hole in the wood that covers the chase, making it impossible to take the wood cover off. The pipe then made two right angle bends, the first one towards the floor and the second one towards the back of the toilet. The waste pipe was connected to the toilet discharge pipe with a length of rubber hose and a compression sleeve.

The toilet has a large hole in the back for all of these lines to pass through to the inside where they get hooked up. It should have been a simple matter to slide the toilet away from the wall/chase but the last bend in the drain line was below the top edge of the bottom of the hole, preventing it from coming out. After wiggling the toilet enough to get the rubber hose loose from the drain pipe I was able to lift the drain pipe just enough to slide the toilet out. I took pictures for a possible BCM article on our interior remodeling project and then Linda helped me move the toilet out of the bathroom to the front of the coach.

The more I disassemble this coach the more stupid I think the design and construction of its systems are. I don’t know that coaches from Marathon, Liberty, Vantare, Featherlight, Parliament, Millennium, Custom Coach, or any of a dozen other companies that have come and gone, is any better as I have never tried to disassemble one of them. These are one-of-kind vehicles that are custom built specifically for the original purchaser and the over-riding factor in every case is the interior design. Stuff, like toilets, go where the customer wants it, and systems, which are generally buried and hidden from view, get built wherever and however they can be made to fit. The converter does not expect to have to repair or replace anything during the very short 12 month, 12,000 miles, warranty period and if stuff breaks after that, or someone wants to do a remodel or upgrade sometime later, it will all be time and material. How difficult it is to do, and how many hours it takes, is someone else’s problem at that point.

The Apex crew hard at work on the back side of the main roof.

We had a call from Butch updating us on a possible property purchase. They are waiting for a clear title search before making an offer. The property includes a house and a sizable barn. The barn needs a new roof and the house will have to be gutted and the inside rebuilt, but for the right price it will still be a good deal. They already have a good estimate to replace the barn roof and since they are now retired they have more time to work on the house than they would have a year ago. They also have family and friends who can help. Besides, they still have their home/business building in Twelve Mile, Indiana and their bus, which they lived in all this past winter, so they will not be under any pressure to get the inside rebuilt quickly.

Linda started downloading updates from Adobe Creative Cloud, which take a very long time, and then left at 3:30 PM for Ann Arbor. She agreed to take care of grand-daughter Madeline while Brendan and Shawna attended a reception at the University of Michigan – Ann Arbor for newly tenured and promoted faculty. I was on my own for dinner and Linda bought an Amy’s pizza so I would have something easy to prepare.

The roofers finished up for the day around 5 PM. By the time they left most of the trash was in their dumpster trailer and the roof was tarped as a precaution against rain even though the forecast for tonight and tomorrow is for dry weather. Rain returns to the forecast tomorrow night into Thursday but turns dry again on Friday, so we are optimistic that they will get the job finished this week. It’s a big job but Apex has a big crew working on it and they got a lot of work done today. We are very pleased with the look of the Certainteed Landmark Pro Max Def Resawn Shake shingle that we chose. I took pictures of the work throughout the day as I always try to do with major projects.

After the roofers left I worked for a while in the bus. I took the mattress into the house along with the electric heating pad controls. I disconnected the two gas struts that support the plywood bed platform so I could open it far enough to reinstall one of the drawers. I left them disconnected as I plan to remove the platform to provide better access to the sides of the box and floor. I also plan to reposition them when I reinstall the platform to provide better access to the storage area underneath. I then took measurements and made a sketch of the file drawer box for the desk.

Installing soffit baffles and replacing roof decking on the front of the main roof.

I cooked the Amy’s Roasted Vegetable Pizza on the outdoor gas grill, both to avoid heating up the house and to see how it responded to that cooking method. I used the grilling mat and the result was quite acceptable. A glass of Franzia Moscato was a nice accompaniment.

After dinner I worked at the drafting board in my office turning my sketch and measurements into a scale drawing. The two boxes for the desk will be trickier than a standard desk box because of the HVAC chase and because I have to put an Aqua-Hot heat exchanger in the bottom of each one. I worked until about 9 PM and then came back upstairs.

The air-conditioner worked fine yesterday but was once again unable to bring the temperature in the house below 74 degrees F even though the outside air temperature never rose above 80. There is clearly something wrong and I am wondering if one of the cold air ducts is open into the attic and/or one of the return air ducts us drawing hot air from the attic. Either of these conditions would reduce the air flow to the house and overtax the evaporator in the air handling unit. The more likely cause, however, is lack of refrigerant. Whatever the case I shut the system off and opened up the house.

I was relaxing in the living room when Linda called at 9:30 PM to let me know she had left her babysitting gig and was stopping at the Whole Foods Market before heading home. The reception started at 5 PM and lasted until 9 PM. She was home by 10:15 PM and straight away to bed as she has to go into the bakery tomorrow and wants to leave early enough to be ahead of the morning rush hour traffic.

2015/06/15 (M) Cover Up

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Linda was originally scheduled to go into the bakery today but it got rescheduled to tomorrow so we did not have to be up by any certain time other than to be ready for the delivery of our new roof shingles. Apex Roofing is scheduled to put a new roof on our house this week, weather permitting, and assuming they can finish up jobs they had scheduled for last week when it rained so much.

The truck from Wimsatt Materials in Waterford showed up at 8 AM with our shingles but they were unable to deliver them. They brought them on a boom truck that was too tall to fit under the phone lines across our driveway and there was nowhere else they could position the truck that would allow them to operate the boon. They were on the phone with their dispatcher and I called Pat Davidson at Apex roofing to let him know what was going on. The decision was that they would be back this afternoon with a conveyor truck which would fit under the wires and be able to get the bundles up to the roof. Pat called back to let me know they would be starting in the morning around 7:30 AM.

Later in the day someone showed up in an Apex van with a large enclosed trailer. We moved our cars and he backed it up in front of our single garage door. Wimsatt did not return with shingles so they will presumably deliver them first thing tomorrow morning. They will need to back into the driveway and position the truck in front of our double garage door but that is also where Apex plans to put their debris trailer. The guy in the van also made it sound like there would be at least six cars/trucks here needing someplace to park. It should be an interesting morning, especially given the overnight weather forecast which includes drenching rains and possible severe weather and flooding. The forecast for the daylight hours, however, looks OK.

After the Wimsatt truck left we finished the last batch of granola for breakfast and then got busy with our chores and projects. Linda spent part of the day at her desk working on the financials for our local ham radio club (SLAARC). She also tried to contact PayPal to opt out of their upcoming RoboCall campaign but was not able to get through to a real person.

I settled into my office for the morning, dealing with e-mail but focusing on editing blog posts for the last seven days. Kate got in touch with me to see if we wanted to see The Bikinis musical production at the Meadow Brooke Theatre this week. Wednesday through Sunday is the final run. She also forwarded an invitation to a former colleague’s retirement gathering in a couple of weeks.

We have an RV Critter Guard that seals around our 50 A electrical cord and water hose to keep “critters” from entering the coach via that access hole. We lost our original foam insert when I forgot to remove it from the cable entrance hole in the floor of the bus utility bay and it fell (blew) out while we were driving. I checked the RV Critter Guard website and my exact products were not listed. I measured our existing tongue and groove plate and then contacted the company via their contact form and explained what I needed. I got an e-mail back indicating that my product was custom made and asking me for one additional dimension from the plastic plate. I got that measurement and e-mailed it to them and indicated that I wanted another plastic plate and two spilt foam inserts. I expect to receive an e-mail tomorrow with the price. Once I have that I will call them to place the order.

I have tried several times in the last two years to order products from EZ Connector but they have always had another question for me that required me to go check something and I have never managed to close the loop with them. I’ve been on a roll the last couple of weeks and decided that today was the day to get this done. The company is in California, so I called them during the afternoon (my time). The woman I spoke to on the phone gave me some good information but suggested I e-mail Joe with my requirements. Joe e-mailed me back and answered several questions but had another one for me. I responded to that question and went on to something else while I await the prices. Once I have the pricing I will have to call them and finalize the order.

I exchanged e-mails with Josh from Coach Supply Direct and got a series of revised quotes from him for our new RV furniture and window shades. What I really need are the drawings that show the exact dimensions of each piece including the size of the base and the location of the pivot (swivel) point. Apparently he is having difficulty getting these from Flexsteel. I would also like to have these for the Lambright Comfort Chairs but we took our own measurements at Bradd and Hall. The whole process of getting furniture is getting very frustrating. I need to contact Mike at Suburban Seating regarding the ISRI 6860 and pick a day to drive to ISRI USA in Galesburg to look at fabrics. While I am at it I should probably get a price from Prevost.

I finally got back to work in the bus this afternoon. I shut off the auxiliary air compressor, closed the valve on the air manifold that supplies air to the toilet and other house accessories, and drained the water separator. I then investigated what will be required to remove the toilet.

There is a shut off valve on the water line behind the toilet so I closed that. The water line is attached to the toilet mechanism with a plastic connector with two wings and looked like I could undo it by hand. The air line looked equally easy to disconnect but the drain looked a bit trickier. It goes out the back of the toilet rather than through the floor. There is a metal sleeve with band clamps at each end that connects the discharge pipe to the drain line. Fortunately the band clamp screws are accessible.

The toilet is screwed to the floor with four Philips head screws. The centers of the screw heads are threaded and there are plastic caps with posts that screw down into the mounting screws to conceal them. With the water, air, and waste lines disconnected once I unscrew the base the toilet should slide forward and then we may have to lift it to get clear of the water line. The trick to getting it back in will be to get the four mounting screws back in the exact same holes.

The humidity outside was near 100% and I did not feel like running the bus air conditioners so I did not remove the toilet today. I need to get it out, however, to remove the last few pieces of ceramic tile from the bathroom floor. Once it is out it will have to stay out until the new floor is installed.

I tried pulling on one of the window latch knobs on the fixed window across from the kitchen counter and was surprised by easily it moved the latch. I did not pull it far enough to unlatch it but it appears that getting the window unlatched will be relatively easy. Getting the frame open without damaging the frame seal, and getting it closed again so it is weather tight, may be slightly more challenging.

I used a chisel to try removing the thinset and mastic that was adhered to the plywood subfloor. It came off better than I thought it would but it was a slow process. In addition to being humid in the coach it was very warm as I have had to leave the roof vents closed with the fans off due to the rainy weather. I removed enough thinset, however, to convince me that it is worth renting the power floor scraper from the Home Depot in Howell for a day and see how it works.

Late afternoon Linda worked in the kitchen making another batch of her fabulous granola and a black beans and rice dish for dinner. She soaked two Hatch chilies, two Ancho chilies, and four Pequin chilies and used them in the bean dish. I had a call from Pat Lintner before dinner to let me know that they took their Prevost to McMillers in Nappanee and were very pleased with work and the price.

I thought about driving to the Lowe’s in Howell after dinner to order the new Frigidaire refrigerator for the bus but it got too late to go. We have decided to have it delivered to Chuck Spera’s shop in Novi. We can pull it inside and he has a forklift, so hopefully that works out OK.

We were both tired and headed off to bed at 10 PM. The weather radar showed a band of more intense rain setting up to our southwest and taking aim at us. Linda fell asleep quickly but I was still up writing when the rains started around 11:15 PM. We had the house closed up with the air conditioner running and a small fan for air movement so the sounds of the weather are not as noticeable as when we have the windows and doorwalls open. I checked the radar again on Wundermap and it looked like we might be in for a long stretch of persistent rain unless the line drifted south just enough to miss us. The strongest weather in the region stretched from Ft. Wayne, Indiana WSW to just south of Logansport, Indiana but there were lots of pockets of yellow with some orange on the screen over all of the southern half of Michigan’s lower peninsula and the northern half of Indiana. It looked like it might be another restless night.

2015/06/14 (N) WordPressing

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We had yet more rain overnight. I heard the rain around 6 AM and checked the Wundermap app on my iPad but did not get up. Linda did not need to go to the Howell Farmers Market today as the refrigerator is quite full and the rainy weather made the prospect less appealing. We finally got up at 9 AM and I made coffee. Linda checked the weather forecast. It called for a 100% chance of rain between noon and 3 PM with thunderstorms and up to 2″ of rain. By 10:15 AM it was raining steadily again.

We deferred by one more day getting back to work on the bus. The monthly meeting of our South Lyon Area Amateur Radio Club (SLAARC) was this evening and we did not want to get involved in physical work today. I wanted to do a load of laundry but deferred that as the high humidity makes it harder to get the clothes dry.

I opened the three boxes that made up the OTA TV antenna shipment from AntennasDirect.com and laid all the parts out on the floor. As I wrote yesterday I need to determine exactly what types/lengths/connectors I need to get everything hooked up and make sure I have it on hand before I climb the 40 foot tower next to the house. After I laid all of the parts out this morning Linda asked how I was going to get all of that stuff up the tower.

Our new Antennas Direct DB8e Over-The-Air TV antenna.

My plan is to preassemble as much stuff as possible. I will then take a 100 foot rope with me when I climb the tower, loop it over one of the crossbars, and drop it back down to the ground where Linda can tie it to a bracket, or directly to some part, and pull it up to me. As I describe this it occurs to me that I should probably rig up a pulley. We also figured out that we should run the TV co-ax inside the house before I climb the tower. That will allow Linda to scan for signals and talk to me on our portable ham radios while I am on the tower if the antennas need to be aimed. I called Mike (W8XH) to see if he would bring his climbing harness to our ham radio club meeting this evening and he agreed.

For breakfast I had some of the Pepperidge Farm cinnamon chocolate chip bread Linda bought and we both had fresh grapefruit. After breakfast I got cleaned up and dressed and then partially assembled the OTA TV antenna. I then went to my office and settled in at my desk to upload blog posts. I had not been in my e-mail for a few days so there were some things I had to respond to before working on our blog.

I got my blog posts uploaded for May 29 through June 7 and then decided to update the other three WordPress websites I work on. Much to my dismay I was not able to log in to the FMCA Freethinkers website. I got an error message instead and the contents looked to me like the site might have been hacked. I notified the President of the chapter and indicated that I would contact the ISP technical support folks and see what they can tell me. I have never opened that site up to the members of the chapter because I never quite finished it but I intended to and I have a lot of time and effort invested in its development. Still, if the site is totally corrupted I may just delete it and abandon the whole project.

I wrapped up my work just in time for dinner. Linda reheated the two leftover vegan cheeseburgers and served them with the remaining vegan potato salad and fresh nectarines.

Linda spent a little time during the afternoon getting the treasurer’s report ready for our SLAARC meeting. We left at 6 PM and were at the Witch’s Hat Depot in South Lyon by 6:30 PM. We have changed the meeting format to have social time from 6:30 to 7:00 PM, followed by a business meeting, and then a program. I got the climbing harness from Mike (W8XH) as soon as we arrived and put it in the car. I then had a brief chat with Scotty (AC8IL) regarding Universal Towers in Clinton Township, Michigan and LMR-400 co-ax. Scotty stocks LMR-400 but also stocks RG-213 which he thinks is better for outdoor use. His opinion is based on a Motorola white paper that discusses potential problems with the aluminum foil wrapped copper braid outer conductor in LMR-400 in the presence of moisture.

Tonight’s business meeting was a discussion about preparations for the upcoming ARRL Field Day lead by this year’s club field day chair Paul (KD8SNZ). The program was a presentation by Larry (K8UT) on the N1MM Logger+ contest logging program that we will be using to log contacts on four different networked computers. Larry is a member of the N1MM development team. I asked Larry if I could send him the URL for my broken WordPress website and he said he would look at it. We left at 8:45 PM.

When we got home Juniper was hunched over something in the living room and I could see immediately that she had caught another mouse. It was very small, like the last one, and for all I know it was the same mouse. I got her to drop the last one and it escaped into my office. Linda grabbed one of the antenna boxes and pulled out the shipping paper that was stuffed inside. I managed to get Juniper to drop the mouse in the box, from which it was not going to be able to escape, and then took the box outside and set it free. If it has any sense it won’t come back in the house and it will tell all if its little mouse friends to steer clear of this place. Juniper is a very skilled hunter and will catch anything in that house that moves that is smaller than she is.

Linda prepared some fresh strawberries and served them with some non-dairy ice cream. She logged in to Amazon.com and ordered six live traps and a new cover for my iPad, both eligible for Amazon Prime. We then spent a little more time reading and writing and checking the weather. The 10-day forecast is for continued rain almost every day. We are still expecting the new roof shingles to be delivered tomorrow but we won’t be surprised if they are not. We are also expecting that Apex will have to push the start date of our project back due to all of the recent rain delaying other jobs that are ahead of ours. We turned in for the night at 10:30 PM; late for Linda and early for me. She was asleep fairly quickly but I stayed up writing and played a few games on my iPad as I do most nights.

2015/06/13 (S) On to Illinois

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It has turned out to be a wet June so far and we had more heavy rain last night. In spite of waking up during the night I was up at 7:30 AM and made coffee. Everyone else got up as suited their level of rest and we sat around chatting for a while. Ron put a load of laundry in the washing machine and then we sat down to a light breakfast.

Ron and Mary spent most of the rest of the morning repacking all of their stuff for the drive to northwest Illinois and their week-long bicycle ride. FedEx Home Delivery delivered the Cyclo 5-Pro Mark II Dual Head Orbital Polisher I ordered along with all of the foam pads and detailing chemicals.

Ron retrieved their laundry from the dryer and after they finished packing we had a light lunch. By 1 PM they were ready to load up the car so we helped get their bags out. After a brief “farewell and safe travels” they were on their way. They had a five hour drive but would gain an hour as they entered the Central Time Zone so they would be at their motel by 5 PM local time with plenty of daylight and time to eat dinner.

Linda took a short nap and then went for a walk. I read through the manual for our SureCall Fusion5s cell phone booster and was part way through the manual for the Cyclo 5 when I decided to take a nap. Linda returned from her walk and a little while later a USPS mail carrier delivered the OTA TV antenna I ordered from Antennas Direct. All I am waiting for now is the cable entrance box I ordered from KF7P Metalwerks.

Once the cable entrance box arrives I will have a bit of a project. First I will need to drill two 2″ holes through the east wall of the house and into the sump pump closet in the northeast corner of the basement, mount the box to the wall, and ground it to the outside ground rod by the tower. I may also need to install additional ground rods. I will then need to climb the tower by the house and do the following:

take down the old OTA TV antenna and rotator;
mount the new OTA TV antenna and aim it;
mount the amplifier for the OTA TV antenna;
attach a short piece of 75 Ohm co-ax from the antenna output to the amplifier input and weatherproof the connections;
attach a longer piece of 75 Ohm co-ax to the output of the amplifier and weatherproof the connection;
mount the outside antenna for the cell phone booster system;
attach one end of a 50′ piece of LMR-400 or RG-213 co-ax to the cell phone antenna and weatherproof it;
unmount our Diamond SG7900 2m/70cm ham radio base station antenna and remount it at the top of the tower;
attach a 50-to-60 foot length of LMR-400 or RG-213 co-ax to the ham radio antenna;
dress and secure all of the coaxial cables with plastic cable ties (zip ties).

Once I am done with tower work I will need to do the following to complete the installation:

install the lightning arrestors in the cable entrance box for the cell phone booster and OTA TV (?) co-ax cables;
route each of the co-ax cables into the bottom of the cable entrance box and attach them to appropriate lighting arrestors;
attach additional co-ax cables to the lightning arrestors and feed them through the 2″ holes into the basement;
mount the Surecall Fusion5s in the sump pump room and connect the co-ax for the outside antenna and the power supply;
run a 50′ length of LMR-400 from the sump pump room across the basement ceiling and up through an old vertical furnace exhaust chase to the attic;
drill a hole in the ceiling of the main floor hallway near the chase;
mount the inside done antenna for the cell phone booster system to the ceiling with the co-ax dongle in the attic;
connect the antenna dongle to the co-ax coming up from the basement;
run additional co-ax from the sump pump room to the ham shack;
run additional co-ax from the sump pump room to the video distribution point in the laundry room (or directly to the locations of the two TV sets);
turn on the Fusion5s booster (transceiver), adjust the gain (if needed) and test it with our phones and Mi-Fi;
test the TV sets (and hopefully not have to go back up the tower to reposition the antenna);
connect our Icom IC-7000 amateur radio and test the antenna connection.

As I wrote out this list it occurred to me that I need to make a list of all of the co-ax types/lengths/connectors I need and that, at a minimum, I probably need to order a length of LMR-400 orRG-213 co-ax cable and the proper N-connectors to complete the ham radio antenna connections. It also occurred to me that I might be able to do some of the inside wiring while I am waiting for the cable entrance box to arrive. Also, once the TVs are connected Linda can scan for channels and communicate with me with our HT ham radios if I need to change the aim of the antennas on the tower.

All of this reminded me that I need to follow-up with a Bratcher Electric on running a new 100 Amp main feed from the transfer switch to the panel in the furnace room in the garage. I also need to order some new split foam fillers from Critter-Guard and new electrical hardware for connecting the bus to the toad from EZ-Connector in California.

I must have been sleeping lightly and dreamed all of these details because I got up from my nap around 5:30 PM, finished reading the manual for the Cyclo 5, and then took a shower and got dressed for dinner. Barb Spera had called Linda yesterday to see if we were available for dinner this evening. They had really enjoyed our meal at La Marsa in Brighton a couple of weeks ago and wanted to go again so we agreed to meet them there at 7 PM. We did not have to wait for a table and our waiter, Najheem (Naa-gheem), was delightful. Barbara had the Koshary again, and Chuck had the Chicken Shwarma with tabbouleh salad, while we split an order of spicy vegetarian ghallabah with rice and a salad. I had a mango smoothie and we all enjoyed the swarm pocket bread and garlic spread.

It was after 9 PM when we got home and we headed off to bed at 10. We knew Ron and Mary had arrived at their destination because Ron played a Scrabble word. Linda had also checked that our daughter and son-in-law were on their way back from Las Vegas.

2015/05/30 (S) Chuck and Barbara

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There were thunderstorms west of Lansing just before midnight last night but they did not reach our house during the overnight hours and we slept OK. We were up at 7 AM and off to our weekly SLAARC breakfast. Linda had a phone message yesterday from Nancy at FirstMerit Bank indicating that there was still a problem with the SLAARC bank account so we stopped there after breakfast but Nancy wasn’t in. They have frozen the account while we sort out the paperwork, causing our annual insurance check to not clear. Linda has been in touch with the insurance company, so they are aware of what is going on. When we got back to the house she wrote a personal check for the insurance premium and put it in the mail.

I gathered up the laundry, sorted it according to color (light/dark) and temperature (cold/warm), and started the first load. I downloaded and installed updates last night for my ASUS laptop computer so they finished installing when I started it this morning. I developed the habit a long time ago of checking for additional updates any time I install some and sure enough there were 11 more optional ones available. I did not install Skype for Windows Desktop 7.3 since I have Windows 8.1 and I did not install the update for a Ricoh printer as we do not have one.

There was an 80% chance of rain starting at 11 AM but the rain did not wait until then to start. Around 10:45 AM the skies opened up and the rain came down as if poured from buckets. By noon it was partly sunny, but steamy. I checked the national radar on my Wundermap iPad app and it looked like we would have more rain as the day went along.

Linda loaded a few things on the bus before the rain started and then busied herself with food preparation. Larger RV rallies have multiple activities going on every day and evening and Linda does not have the time to prepare meals from scratch. Being as we will only be gone for a week she prepared enough food to see us through and will only require reheating in the microwave. It’s a good approach; we still eat well and she has the time to fully participate in the rally.

In spite of the threat of rain I decided to wash the exterior of the bus. It was already wet anyway and the conditions were otherwise good with a heavy overcast, no direct sun, and moderate temperatures. I got the outside water turned on, got out some hoses, and connected the pressure washer. A bucket of McGuire’s Deep Crystal automotive soap (purple bottle) and the long, adjustable handle brush completed my bus cleaning arsenal. The water softener only had 137 gallons remaining when I started and I ran it down to zero by the time I had cleaned the bus and the Honda Element, so I do not know exactly how much water I used cleaning the vehicles but I’m guessing it was 150 gallons. That sounds like a lot of water but it is surprising how much water we go through in a typical day, especially if we are doing laundry or running the dishwasher.

I was finishing up washing the bus around 3:30 PM when Linda let me know that around 3:20 PM Chuck Spera had texted me and left a voice message letting us know that he and Barbara were in our general part of town and asking if they could stop by. Linda replied to the text message and said “sure” and Chuck replied that they would be here around 4:30 PM. I started the regeneration cycle on the water softener, got all of my equipment put away, and changed clothes. I uploaded my blog post for May 28th and was sitting in the living room using my iPad when they arrived.

The reason for their visit was to see what we were up to with the remodeling of the interior of our bus. I had extended an open invitation to Chuck a week ago and today worked for them. We showed them the bus and explained what we planned to do. Linda and Barbara went inside to sit and chat while Chuck and I continued the bus conversation in the bus.

Chuck and I finally came in the house and I showed him the ham shack/office which he somehow missed seeing on previous visits including our open house. By 6:30 PM we were all hungry and Linda suggested La Marsa in Brighton. It had started raining again and that, combined with the slightly later dinnertime, resulted in available parking spaces and immediate seating. After studying the menu we suggested the Koshary and salad. They accepted the recommendation so we each had lentil soup and split an order of Koshary. The only difference was that we had ours’ spicy and they had theirs’ regular. They also liked the garlic spread and warm pocket bread. We finished the meal with coffee and Barbara sweet talked the manager, Gordon, out of complimentary baklava, this being their first visit to a La Marsa restaurant.

We got home around 9:30 PM. The water softener finished regenerating around 8 PM so I put the next load of clothes in the washing machine. Driving on our street we noticed that a branch on the south side about 0.2 miles in from the main road was hanging out farther and lower than usual to the point where we would not be able to navigate past it in the morning without scraping (scratching?) the side of the bus. I located a small saw and Linda drove me back down there to try to cut it off. At the point where I could reach the branch it was over 2″ in diameter and my little saw was not up to the task of cutting through it. I did make enough of a cut, however, that I was able to bend it and get it to crack. That allowed me to pull it down and tuck it into some other low branches and keep it off the road. Not the nicest pruning job, but it was raining steadily and it was dark and I was standing in a ditch.

Linda transferred the laundry to the dryer and then started the dishwasher. We finally got to bed at 11 PM where Linda read while I worked on this post and played a few games on my iPad. We still have quite a bit to do to get ready to leave but should be able to pull out of here tomorrow around noon.

2015/05/29 (F) Many Celebrations

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I was up late last night so Linda got up this morning before me, made coffee, and moved all of her plants to the front porch. I got up a little while later and we had grapefruit and toast for breakfast.

Today was a day of many celebrations, starting with a mutual “happy anniversary.” We were married on this date in 1971; 44 years ago. The wedding took place in the lobby of the St. Louis (Missouri) Ethical Society at 5 PM on a Saturday with about 50 people in attendance. The reception was held in the basement. It was a simple affair with about 200 people. A lot has happened in those 44 years. As we approach our mid-60’s it is unlikely we will see 44 more anniversaries but a 75th anniversary is at least possible and is a goal.

We loaded up the plants and left around 9:20 AM for Ann Arbor. We arrived at Madeline’s daycare center a little after 10:00 AM. She is in the “Ducks” group and they were outside in the play yard when we arrived. It was fun to see Madeline in this context interacting with other children around her age. The Ducks eventually joined the other groups in the assembly room for the Welcome Shabbat which was already in progress. The rabbi, whose name we did not get, was patient with his young audience and did a nice job.

Lunch followed the singing and ceremonies and Madeline got to eat with us instead of going back to the Ducks room. The food at the daycare center is always vegetarian (not vegan) but we had plenty to eat. After lunch we took Madeline back to the Ducks room and read stories while the other children ate their lunch. The teachers set up the cots for nap time and we left at 12:25 PM, about five minutes before the nap time routine got started. We enjoyed the “grandparents and special friends Shabbat.”

We went to Brendan and Shawn’s house to drop off the plants and pick up the electric pressure washer. Brendan is going to take care of Linda’s plants while we are at the Great Lakes MotorCoach Association GLAMARAMA RV rally next week. We have a higher pressure (3500 PSI) gasoline engine powered pressure washer but I have not used it in years and did not want to mess with it. I need to wash the bus on Saturday and the electric pressure washer just makes that a lot easier.

We left for Westland Mall at 2:30 PM to allow plenty of time to buy cards for Ken, Brendan, and Shawna before arriving at Ashley’s Beer & Grill for Ken Schramm’s gathering. Today was Ken’s last day at the Wayne County Regional Educational Service Agency where we were colleagues for the 12 years that I worked there. Ken was the TV and Media Production Manager and was one of the truly good guys.

Besides Ken and our friend Kate de Fuccio I had a chance to reconnect with former colleagues, including: Bill Heldmyer, Andy Henry, Jeff Gnagy, and Brenda Hose from the media department. Greg Johnson, Cheryl Yokum, and Libby Pizzo were there from my former Instructional Services department and Libby’s husband Vince from the computer group was there too. Maggie Mateer, Shirley Dushane, and Sandy Ellis were also there and my first secretary, Sheri Bartz, arrived just as we were leaving around 4:45 PM. I had a ginger-pineapple cider (hard) and Linda had a Dogfish 90 beer. I think her’s was more alcoholic than mine.

We headed back to Ann Arbor and traffic was a mess as we expected it would be. Brendan and Shawna’s employment/tenure celebration was at Dominic’s across from the University of Michigan Law Quad. I dropped Linda at the door and found a parking spot around the corner but did have any change for the meter. I texted Brendan and Linda and a few minutes later Meghan came out with some change. I only needed to feed the meter for 15 minutes, but failing to do so is risking a parking ticket in this town. The only thing I like less than driving in Ann Arbor is parking in Ann Arbor.

We sat and chatted with Meghan and Chris and watched Brendan and Shawna greet and mingle with their friends and colleagues. Many of their friends have children close to Madeline’s age so there were lots of kids for Madeline to interact with, especially Fiona. By 7 PM Madeline was getting tired so we swapped keys with Brendan and took her back to their house in their car. By the time we got her home and she had some black raspberries for a snack she was showing signs of being tired after a long, busy day. Linda took her upstairs to use the bathroom but ended up getting her ready for bed. There was some tearful “I want my mommy and daddy” but Grandma Linda is able to handle such situations very well and got her calmed down and into her crib.

Brendan had picked up some hummus, pretzel nibblers, and grapes for us so Linda and I had a snacky 44th anniversary dinner once she came downstairs. We used our iPads until Brendan and Shawna got home around 10:25 PM, visited briefly, and then drove back to our house. There was a message on our answering machine from FirstMerit Bank which handles the account for our SLAARC ham radio club. Tomorrow starts early with our ham radio club breakfast followed by a trip to the bank so we went straight to bed.

2015/05/23 (S) Radio Cabinet Company

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Today was “V. E.” testing day (volunteer examiner) so a half-dozen members of our amateur radio club were at breakfast even earlier than usual. (Our club does not test volunteer examiners, we have members who volunteer to give amateur radio licensing exams to people who want to get or upgrade an amateur radio license.) We were later than usual and ended up at the far end of a very long table arrangement, as there was a large turnout, but that gave us a chance to chat with a different group of people.

Mike Sharpe (W8XH) had a flyer he printed on his mother’s car, a 2005 Ford Taurus in excellent condition with only 21,000 miles. He was asking $5,800 which is slightly below the suggested Blue Book value. I texted our son to see if they might be interested in the car. Linda and I both had Ford Taurus cars starting in 2000. I had a beige station wagon with a beige interior and Linda had a red sedan with a gray interior. Our children eventually ended up with these vehicles, Brendan with my car and Meghan with Linda’s.

Back at the house Linda made a shopping list and headed to the grocery store while I changed into my work clothes and got to work in the bus. My focus today was deconstructing the cabinet above the refrigerator. I could tell from the dimensions that it was probably a box-within-a-box, but did not know how it was built. I removed all of the carpeting from the inside surfaces, labeling the back of each piece in case I decided to reinstall them. With the carpet out it became obvious that the floor, sidewalls, and back of the cabinet could be removed as I could see the screws and angle brackets that held them in place.

The cabinet above the refrigerator in our bus with the inside panels removed revealing lots of wiring.

The floor was in two side-to-side pieces which were narrow, each sidewall was a single piece, and the back was in two pieces. All of the pieces were sized to fit through the front openings in the face frame, a very clever design. There were cleats supporting the floor and spacing the back and side walls out from the larger permanent structure of the refrigerator alcove. The panels I removed served the dual purpose of getting the bottom and sides to line up with door openings and providing space to run wires while concealing them. Things got trickier after that.

The walnut face frame was assembled with glue and pocket screws. It had cleats along both rails and the two end stiles, all of which appeared to be glued and screwed to the face frame. In addition, the piece of walnut veneered plywood that separated the refrigerator space from the cabinet above was glued and screwed to the underside of the lower rail cleat. In other words, it was a solid and very professionally assembled cabinet. The bottom board was attached to the two sides with angle brackets and it appeared that I might be able to remove the face frame and bottom board once the side and top cleats and brackets were unscrewed. The top rail of the face frame, however, was tucked up behind some ceiling trim, preventing me from pulling the whole assembly straight out. I loosened the trim and found that pulling it straight out was probably not my best option. To get it out I would have to drop it straight down which will require the refrigerator to be out of the alcove.

The Aqua-Hot has been on with the thermostats set to 55 degrees F in case it got too cold. It was cool today so I turned the engine preheat pump on to warm up the main engine. When it was time for lunch I started the main engine and let it high idle while we ate. After we were done with lunch I moved the coach backwards (to release the brakes if they were bound up) and then forward enough to put the tires at a different spot. I set our electronic level on the centerline of the floor and then lowered the front and passenger side rear to level the coach. When I walked around it actually felt level, which it rarely did when trying to level off of one of the floor tiles or the kitchen counter.

I quit working around 2:30 PM as Linda was getting ready to prep ingredients for the risotto she planned to make for dinner and got cleaned up. I used to cook a lot but since we switched to a vegan diet Linda has done almost all of our cooking and, except for making coffee, tea, and popcorn, the kitchen has been her exclusive domain since she retired and we moved to the new house. But I offered to help and she agreed to let me so I diced an onion and five cloves of garlic while she sliced mushrooms and other things. By the time I was done I had about 40 minutes before Steve and Karen were due to arrive, so I updated my medical history for Root Canal Specialty Associates. I have a follow up visit with them in Wednesday.

Steve and Karen arrived at 4 PM and we settled in to conversation and munchies (they brought a mixed fruit salad, pistachios, and mixed nuts). We finished up the open bottle of Malvasia Bianca from Heart of the Desert Winery (Eagle Ranch) in Alamogordo, New Mexico. After chatting for a while about our respective winters—ours in the Southwest and theirs near Venice, Florida—we gave them a quick tour of the inside of the bus. It looks quite a bit different now compared to January 2014 when they spent a couple of nights in it at Williston Crossings RV Resort enroute to Venice, Florida. It will look even more different (hopefully) once we are done with the remodeling.

Linda eventually had to attend to the final preparations for dinner. Karen helped by stirring the mushroom risotto while Steve and I stayed out of their way chatting in the living room. Linda roasted refresh asparagus and sliced a baguette to go with the risotto. I opened a bottle of the 2013 Egri Merlot to go with dinner. Steve does not drink alcoholic beverages or coffee and Karen prefers drier red wines, but she seemed to enjoy the Merlot all the same.

The weather had been beautiful all day and we sat on the rear deck after dinner enjoying our last sips of wine. Once the sun dropped behind the trees it cooled off to the point where it was uncomfortable and we went back inside. I turned on the natural gas fireplace logs but left a window open which seemed to strike the right balance of temperature and mood. By 10:30 PM we had caught up on travels, families, and hobby interests. They had a 45 minute drive to get home and usually leave around that time. We had a long but very satisfying day and were quickly to bed once they were safely on their way home.

2015/05/21 (R) Cats, Cars, and Tenure

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Linda got up around 6 AM and got ready to go to the bakery. I was aware she was up but I slept in. Once up I showered and dressed for the day. I did not plan to work in the bus today so I did not put on my work clothes. Instead I needed to catch up on blog entries and take the cats to a 2 PM appointment at Plaza Veterinary Hospital in Farmington, Michigan.

I was putting a few things back in the master bedroom closet and noticed that the air-conditioning return air grill was stuffed full of insulation. We had found this in the other return air grills and removed it but we overlooked this one. I removed the grill and then removed the insulation and threw it away. There was a 1/2″ thick filter material stuffed up in the register behind the insulation. I trimmed the filter to just fit inside the grill and reattached it to the ceiling. Putting the rest of the house back together will take both of us so we will do that this evening. Besides, we like to give the carpets as much time as possible to dry out.

I went out around 9:30 AM to fuel my car and get a cup of coffee at the co-located Dunkin’ Donuts. Back home I put my floor mat back in front of my main computer station and settled in to check e-mail and work on my blog. There was a new driver available for the NVIDIA GeForce GPU in my ASUS laptop, so I initiated the download. AT&T was providing me with a 160 KB download speed and the 277 MB driver said it would take an hour to download. No point tying up the Internet connection until the download finished so I used my iPad while I waited.

The driver downloaded a little sooner than predicted and then installed quickly. When I finally opened my e-mail and had another 50 MB of stuff to download; a lot of it BCM related. They are trying to wrap up the April 2015 issue and sent me several drafts since I last checked my e-mail. I have not been 100% successful in getting folks attached to the magazine to transmit large files via Dropbox instead of attaching them to e-mails.

Tim Olsen from our GLCC chapter called yesterday to let me know he had registered for GLAMARAMA and wanted to park with the chapter. I updated my spreadsheet and need to e-mail a few folks to clarify their intentions before giving an updated coach count to the rally parking coordinator. As often happens, I did not have much time left to work on blog posts before I had to round up the cats and take them to the vet.

Both cats complained for most of the trip to Plaza Veterinary Hospital, but they are cats and that is what they do. I weighed them on the scale in the lobby and gave the receptionist the pertinent facts concerning their health. Once in the exam room I opened their carriers. Juniper immediately came out and explored the room. We were early and had to wait a while but Juniper stayed very busy. Perhaps she was looking go for a way out. Jasper did not leave his carrier. Perhaps he figured he was safer staying in there.

Dr. Carron examined Juniper first since she was already out of her carrier. The cats both got a clean bill of health other than some tartar on their teeth. Dr. Carron did not suggest, however, that they needed to be cleaned at this time. They each got vaccinated albeit for different things. Jasper also had blood drawn. He is just a month shy of being 11 years old and Dr. Carron likes to do annual blood work on cats 8 years of age and older. Juniper is due for a 3-year rabies booster in December of this year but Jasper is not due again until sometime in 2017. Besides rabies certificates we may need an International Health Certificate for each cat to get them into Mexico and/or back into the United States if we decide to make the trip to Puerto Penasco in February 2016.

I had just left Plaza Veterinary Hospital when Linda texted me that she was wrapping up at the bakery. It was already after 3 PM at that point and traffic was thick and slow in the usual places. I had a nice QSO with Mike (W8XH) on the South Lyon 2 meter ham radio repeater for the last six miles of my trip. He and several other club members bought Yaesu digital radios at the Dayton Hamvention to use with the new Yaesu Fusion 2m repeater that five of them bought from Yaesu for a special promotional price of only $500.

I got home around 4 PM and replied to Linda’s TXT message. I got the cat carriers inside and set them free. There was no hesitation about leaving the carriers this time. Linda got home around 5 PM, 90 minutes after she left the bakery, and I filled her in on the cats’ veterinary appointments. While we were chatting we got an e-mail from our son letting us know that Shawn’s tenure at the University of Michigan had been approved by the Board of Regents at their meeting today. We were understandably pleased (and relieved) to finally receive this news and texted back our congratulations. Shawna sent back a cell phone photo of themselves celebrating at a local Ann Arbor establishment. They looked very happy.

Most car dealerships in this market are open until 9 PM on Mondays and Thursdays, and neither of us was ready for dinner yet, so we paid a visit to Champion Chevrolet on Grand River Avenue between Brighton and Howell. We were greeted by Ken, but he only dealt in used cars and handed us off to Dan Danaher. He had a Chevy Colorado on the lot so we checked it out. It was not the 4-door crew cab Z71 off-road model, but it did have 4-wheel drive. We climbed in/out of the front and back seats and played with the tailgate. The front seats were fine but I could not sit in the back without the driver seat being all the way forward. The 4-door Crew Cab adds about 7″ of rear leg room but it would still be tight. That is one of the tradeoffs with mid-size trucks. The front seats fit us nicely but this is not a truck for tall and/or large people IMHO. The Z71 off-road version may sit slightly higher but we should still be able to get in/out without needing an accessory step or running board.

The MSRP for the truck we saw was just over $30,000 and overall felt very similar to the Nissan Frontier, nice but not luxurious. In other respects, however, the trucks were very different. The Colorado 4×4 models have a transfer case and can be towed four wheels down with an automatic transmission. We liked the Frontier but it can only be towed 4-down with the manual transmission and for that reason alone is not a viable alternative for us.

Dan gave us a brochure on the Colorado and made a few notes on what we are looking for. We would obviously like to see the 4-door crew cab and drive the Z71 4×4 off-road model before deciding to buy one. He said he would call if/when he had those available for us to see and test drive. If we ordered by the end of the month we would get a 2015 model but it would take 8 – 10 weeks to arrive. Starting June 1st orders will be for a 2016 model and still take 8 – 10 weeks for delivery. Recent history suggests a 0.5% to 1.0% price increase for the new model year. We do not plan to order a new car before the end of May and a 1% price increase would not motivate us to change our minds about that.

On our way back to our car we took a quick glance at the Camaro sitting outside the showroom door. If we were buying a nostalgia car thus would be it. Linda’s first car, purchased before we were married, was a used 1967 Chevy Camaro convertible. It was white with a red interior and had a 327 cubic inch V8 under the hood. No emissions controls in those days, just raw power and $0.35/gal gasoline.

We drove to Panera in Brighton and had black bean soup and Mediterranean veggie sandwiches for dinner. By the time we got home we were ready to relax. First we took the spacers out from under the living room furniture, so we had someplace to sit, and put a few items back where they normally go. I opened one of the bottles of Malvasia Bianca white wine from the Heart of the Dessert (Eagle Ranch) winery in Alamogordo, New Mexico and we celebrated our daughter-in-law’s attainment of tenure. It’s been a good year for our son and his family and it is nice to see things finally falling into place for them. The wine was very similar to the late harvest Rieslings we get from Michigan’s Leelanau peninsula; very sweet and thus a good cocktail or dessert wine. We watched the final episode from season 1 of A Touch of Frost before turning in for the evening.

2015/05/16 (S) Trucks and Buses

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To paraphrase, “If it’s Saturday we must be in South Lyon” and that was, indeed, the case. Most of the regulars were missing from our weekly breakfast gathering of the South Lyon Area Amateur Radio Club (SLAARC), but six of us showed up and had a great conversation. By the time we headed towards home it was starting to rain lightly.

We stopped at Brighton Honda to get some information on the Honda Ridgeline pickup truck. The salesman was very nice, but unfortunately Honda has stopped making the Ridgeline. They are reintroducing it in the fall of 2016, but we will likely make a decision about a new car/truck sooner than that. There are still a few in stock around the country but we already have an orphaned Honda Element. We like the car, but would be happier if they were still being made. In this case, however, it was a moot point as the Ridgeline is not towable four wheels down.

We drove next door to Brighton Ford to look at F-150 pickup trucks. We were assisted by Frank Stapleton and he was easy to work with. He insisted that we meet his new car sales manager, Eric Wilkinson, before we left. We felt that was unnecessary at this stage in the process, but he also seemed like a nice enough guy. The entry level XL 2-door may be reasonably priced (not really, but what car is?), but the slightly nicer XLT 4-door short bed with 4-wheel drive, towing package, and off-road package looks like it would price out at $45,000 give or take three grand. Without X -Plan pricing that is simply not going to happen, and even with X-Plan pricing it is not a sure thing. Frank really wanted us to test drive one but given the rainy weather we were not in the humor to do that today.

The F-150 is a nice truck, nicer in fact than many cars, and perhaps nicer than a pickup truck needs to be or should be. On the plus side it certainly has ground clearance, but on the negative side (for us) it is also BIG. The back seat room in the four door body style is cavernous, made larger by fold up seats, and that would be very useful for us when traveling in the bus. Between the back seat and the bed we could store a LOT of stuff. It has well-placed handles by all four doors, and it is a god thing as we both needed them, along with the running boards, to get in and out. There are several engine options including the 2.7 L and 3.5 L Eco-Boost models, both of which feature twin turbochargers. These are high-tech engines, with incredible power and torque and decent fuel economy. I liked the sound of that, but unfortunately that technology comes at a significant price premium. Interestingly, Ford is using an aluminum body and the truck weighs in at about 4,700 pounds. Our Honda Element weighs over 4,000 pounds and it is not nearly as big as the F-150. How well the aluminum will hold up is unknown.

We were almost home when we decided to keep driving and visit LaFontaine Nissan. While not as convenient as the Brighton dealerships, it is only 15 miles from our house, 13 of those headed east on M-59. Linda checked their hours on her phone and they were open until 4 PM. The purpose of our visit was to look at the Nissan Frontier pickup truck and the Nissan Xterra SUV, both of which Edmonds.com suggested were viable off-road alternatives to a Jeep Wrangler while Consumer Reports indicated they were more reliable and more practical than a Jeep Wrangler. Bobby Lundwall, the Commercial Manager, assisted us and we met the General Sales Manager, Don Poley, before we left. Bobby was very helpful and brought a Frontier and Xterra around front for us to see. Again, we were not interested in test driving one at this stage, especially in the rain.

The Nissan Frontier pickup has an available 4-door, 4-wheel drive, short bed model. It is considered a mid-size truck and is noticeably smaller than a Ford F-150 in every way. The Pro-4X off-road version has 10.1 inches of ground clearance at the differential, which should be adequate for our needs. It has a transfer case but is only towable four wheels down with the 6-speed manual transmission. We looked at the Xterra but found it harder to get in and out of, especially the back seat. It is taller than the Frontier and after due consideration we agreed that we were not really in the market for an SUV.

The Frontier does not have the bewildering array of options that the F-150 has and would be more suitable for the 95% of our driving that is on local paved and dirt roads. It would be perfectly adequate for hauling materials from Lowe’s to the house and has an available tent option for camping. We presume that aftermarket bed covers, canopies, and even small truck campers are available but we would check on that before buying one. Ditto for Blue Ox base plates and the ability to install an SMI Air Force One auxiliary braking system.

We did not test drive one, but it was easy to get in and out of, and comfortable to sit in, at least in the front seats. It weighs about 4,500 pounds, basically that same as the much larger F-150. The only negatives at this point are the manual transmission and lack of choice on interior fabric; the Pro-4X only comes with a charcoal interior, either cloth or leather. The bottom line was that it is probably a better fit for us than a Jeep Wrangler or a Ford F-150 and could be acquired for under $35,000 equipped the way we want it. Nissan also has zero percent financing available at the monument, although that is often in place of other incentives. The fact that it requires a manual transmission to be towed four wheels down, however, probably knocks it out of contention.

Storage compartment under the lift-up bed platform. The two boxes concealed and protectd 4″ flexible HVAC ducts.

Once we got home we had a light lunch. I then changed into my work clothes and got back to work deconstructing the inside of our motorcoach. (I like the term deconstructing as I think it is more descriptive of what I am doing that demolishing or even disassembling.) My goal for today was to finish removing all of the carpet and all of the carpet tack strips. I accomplished all of that except for a piece of carpet on the wall behind the driver’s seat and a piece on the front wall of the entry stairwell. My first task, however, was to cut a short slot in the 3/8″ plywood filler that was under the dinette in order to free an AC electrical cable that ran through it and then through the floor.

Getting the carpet off of the sides of the bed platform was interesting. There was a piece of wood trim installed along the top edge of the side of the bed base facing the front of the bus and just under the plywood bed platform. The trim strip is rabbited on the underside and conceals a 12VDC strip light that is tied in with toekick lights in the bathroom and the floor lights in the hallway. The power for the lights comes from inside the bed base through a small hole in the plywood and carpet. The trim strip also appeared to be installed over the carpet and needed to be removed to get the carpet loose along the top.

Under-bed storage compartment with bot HVAC ducts uncovered.

There was also an adjustable HVAC louver on each side of the bed. The louvers were installed from the outside and had flexible heater ducts slipped over them on the inside and secured with screws. The flexible ducts were in the storage area under the bed and were covered by wood boxes to protect them. The boxes, in turn, were carpeted to match the rest of the storage compartment. To disconnect the wiring for the strip light and remove the boxes I had to first empty out all of the stuff stored under the bed so I could get in there to work. The bed platform is hinged about one foot from the head end and the foot end lifts up, supported by two gas struts, so there was plenty of room to work once I emptied it out.

I have disassembled enough of the bus at this point to have some idea of how the conversion was built. The cover “boxes” for the flexible ducts were actually half-boxes with a long side and top and one small end. They were installed into a corner using a cleat screwed to the floor that the bottom edge of the long side was then screwed into. There was a similar arrangement to catch the free edge of the top and it was screwed to the inside wall of the platform base. All of these screws were put in through the carpet that covered the boxes and were essentially invisible so I had to find the screw heads by touch and back them out.

The area just forward of the bed base with the bed platform raised and facing the driver side of the bus.

Once I got the protective boxes loose I discovered that the floor and wall were also carpeted. There was a small bump out in each rear corner that served as wiring chases for AC electrical outlets on each side of the bed, and these bump outs were carpeted. It seemed clear to me that the HVAC ducts, which are part of the OTR HVAC system, may have originally been installed directly into the HVAC chase outside the bed base and later repositioned to the sides of the bed thus requiring the louvers, flexible ducts, and cover boxes. They also greatly reduced the available storage space under the bed.

The OTR HVAC chase runs along the floor-wall junctions on both sides of the bus for most of the length of the coach and a 12″ section of it is accessible on either side of the bed. Removing the two flexible ducts, sealing up the openings, and installing the louvers outside the bed platform will free up additional storage space under the bed which is a good thing as we can always use for storage space. That’s a nice bonus but adds some additional work to the remodeling project. Such is the nature of remodeling; you never really know what you have until you have completed the deconstruction phase.

The aft side of the bed base. There is not a lot of room to work in here so I will remove the bed platform when I install the new tile floor. I plan to use the same tile on the sides of the bed base.

It was overcast all day with humidity near 100% and rained off and on into the evening. It was also warm so I kept opening the roof vents and running the fans to make it more comfortable in the coach, but every time I did it started raining shortly thereafter. When I was done working on the bus for the day I moved the ten concrete blocks that had been supporting the propane tank for the whole house generator and pulled up the utility marker flags for the underground gas line to our meter. Keith will be here to cut the grass this coming week and I want him to be able mow these areas.

Linda spent the afternoon thoroughly cleaning the kitchen. She also prepared a sugar-water solution, filled the hummingbird feeder we bought at Lowe’s the other day, and hung it off the railing of our rear deck. A hummingbird found it almost immediately which was very cool. For dinner Linda made pan-grilled tofu slices with caramelized onions and sweet BBQ sauce served on tortillas. She also sautéed fresh broccoli and sliced up some fresh strawberries and pineapple.

After dinner Linda went to the Edmonds.com website to see if she could get a better feel for dealer cost and Fair Market Value for the Ford F-150 and Nissan Frontier. While she was at it she looked up the Chevy Colorado (GMC Canyon), and Toyota Tacoma. The Chevy Colorado was Motor Trend Magazine’s 2015 Truck of the Year. Both the Colorad0/Canyon and Tacoma are mid-sized pickup trucks. Toyota’s full-size pickup is the Tundra.

Brendan called while we out to see if Linda could sit with Madeline tomorrow night while he and Shawna had dinner with their friend Jorge. Depending how the day goes tomorrow I may go to Ann Arbor with her. We had two episodes of Sherlock left to watch and the DVDs have to go back to the library on Monday, so we watched both of them this evening. It was a double feature so I made popcorn in-between episodes.

2015/05/15 (F) Hamvention

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Today was devoted to the Dayton Hamvention which, as the name suggests, is a ham radio “event” that takes place in Dayton, Ohio. I suppose it could be a gathering of Honey Baked Ham franchisees in some other state, or a convention of people who like to show off, but it’s just dozens of speakers, hundreds of vendors, thousands of flea market sellers, and ~20,000 attendees gathered to buy, sell, learn about, and talk about all things amateur radio. It is quite an event and it always rains. This year was no exception.

The Dayton Hamvention is the largest single annual gathering of ham radio operators in the world, and is probably also the largest gathering of ham radio related vendors. Organized by the Dayton Amateur Radio Association (DARA), the Hamvention currently takes place on the Friday, Saturday, and Sunday of the third weekend in May each year and 2015 was the 60th time the event has been held. The American Radio Relay League (ARRL) shows up in force and the biggest manufacturers in the industry—Kenwood, Icom, and Yaesu—have extensive booths in the vendor area, along with many other manufacturers, distributors, and specialty product vendors.

Dayton’s Hara Arena is ~227 miles from our house, close enough that we can drive down and back the same day, but it makes for a long day. We left at 5:35 AM and stopped at Dunkin Donuts for coffee and bagels before getting on the Interstate 96 headed east. A few miles later we headed south on US-23 which took us into Ohio and onto I-475. We joined up with I-75 south of Toledo, Ohio and stayed on that until we exited in Dayton to head west to the Hamvention venue. With a bathroom break about half way down we arrived at the arena around 9:15 AM. There is no general admission parking at the Hara Arena complex but we were able to park at an automotive dealership across the street and over to the left for $10. (The dealership directly across the street was charging $40/day to park. Unfortunately some people were actually willing to pay that much.)

The flea market opened at 8 AM and the indoor vendor area opened at 9 AM. Hams who are looking for bargains in used parts and equipment are always in line when the gates open at 8 AM on the first day. Although many hams are involved with designing and building new equipment, and/or repairing and restoring vintage radios, we are not. We had only been to the Hamvention once before and our interest today was to reacquaint ourselves with the inside vendors. It cost us $25 each for the privilege.

We knew that a dozen of our fellow SLAARC members were here at the event but we only ran into one of them (Bill / W8NN). We walked past every vendor booth at least once and paid return visits to several. We did not have a shopping list and ultimately did not buy anything except lunch. As we were getting ready to leave a thunderstorm opened up and it rained very hard for a while so we lingered and revisited a couple more vendors until it quit and then headed for our car.

We pulled out around 3 PM and headed for home, reversing the route we took to get to the Hamvention. We stopped for gas and each got something to drink. I was tired and sleepy from having had too many carbohydrates for lunch so we switched drivers. We stopped at a rest area somewhere on I-75 in Ohio for a bathroom break but I’m not sure where it was as I was dozing until just before we pulled in. We got home about 6:45PM. The event ended at 6 PM today and we expected to be home closer to 10 PM, so getting home sooner was nice.

The cats were glad to see us; at least they both wanted our attention. Linda cut up some fresh strawberries and pineapple and heated up some canned soup which made for a light, easy dinner. We relaxed for a while but Linda decided she was too tired to watch an episode of Sherlock and headed off to bed.

I checked out the website of one of the vendors that interested me. KF7P (KF7P.com) builds custom cable entry boxes with copper ground planes and lightning arresters. I have been looking for something like that to get transmission lines into our basement ham shack while protecting all of the equipment connected to them. I will give him a chance to get back to Utah and then give him a call and order one. The box is going to mount on the east side of the house near the northeast corner. It will have at least one 3” PVC pipe coming out the back and running through the wall into the basement. Since I do not know what our long term needs are, and I do not want to have to redo this later, I will have him build something that is larger than we will probably ever need. That will be cheaper and easier in the end than having to redo something later.

2015/05/11 (M) Bus Barns Reconsidered

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I took a nap late yesterday afternoon, a rare but sometimes necessary thing. I went to bed later as a result but still did not sleep well. We have too many things going on simultaneously with significant dollars attached to them and that has a tendency to disturb our sleep. I also planned to visit three County agencies today and the anticipation of that no doubt contributed to a less restful night.

I was up at 5 AM and awoke to heavy fog; literally, the air temperature had dropped and it was very foggy outside. I decided to concentrate on uploading my blog posts for the first 10 days of May but ended up also working on the materials estimate for the new bus floor, checking and responding to e-mails, and making adjustments to the SLAARC website and e-mail forwarding addresses. Once Linda got up and we had some coffee she spent the first part of the day working on the banking and roster for SLAARC, so it turned out to be a somewhat “slaarcy” day for us. The fog changed over to rain as the day progressed and intermittent heavy rains moved through the area after lunch accompanied by a tornado watch that continued until dinnertime. I did, however, get the blog entries for May 1 through 9 edited, tagged, and posted. I really need to get back to posting each day as it occurs.

Our male cat, Jasper, was having tummy troubles today. He tends to follow me around the house anyway, but today he stayed very close most of the day. He climbed up in my lap while I was working at my desk no less than six times and went to sleep for as long as an hour at a stretch. If not there he was curled up on my desk, on the carpet near my chair, on my lap or next to me on the couch, or alongside me in bed. He has a loud, resonant purr and I heard (and felt) it a lot today. It is one of my favorite things.

Linda finally persuaded me over the weekend that, as much as I was trying to contain the cost, the current approach to the bus barn project was just going to be too expensive. I have not given up on the idea of building a bus barn but I am now rethinking my approach yet again. Ironically, I am back to the idea of a true pole barn, which eliminates the concrete foundation. Instead of wood trusses, however, I am looking at an arched steel roof. That would eliminate the bottom chords of a wood truss which determine the ceiling height. Downsizing the building would further reduce the cost and not pouring a concrete pad, or perhaps only a partial one, would reduce the cost even more. A 24′ x 48′ building with a 16′ center ceiling may only require 12′ side walls, which would keep the posts and other lumber costs reasonable. The site prep and finish grading cost is there no matter what we do. The main things we give up with this approach are the 19′ ceiling in the center, which would have allowed me to walk on the roof and work standing up, and an overhead door which would be expensive anyway. Working on the roof would require moving it outside and the door would have to be a two-piece exterior slider or “barn style” pull open.

Chuck and I have been talking seriously the last couple weeks about trying to agree on a metal arch building design so we can order two buildings and get a quantity and shipping discount. I called Chuck before dinner to let him know what we had decided we were not going to do that, at least not this year, and explain the reasoning behind the decision. He is faced with the exact same issues and we had a long bus barn chat, to be continued in the days ahead.

While I was on the phone with Chuck my sister called my cell phone so Linda took the call. My grand-niece, Lilly, had experienced several more seizures since she returned home from the hospital on Wednesday. She was at a different hospital where they were going to hook her up to an EEG for 24 hours as none of the one-time EEGs have shown anything abnormal. Lilly is only 27 months old and this has to be a bit scary for her; it certainly is for the adults around her.

Linda prepared a simple meal of fresh asparagus, white rice with soy sauce, and mock chicken with orange sauce. We had another piece of the vegan cake for dessert later. We have also decided that now is the time to replace the refrigerator in the bus so we spent time after dinner continuing to look at units online.

The current fridge, which is a side-by-side Jenn-Air, is a 22.6 cubic foot model. Newer refrigerators with similar case dimensions tend to be smaller in usable volume but even 17 cubic foot models do not appear to fit in our refrigerator cubby. The newer ones tend to be more energy efficient, so they may have thicker insulation thus reducing the interior volume. The problem is that they also tend to be taller as a way to maintain the width and depth dimensions. The unit that has our attention at the moment is a Fisher & Paykel 13.5 cubic foot model. That is a lot less refrigerator storage than we have now, and would have to adjust how we shop, but we would be able to take it in and out through the main entrance door of the bus and recover about 11 inches of width for a pantry that would be 67″ tall and 29″ deep. That is a lot of storage and may be a good trade-off.

We finished the evening watching Season 2, Episode 1 of Sherlock. I do not generally enjoy watching TV programs a second time, but the BBC Sherlock series holds up very well on repeated viewing.

2015/05/09 (S) ICAAN, Can You?

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Today started with our usual SLAARC breakfast. Linda has been cleaning up the financial records for our ham radio club and discovered in the process that the status of our EIN application was murky. She has spent some time this past week trying to track down just what happened so she can figure out what to do to fix it. She finally determined yesterday that the EIN that was issued by the IRS was indeed valid and approved but it does not appear that the 501(C.)(3.) non-profit status was ever established correctly.

When we got home we loaded the disassembled plastic foundation from our old Select Comfort mattress into the back of my car along with our usual tubs and bags of recyclables and drove to Recycle Livingston. We had no other errands to run and returned home directly.

Scotty (AC8IL) reminded me at breakfast that Universal Tower in Mt. Clemens, MI (Clinton Township) sells free-standing aluminum towers that are compatible with the used Heights tower we bought last year. I may be able to get a tower section to replace the iron clamshell and also a base to set in the concrete. I made a quick check of their website but some of the pages did not load correctly on my iPad.

I checked the ICANN domain name registry for “SLAARC.com” and all of the owner/contact information still referenced Gary, who set it up originally in 2009. I dealt with a change in ownership for “dactm.org” years ago and it was not a simple, easy process. Add in the GoDaddy factor, and moving the domain name registration and web-hosting from GoDaddy to QTH.com is something I am not looking forward to. I sent an e-mail to Mike and Larry seeking their input and assistance. I checked and replied to a few other e-mails and then went upstairs. Our USPS carrier, Michelle, came to the door with a small package that would not fit in our mailbox. It was my prescription medications that we thought would be delivered on Monday next week.

Linda headed to the grocery store while I changed into my work clothes and started working on getting the dinette in the bus disassembled and removed. I figured out that the dinette was, indeed, built in two pieces. The base was screwed to the floor and had a u-channel around the top that was sized to receive a similar upside down u-channel on the bottom of the upper part. The two channels were locked together by screws inserted horizontally from the inside. The upper part was the seating and seat backs, most of it with built-in cushioning. All of the leather furniture in the bus is in less than ideal condition and the foam cushioning is shot. The furniture was designed so that the only way to replace it would be to remove it, disassemble it, rebuild it, and reinstall it. We do not like it enough to do that and after owning the bus for over five years we now know how we want to change the furniture and re-purpose the space.

Needless to say, but said anyway, coach converters only care about making the original buyer happy and count on them getting rid of the coach long before any of these design decisions become an expensive maintenance and repair issue. And that is a shame, really, because luxury motorcoach conversions are elaborate, expensive custom projects and the buses being used for these projects are capable of being driven for 50 years and 2,000,000 miles given the required routine maintenance. Over that kind of time and miles the house/systems are also going to need maintenance but they do not seem to be designed/built with that in mind.

When Linda returned from her shopping she helped me get the two pieces of the dinette out of the coach and into the garage. She then got back to work at her desk finishing up the accounting for our ham radio club. I continued working in the coach figuring out how to disassemble the J-lounge sofa that occupies the rest of the passenger side of the living room and mated to the dinette. Like the dinette it was a custom designed piece of furniture built specifically for this coach and constructed in the same way. The differences were its size (longer), and three powered accessories. From front to rear the accessories were a footrest, center table, and drawer.

The footrest is self-explanatory. The center table rises up/out of the base in the center of the couch (after removing the loose seat cushion that covers it) and goes back down/in if you need that spot for sitting. We set it at a comfortable height, level with the tops of the seat cushions, without it intruding into the limited isle space and pretty much left it there. The drawer would have been just a drawer if not for the large rubber tube used to open and close it at the touch of a button.

The tube, about 1/4″ in diameter, is arranged like a long, skinny race track above the drawer and under the seat. At the back end, deep in the bowels of the couch, is a motor with a vertical shaft connected to a horizontal drive pulley. The tube is looped around this drive pulley and the other end is looped around a second horizontal pulley at the front edge of the drawer opening. That pulley is free to turn. If that’s all there was to it turning on the motor would cause the tube to just go round and round in one direction or the other. The top back of the drawer, however, has a little finger sticking up that was clamped to the tube so when the tube moved it pulled the drawer with it. At least it did before the tube broke. The big drawer under the sleeper sofa is also powered by a similar mechanism, or was until the tube broke. Neither of these drawers has worked as a powered drawer in the 5+ years we have owned the coach. The motors work, but they do not cause the drawers to open or close.

All of these mechanisms are very clever but ultimately completely unnecessary. Footrests can be actuated manually, drawers can opened and closed by hand, and a table can be built in where it needs to be. These mechanisms also add weight, require power, wiring and control switches, represent potentially difficult (expensive) maintenance and repair items, and take up space that could be better used to store things. To paraphrase a popular song of my youth “the things that pass for luxury I can’t understand.”

Because of all of these mechanisms the J-lounge was considerably more work to disassemble as they made it more difficult to access the screws that held the top piece to the base and the base to the floor. In order to get to everything I had to remove the footrest, the table, the drawer box, and two decorative panels. The drawer was attached to a pair of substantial double suspension glides by four bolts with Nylok nuts inside the drawer. The suspension glides did not have release mechanisms so I had to remove the drawer box. The two rear bolt heads were virtually inaccessible but I eventually figured out where to position the slides so I could push the bolts out from the inside.

Somewhere in the middle of this work Linda came out to bus. It was good timing on her part as I was at a point where I had to assume awkward positions to reach things and having her hand me tools was very helpful. The top back edge was wedged under the window trim so once everything was unscrewed we moved the couch out from the wall enough to lift the top off, verifying that it was unscrewed from the floor and the top was completely disconnected from the base. We did not carry the pieces out of the coach, however, as we need to remove the front passenger seat first and create space in the garage for the pieces. The couch and dinette are about 16 feet long when installed.

Disassembling the couch was not a problem as we are not going to reuse this furniture nor are we going to try to sell it or even give it away. The most we might do is see if the metal has any value as scrap. If not, Linda will call our garbage service to see if they will pick it up on our regular trash day. I plan, however, to remove and keep the motors, pulleys, and acme screw linear actuators; you never know when you might need something like that. 🙂

I asked Linda if she wanted to go out for a pre Mother’s Day dinner and she said yes. We went to La Marsa in Brighton and got there before 6 PM which allowed us to find a parking spot and not have to wait for a table. I had their fresh lemonade, made with juice from fresh squeezed lemons and oranges blended together with ice. I suspect it also had honey as it was sweet. It was delicious. The pita bread and garlic spread were good as usual. We split the salad, which was god, and an order of zesty almond garlic Ghallaba (vegan). This is the second time we have had this dish here and it has been a real disappointment both times. We have come to the unhappy conclusion that the food at this La Marsa is simply not as good as the food at the Farmington Hills location. Sadly, it is one of the few places in Brighton or Howell where we can get something vegan besides a salad or a no-cheese pizza.

When we got home I made some decaf coffee and we settled in to read, write, and play games on our iPads. We looked at the website for Polar Power Inc. They are a competitor to SunFrost and make similar kinds of refrigerators but with some important differences. They sell to the marine market and have super-insulated units with remote compressors that run directly on 12VDC or 24 VDC. Unfortunately the only unit they make that will fit in our enclosure is 9.6 cubic feet, and some of that is the freezer compartment. It would allow us to build a generous vertical slide out pantry, but it is just not enough refrigerator volume. Replacing the refrigerator is going to be a difficult project but it will be nice when we are done, especially if we can gain a tall, narrow, deep pantry in the bargain. I plan to call SunFrost and Polar Power to see if they will make a custom sized unit and if so, what the added charge would be, but I expect the answer to be “no.”

I am once again behind on posting blog entries and need to upload all of the posts so far for May. I did not take any photos in that time so they will be a bit less work. I did take photos today, however, so now that we are back in project mode I really need to get back in the habit of off-loading images daily, selecting a few for the blog, posting it, and filing all of them for use in future magazine articles.

2015/05/08 (F) Bus Barn Trojans

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Today was a hodgepodge of activity.

Chuck called mid-morning and we had a long chat about bus barns. I think our needs would be met nicely by a SteelMaster S-model steel arch building 32 feet wide by 56 feet long with a 19 foot inside center height. We have been quoted a price of $20,400 for two of these ($10,200 each) delivered to two separate but nearby addresses. The price does not include end walls, roof vent adapters, or skylight panels. The site prep is going to be about $10,000. A 16 ft. wide by 14 ft. high overhead door will be $5,000. If I can get the concrete work for $10,000 and frame in the end walls, pull the permits, and run the electrical service for another $5,000 we can get this building erected for $40,000 and not spend all summer building it. That’s a lot of ifs and it’s a lot of money, but we have looked at this a lot of different ways and that appears to be the bottom end in terms of cost.

Chuck likes the idea of 40 ft. wide by 60 ft. long building with that same 19 ft. interior ceiling height. His logic is that he could put two buses in there, or a bus and a really big trailer, and still have room for workbenches, cabinets, and tools along the outside walls. True enough, but we do not plan to own two buses simultaneously nor do we plan to rent space in our barn. Chuck and are also not discussing going in together on a building as we both want to store our buses at our homes where they are convenient to load, unload, and work on. Besides, I have been quoted $25,000 for that size building. Although I think it included steel end walls with framed openings for an overhead door and an entrance door on one end, this project is never going to happen at that price unless we win a lottery, and that is unlikely as we rarely buy tickets.

After lunch I finally emptied out the back of my car and re-installed one of the back seats that was out all winter. I was going to vacuum the interior but my Shop-Vac had very little suction. An inspection of the filter revealed that it was completely clogged with drywall dust. I closed up the car and put the Shop-Vac back in the garage where Linda wrote down the model number.

I got out the 8 foot stepladder and carried the three roofing samples up onto the roof. I laid them out side-by-side so we could compare them in the same light. Linda also viewed them from the west end of the house and from the rear of the house. We agreed that the Certainteed Landmark Pro Max Def ReSawn Shake was the one we liked. Linda made note of that in the quote packet while I loaded the sample boards into my car.

I drove to ABC Supply Co. in New Hudson and returned the roofing samples. I stopped at the nearby Lowe’s to buy a replacement filter for the Shop-Vac. I think the sales associate who helped had somewhere else to be and something else to do as it did not seem really interested in helping me find the right filter. I usually shop at the Lowe’s in Howell and the service there is generally very friendly. The model number of our Shop-Vac did not come up in either the Lowe’s system or the Shop-Vac website even though we bought it a Lowe’s just two years ago. Apparently it is no longer made or sold. After looking at the current Shop-Vacs and the replacement filters I selected an LG wet/dry filter as my best bet.

I-96 west bound was fine until Kensington Road at which point it was stop and go, but mostly stop , so I excited at there and headed north, eventually heading west on Hyne, across Old US-23 and over to Hacker Road. I don’t know if it was faster, but at least I was moving most of the time at a good speed. I really dislike sitting in traffic.

Mike Sharpe was scheduled to come over after breakfast tomorrow to see if we could identify the source/cause of the Trojan notifications I have been getting for a while now from my es|et Smart Security 8 program. It appears that the notifications are being triggered by the copying of a .tmp file associated with the automatic backup of files from one or more of the four WordPress websites I run. I was doing online research on the infection and was looking for information on the es|et website when I noticed that they had a live chat technical support feature. I decide to see if they could help me and ended up spending an hour with Eric. With his helped I think we found and eliminated the at least one instance of the offending file.

Linda made a nice salad for dinner. Having had something to eat I pursued the Trojan problem back to the next level; the website from which the infected file was being backed up. The Small Business WordPress theme (in the “smallbiz” folder) was the source of the problem. I did not recall installing this theme, however, so I am not sure how it got installed into the website. I checked the other three websites and discovered that this theme was also installed on our personal website/blog. That probably explains why I was getting two notifications for what appeared to be the same thing. It took me a while to find an explanation on WordPress.org of how to delete themes. It was very easy once I saw it, but like many others I could not find the button on my own. I eliminated the theme from both websites along with others from all four websites that I did not plan to use. Only time will tell if that has eliminated the problem.

I then dealt with e-mails that I had neglected for the last several days and took another look at the SLAARC GoDaddy account. It was almost midnight by the time I got to bed.

2015/05/05 (T) BAF & MEF3 Visit

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Today was a family visit day. We were up a bit earlier than usual and enjoyed a light breakfast and a quiet first half of the morning. One of the things I’ve had on my to-do list is ordering Touch of Oranges Wood Cleaner and Touch of Beeswax Wood Preservative. I finally got those ordered today directly from the company with free ground shipping. I checked Amazon but the prices were no better and the products were not eligible for Amazon Prime. I also found what I think is an exact replacement for my iPad2 flip cover and put it in our Amazon shopping cart.

Our son (Brendan) and grand-daughter (Madeline) arrived around 10 AM. Madeline knows her way around the main floor of our house at this point and headed directly for the pantry to see what snacks we might have. We tend to have dried fruit on hand, especially raisins and cranberries, as a tasty but healthy choice. She is very fond of dried cranberries. We spent the morning playing and talking and having a drawn out snacky lunch. Somewhere in there Brendan setup the Pack-n-Play.

Pat Davidson from Apex Roofing showed up around noon to look at our roof and give us a quote. Apex has done two roofs for us on the previous house and did excellent work at a fair price both times. The quote was about what I expected and I gave Pat the verbal go ahead to put us in the schedule. They are scheduling out about six weeks, so mid -June looks like the timeframe. That potentially runs into the SKP Tri-Chapter Rally or the ARRL Field Day, as well as bus and bus barn projects, so we will have to see exactly where things fall. We like to be around while this sort of work is going on. This time, however, I also need to build a dormer on the back side of the roof to provide better access to the attic, generally, and the air-conditioner evaporator/air-handler, specifically.

The quote is for a new roof, with new underpayment and ice shield, so it is a “tear off” where they first remove all of the old roofing and repair any damaged/missing roof decking or boards. They always look for at least a three day window with a dry weather forecast. Pat said they would work with me relative to the dormer. Specifically, they would start the tear off in the area where I want to build the former and then move to a different part of the roof so I can do the carpentry. Linda and I need to visit ABC Supply Co. in new Hudson to pick out the specific shingle we want, and we plan to do that sooner rather than later.

The dormer is simple in concept but a bit trickier in execution. I would build two tapered walls on the ground that look like right triangles. The hypotenuse would attach to the roof with the long leg on top and horizontal and the shirt leg facing out and vertical. Joists would be installed across the two walls, tying the together. The front wall would be framed for an access door between the two short legs. Two rafters would be installed at the end wall. The ridge board would be set in place and cut to tie into the roof. Two backer boards would be installed on the roof running at an angle from the ends of the side walls up to the ridge board. The rest of the rafters would then be installed. The walls and roof would then get plywood sheeting and decking. The final carpentry would be fascia boards and siding. Fortunately we have a pile of Hardy Board left over from when the house was sided. Hopefully there is enough to side the dormer and it is in good enough shape to use. I would then install the door, which I might have to build. Apex would then roof the dormer, including continuous ridge venting. The final steps would be painting the door and door trim and installing fascia and vented soffit material to match what is already on the house if I can find a supplier. We would like the dormer to blend in and look like it belongs there.

Brendan got Madeline down for her nap at 1 PM and then spent a little time looking at what we plan to do with the floor in the bus before heading back to Ann Arbor. I gathered up the Armstrong vinyl floor tile samples and drove to Lynch Carpet in Howell to return them and see what else they might have. Clint let me keep the one we like for a couple more days and gave me a grout color chart. I then headed to Best Buy in Brighton to pick up a Sony Blue-Ray/DVD player and a couple of flash drives, all of which were on sale. I stopped for gas and got back to the house just as Madeline was waking up from her nap.

I was able to spend a little time researching a potential new vehicle. As much as we are enamored with the Jeep Wrangler Unlimited the Consumer Reports data on them is very discouraging, especially the reliability data. Viable alternatives may be the Nissan Frontier Pickup Truck or the Nissan Xterra SUV, both of which are available in 4×4 configurations. Even the Ford F-150 might be a possibility as it is available in a 4-door, short-bed, 4×4 version. They all have much better CR reliability data that the Jeeps. The problem is, they are not Jeeps. If we can wait a year, Ford is releasing an F-150 Raptor in fall 2016 that will feature a 10-speed transmission with six selectable driving modes including rock, mud & sand, and Baja (high speed desert racing). It will probably also feature a ridiculously high price, but then none of these vehicles are inexpensive.

We got a phone call from XPO around 4:20 PM to let us know they would be delivering our box spring mattress foundation around 5 PM. They showed up right on time and carried it to our bedroom. Linda signed the delivery slip and they were gone as quick as they arrived. We will wait until Brendan retrieves Madeline tomorrow to disassemble and reassemble the bed.

I entertained Madeline while Linda prepared dinner, but Madeline was very interested in what her Grandma Linda was doing, so we kept going to the kitchen to check on the work. Linda served some “mock” chicken tenders, but she also fixed fresh green beans and homemade mashed potatoes, reheated some frozen edamame, and set out fresh black grapes and pineapple chunks. Madeline is a good eater and we all enjoyed our meal.

Madeline is “potty trained” and very proud of the fact that she is no longer wearing a diaper. She had a very successful day letting us know she needed to use the toilet. We have a booster ring for the hall bathroom and put a stool in there for her. She uses the stool to get up in the toilet seat and then uses it to stand up at the sink and wash her hands. The hall bathroom sink/counter is lower than normal and turns out to be a great height for Madeline with the use of the stool.

We played after dinner until Madeline was tired. She has always been comfortable staying with us but at 29 months of age is starting to have some anxiety about being away from her parents. She wanted her daddy, and was briefly a little bit teary, but it wasn’t anything Grandma Linda couldn’t handle. Linda followed the usual routine of looking at the rug (wall art) and all of the pictures in the hallway, the small bedroom, and finally the middle bedroom where Madeline’s Pack-n-Play is set up. She selected the Construction Kitties book (again) for a bedtime story. It was one of the books we got from the library yesterday and was her favorite choice all day today. She fell asleep easily as she usually does. We are active, busy people, but it’s a different kind of busy from having a 2-year old in the house. We were tired, and turned in about an hour after our grand-daughter, but it was a good kind of tired.

We were so busy today that we failed to notice that it was Cinco de Mayo until it was almost over.

2015/04/02 (S) SLAARC and Company

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We arrived at the Senate Coney Island before 8 AM for the weekly SLAARC breakfast. Paul (N8BHT) was already there and we were followed in closely by Steve (N8AR), Mike (W8XH), and Jim (N8HAM, the best call sign ever). Bruce (W8RA) and Linda (NF8C) came in next followed by Harvey (AC8NO) and Diane, and then Gary (WA8TJA). Others continued to come in but I lost track after that. We sit at a long, two-sided table arrangement, so you can only talk easily to the person on either side of you and the three or four people across from you. Bruce and Linda sat across from us. The two Lindas like to talk so we try to arrange the seating to make that possible when we can.

Bruce and Linda just closed on a 25 acre property in Florida that includes a very nice house with a ham radio shack and five (5) towers with antennas so that was the main topic of conversation. Bruce is also thinking about putting up a “barn” with a pad next to it for an RV so we talked about the requirements for the pad and the type/placement of the hookups. We both had coffee and Linda had her usual dry rye toast. I decided to change things up and had a dry, toasted bagel instead of my usual dry, toasted English muffin. Sometimes you just have to live on the edge.

After breakfast we went to First Merit Bank along with Harvey and Diane. Harvey is the SLAARC President, I am the VP, and Linda is the Treasurer and we are the folks currently on the account. There was an issue with the bank’s paperwork and they needed to photocopy our driver’s licenses and get our SSNs. It turned out that they also did not have the club’s EIN even though Linda and Paul, the outgoing treasurer, took care of some of this in late February. Nancy helped us and was very nice, explaining that the bank had changed its policies and procedures recently and now required more documentation than in the past. No problem, the bank is open on Saturday mornings and we are almost always in town for breakfast.

With our banking business concluded we headed towards home via Grand River Avenue. We knew from yesterday that traffic was moving through the I-96/US-23 construction zone just fine, as long as there wasn’t an accident, but we wanted to stop at Brighton Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram which is on GRA just west of US-23. We walked around the lot looking at the Jeep Wranglers, especially the Unlimiteds, and after a suitable amount of time David Wade came out and introduced himself. He showed us around, answered our questions, and gave us a nice brochure (book) and features/options guide. We liked his attitude and demeanor and left feeling comfortable with him and the dealership.

We focused in fairly quickly on the Willy’s Unlimited model as the one that we thought would best fit our needs and budget. It is similar to the Sport, which is the base trim level for the Jeep, but is available with the hardtop and, most importantly, the Rubicon heavy-duty suspension and off-road (knobby) tires. The Rubicon is the top of the line Wrangler Unlimited (4-door) but it is not just fancier in terms of electronic gizmos; it has an entirely different suspension, transfer case, and other “features” that make it the most off-road capable as delivered by the factory. We liked the copper/bronze color, as it would go nicely with the paint scheme on our bus, but I am also partial to the canary yellow as it would be the most visible if we were broken down in some remote place.

A new Jeep Wrangler Unlimited would be a big purchase for us but no more expensive than buying a used one as they appear to hold their value better than most vehicles. With a new one we can order it just the way we want it, leaving off all of the expensive upgrades we do not want/need (in-dash GPS, entertainment system, etc.) and adding only those that we do want/need (hardtop and suspension upgrade). New also means a 6-year, 100,000 mile powertrain warranty and a 3-year, 36,000 mile bumper-to-bumper warranty. David also told us that we can purchase a lifetime bumper-to-bumper warranty for about $3,000. We will obviously have to do some research on that.

We finally got home around 10:30 AM Home. Linda added a few more items to her grocery list and went to the supermarket. I started a load of laundry and then moved a lot of my “stuff” from the dining room to my office. After rearranging old stuff to make room for the new stuff I settled in at my desk to work on computer/web-based tasks.

Gary was the SLAARC webmaster before me and indicated at breakfast that he was still getting e-mails from the SLAARC reflector and asked that I remove him from the e-mail forwarding on our GoDaddy account. My focus for the last two years has been getting the WordPress website built and launched so I had never looked at this aspect of our web-hosting account. I had some familiarity with the concept, however, from the e-mail accounts that are part of our personal domain and sub-domain. It was fairly easy to figure out how to edit the existing account and add new ones. Once I was done I e-mailed all of the club members who were affected by the changes and asked them to review them. I will check for replies tomorrow and then send test messages.

I got an e-mail from Linda at BCM with the SD version of the March 2015 digital issue attached. I logged in to the website and downloaded the HD version. This issue is two months late, the latest it has been since Gary took over the magazine in October 2012, due in part to yet another change in editors that did not go smoothly. The magazine has been at least a month late for a year now and is slipping farther out rather than closing the gap. The sad reality is that the magazine does not have enough subscriber base or enough advertisers to be sustainable and Gary is not able to pay enough to get an editor who can/will put out a quality magazine once a month. But he has not shut it down yet so I will continue to work on articles. I don’t get paid for my writing and photography. It’s a hobby and I like it that way as I am not obligated to do anything and I can make my own ground rules.

John and Diane Rauch arrived at 5 PM to visit and have dinner. They are our longest/best Michigan friends and we always enjoy visiting with them. They also have two children who went to school with our kids and now have children of their own. Diane is an educator and is retiring at the end of the school year after a long career as a high school English teacher. Naturally, our conversation had to do with retirement, travels, and family.

Linda used our outdoor grill to roast marinated potatoes and cook veggie-fruit kabobs. John and Diane brought a nice Riesling from Woodcreek that we enjoyed before dinner. We opened a bottle of our 2009 Egri Merlot to serve with the meal and had Biscotti cookies and vegan chocolate “ice cream” later for dessert. Linda and Diane got a new online game configured on Linda’s iPad and got several things straightened out on Diane’s iPad. They headed for home around 10:30 PM as it’s a half hour to get back to their house which is only a few minutes from our previous home.

We stacked the dishes in the sink and left any further cleanup for tomorrow. We tried to watch the 2nd episode of the 1st season of Sherlock (PBS) but either the DVD was damaged or there is something wrong with our player. The disc was obviously scratched so that may have been the cause, but I want to rule out a defective player. We have another one in the basement that I will use to test the disc. If the player needs to be replaced new ones are relatively cheap and I will get one that can also play Blu-Ray discs.

2015/04/26-30 (N-R) Routine Returns

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2015/04/26 (N) Bentley

Turning the lights out at 11 PM last night meant I would be awake around 6 AM this morning and ready to get up, and that was the case. Linda was awake by 6:30 AM and we were up shortly thereafter. I was able to light the natural gas fireplace without difficulty. The only thing I can figure is that perhaps I did not have the Off/Pilot/On gas valve in the right position last night.

With the gas valve in the Off position gas cannot flow beyond the valve. In the Pilot position gas can only flow to the pilot flame assembly, and only while the knob is pushed in, until the flame has been lit long enough to cause the heat sensitive pilot valve to remain open at which point the knob can be released. I do not think gas can flow to the main burner tubes, however, until the knob is turned to the On position. There is also a Remote/Off/On switch that has to be in the Off position when lighting the pilot flame (with the built in spark igniter) and moved to the On position to allow the main burner tubes to receive gas. All I can figure is that I did not have the Off/Pilot/On valve turned to the On position. The Remote position is intended to be used with a wall mounted thermostat which we do not have. For us the firelogs are primarily decorative but are useful for taking the chill off of the early morning or late evening. We never have them on, however, unless we are in the living room or dining room where we can see them.

Linda fed the cats while I made coffee which we enjoyed in the living room by the firelogs. It was 33 degrees F outside this morning but in another week the morning temperatures should be such that we can sit on the rear deck and enjoy our morning brew out there. We finally both got dressed and Linda heated an Amy’s Breakfast Scramble and split it between us. We lingered a while longer in the living room and finally got to work on our various chores.

Linda’s focus was to continue cleaning the kitchen, off-loading food and kitchen supplies from the bus, and getting her domestic and professional domains back in order. She made a grocery list as the day went along. We would normally go to the Howell Farmers Market on Sunday morning, but the outdoor market does not start until next week.

I cleaned the cats’ litter tray, which seems to be my job at home but Linda’s job on the bus, and then got to work on revising the draft survey for the FMCA national education committee. While I was doing that I also started up a couple of our workstation computers, installed updates, and kept an eye on my e-mail and RVillage messages. I worked on the survey until dinner time, with a break for lunch, and had Linda proofread it before I uploaded it to my Dropbox and e-mailed the link to the committee. We have a telephone meeting at 3:30 PM EDT tomorrow and I wanted everyone to have a chance to look it over in advance of the meeting.

Linda made Farro with garlic, dried cranberries, almonds, and kale and cooked some fresh asparagus. A green salad and a glass of wine completed a very nice meal. Linda had a text message from her sister letting us know that her housemate, Linda, decided to have Bentley put down. He was the oldest of her three dogs, deaf and arthritic, and on medications that he would not take, and he had lost interest in food. We had both received a text message from Linda regarding our recent visit so I responded to that. We were sad that Bentley was gone, but glad that we got to see him one last time.

I turned my attention to editing photos for my April 10 blog post about out visit to Bandolier National Monument and Santa Fe, New Mexico but the batteries in my wireless mouse needed to be recharged so I plugged it in and called it quits for the night. Linda was watching the first episode of Wolf Hall (PBS) on her iPad so I finished reading the May-June 2015 issue of the Gypsy Journal and played a few rounds of my favorite games. Linda prepared some fresh berries for dessert and we enjoyed them to the glow of the firelogs before going to bed.

2015/04/27 (M) Caller #9

After coffee and cereal this morning I continued selecting and processing photos from our April 10 visit to Bandolier National Monument and Old Town Santa Fe. I ended up with 16 photos so I uploaded the post and put them in an image gallery at the end. After lunch I got all of my documents in order for my 3:30 PM (EDT) telephone meeting of the FMCA Education Committee. I chatted briefly with the committee chair to see if there were any surprises in store. I then worked on consolidating my draft blog posts for April 11 through 15 which included the time we spent in Norman, Oklahoma visiting with my uncle Bob and Aunt Helen, and four additional generations of relatives.

I exchanged e-mails with BCM Publisher Gary Hatt and Editor Dave Rush regarding my article on the redoing of the exterior of our coach. The article is 5,800 words with 71 photos and they would like to split it up and run it in installments over three or four issues. That will require me to go back through the article and identify the places where it can be split, making sure the photos track with the text, and write some additional bridge paragraphs to wrap up each installment and introduce the next one.

I dialed in to my FMCA meeting just before 3:30 PM. I was caller number nine (9) but I did not win anything. The meeting lasted almost 90 minutes. We discussed the survey we have been developing and approved a motion to pass it along to the Executive Board with the recommendation that it be sent to a random sample of the members both electronically and via USPS. I expect to receive minor corrections in the next 36 hours and get a final draft to the FMCA Executive Director on Wednesday so he can have it reviewed by an outside expert (Barry) at Membership Corporation of America (MCA). The FMCA executive board meets in a week so we will see what happens.

After the meeting I finished working on the April 11-16 consolidated post and uploaded it to our personal blog just in time for dinner which featured taco bowl salads. She started with refrigerated tortillas, draped them over ramekins, and baked them to create the shell. She reconstituted an ancho, red Hatch, and pequin chile and used them to season the pinto beans, mixed greens, tomatoes, onions, and olives that made up the filling. Franzia Fruity Red Sangria went nicely with the tacos. Later we had a fresh mixed fruit salad of blackberries, blueberries, strawberries, and bananas. We relaxed for a while, reading and playing games, but were surprisingly tired and went to bed before 10 PM. Change happens, transition takes time.

2015/04/28 (T) And now … the rest of the summer

As sometimes happens when we go to bed early, we slept in this morning and did not get out of bed until after 8 AM. It is nice to be able to do that if we want to. Coffee and toast got the day started followed by reading, writing, and cat admiring. It was a beautiful, sunny morning albeit still on the chilly side. In other words, another day in the idyllic paradise we call retirement in the country.

We have both been busy since we got home last Friday, unloading the bus and putting things in their place in the house, visiting family, cleaning and stocking the kitchen, going through mail, and working on bills and accounting, both personal and organizational. And that was mostly Linda! I helped with some of that but was mostly focused on finishing a draft survey for the FMCA education committee, sending it out, and participating in a committee meeting by teleconference yesterday afternoon. I will have some minor additional work to do on the survey by the end of the day tomorrow, but with the meeting behind me I can now concentrate on all of the other things that need to be done. To paraphrase Paul Harvey “And now … the rest of the summer.”

One of the chores that is always there is laundry. Linda seems to take over this task when we are living in the bus, but it is definitely my job when we are at home. Ditto for cleaning the cat litter tray. To be fair, both the laundry room and liter tray are in the basement where my office and the ham radio shack are located, so I am down there a lot more than her. When we first return home after being away for an extended time there is a lot of laundry to do. Not that we don’t do it while we are away, we do, but I like to clean everything that we had with us. This is not a one day task, in part because we like to limit the number of loads of laundry we do on any given day so as not to overload the septic tanks, and in part because I just do not want to spend an entire day doing laundry.

My main focus this morning, however, was to revisit my article for Bus Conversion Magazine on the renovation of the exterior of our bus back in 2011/2012. It needs to be split into 3 or 4 installments and I would rather do that myself, making sure the photos track with the text. I started a load of laundry and then got to work, keeping an eye on e-mail and RVillage. I finished restructuring the article just before lunch, uploaded it to my BCM Dropbox folder, and e-mailed the editor and publisher. Linda reheated the Farro-cranberries-almonds dish for lunch and served it with black grapes.

I moved the first load of laundry to the dryer, put a second load of laundry in the washing machine, and started compiling my posts for April 16 through 20. I got an e-mail from Lou Petkus regarding the SKP Photographers BOF website. Lou started, and leads, the BOF and administers the website while I take care of the RVillage group and someone else takes care of the member database/roster. He found and installed a free system for displaying photo albums. He was setting it up so each BOF member had their own login and could upload their own photos and wanted me (and Linda) to try it out. I did, and found a number of issues which I documented for him. I like the idea, so I hope he can resolve the issues.

I folded and hung up the dried laundry and returned to my blog post which I uploaded, tagged, and published before going upstairs. It was a beautiful day and while Linda was outside on the rear deck reading four deer walked up the eastern boundary of our property. We were chatting back there when the doorbell rang, which is unusual for us. It was Aaron, one of the kids (teenager?) from the house to our immediate east. UPS had delivered our Amazon order to their house instead of ours even though it had my name and our address on the label.

Linda sautéed onions until they were partly caramelized, pan-fried tofu slices, and then added bar-b-que sauce. She served these in tortillas rather than on buns. She also sautéed fresh green beans. I opened a bottle of Barefoot Moscato and we each had a small glass with dinner.

After dinner I called Joe Cannarozzi, the mobile mechanic who has done the majority of the service work on our bus since we got it back to Michigan in 2010. As planned, he is now in upstate New York where he will be working well into the fall. He plans to be back this way the first week in November and we made plans to have him do the routine chassis maintenance at that time. I also discussed our interior renovation plans for the bus and got some tips from him about how to approach that work, especially the floor, as he has done several.

I noticed that I had a voice message from Gary at BCM. He had called earlier in the day after I had uploaded the new 4-part version of the Exterior Makeover article so I called him back and left him a message. Tag; you’re it.

2015/04/29 (W) Bus Lunch

We had a typical start to our day; coffee, breakfast, and iPads (news, weather, games, reading, and writing). Actually, that’s how most of our days in the bus also start, so the only real difference is where we are sitting and what we can see from that vantage point. I needed to order a refill on a prescription medication so I tried doing that on my iPad. No problem iPad-wise, but the Michigan Public School Employees Retirement System (MPSERS) had switched the mail order prescription drug service from Medco/Express-Scripts to Catamaran Home Delivery effective January 1, 2015. Catamaran was already the third part administrator (TPA) but was now operating their own pharmacy. Even though I already had a Catamaran account I had to register for Home Delivery service. Once I did that I was supposed to be able to see any prescriptions that had transferred over. There weren’t any 🙁 That meant I needed a new prescription. I had a mid-morning appointment and did not want to spend time “holding for the next available representative” so I decided to take care of this task tomorrow.

Linda called last Friday and arranged to have our curbside trash pickup resume this week. Wednesday is trash pickup day, so the trashcan had to go out by the street this morning. (We don’t have curbs here, so I can’t say we took the can to the curb.) The last two years Alchin’s has come past our house around noon. While we figured that would probably be the case again this year we did not want to risk missing the truck, so Linda took it out early.

Linda is the treasurer of SLAARC, our local ham radio club based in South Lyon, Michigan. The club’s bank (First Merit) is there and she needed to make a deposit. I was headed that general direction so I took it with me. The deposit made, I headed on to Chuck Spera’s bus garage in Novi, MI. Chuck and Barbara have the same model Prevost bus that we do only one year newer and converted by Liberty, so fancier than ours. Like us, they spend a lot of time in it, and, like us, there are always projects to be done. Some of those, in turn, require some discussion.

I met Chuck at his shop at 10:15 AM and had a look at his turbo boost sensor intake manifold pressure hose. It appeared to be intact but old a frayed like mine was. The one on our bus failed on the drive out to Quartzsite, AZ in December 2014. Changing his hose would be more difficult than our as is chassis batteries are in the passenger-side engine bay and make access to that side of the engine much more difficult than in our bus. We have been using the same mobile mechanic for the last few years but he has found longer term employment and cut back on the mobile servicing of Prevost chassis. I indicated to Chuck that we really needed to find someone locally who is in business at an accessible location and plans to continue as such into the foreseeable future. He suggested that we take a drive to Johnie’s in Walled Lake, so that is what we did.

Denny was not there (Johnie was his dad) but I got to see the place and now know where it is. We drove back to the Panera in Novi for lunch and then back to Chuck’s shop which is nearby. By 2 PM we had not only solved all of the world’s problems we had made good progress on unraveling the mysteries of the universe. Wanting to leave something for the next conversation I headed for home leaving Chuck to ponder the mysteries of the bus, which are far more baffling than the mysteries of the universe.

I drove home on Grand River Avenue (GRA) to avoid WB I-96 and the I-96/US-23 interchange construction. I bought gas at the Wixom Meijer’s and found out 20 minutes later that I had paid way too much for it ($2.59/gal). The BP station in Brighton had regular for $2.29 and the Shell station closest to our house had it for $2.44. Bummer. I passed a First Merit Bank on the south side of GRA just west of Old US-23 in Brighton. Not right around the corner from our house, but a lot closer than South Lyon. There is also a Jeep dealership there. We are interested in getting a Jeep Wrangler Unlimited, we just don’t like the prices we are seeing.

Our Amazon shipment arrived with the two filter cartridges for the under sink housing in the bus and other things. Hopefully the delivery to the wrong address on Monday was a one-time thing. I had been trading phone messages with Gary at BCM and finally got through to him this time. I then curled up with the new B&H catalog which made it feel like Christmas in April.

Linda made a potato lentil ginger curry for dinner and it was very good. I had planned on revising the FMCA Education Survey and sending it out this evening but I was simply not in the humor to go back downstairs. I think my retirement motto is going to be “there is always tomorrow, and if not, it didn’t matter anyway.” Linda had to get up early tomorrow morning to beat the traffic headed into Detroit so we went to bed earlier than usual.

2015/04/30 (R) Steel

Linda set her alarm for 5:45 AM. The purpose of her alarm is to wake me up so I can wake her up. It worked as planned and she got up and got ready to go to the bakery while I went back to sleep.

I finally got up at 8:30 AM. I’ve been busy since we got home but also a bit tired and feeling the need to just unwind from our exciting winter out west. After breakfast I called the Internal Medicine clinic at the Henry Ford Health System Columbus Center in Novi to see if I could get my doctor’s nurse to get my doctor to write me a new prescription for my nasal spray. Naturally I never got to talk to the doctor or a nurse, but the youngish sounding lady who handled the phone call was very helpful, up to a point. She really wanted to schedule me for an appointment and was not quite piecing together that my prescription, which is for a maintenance drug, is only good for one year but my doctor only needs/wants to see me every other year. I don’t expect the new script to be a problem, but that fact that my MPSERS health care plan changed mail-order prescription providers as of January 1st may add a wrinkle. I’m not due for a physical until the fall but I will go sooner if needed to get my script. Which reminds me, I need to schedule my annual appointment with the dermatology PA.

I focused on making some last minute corrections to the FMCA education survey and shipped it off. I got an e-mail back from Diane Wolfe with some questions. She is not a member of the FMCA education committee but she and husband Brett did review and comment on it. The questions were interesting and answering them gave me a chance to explain some technicalities and cc: the FMCA Executive Director as they were as much for his benefit as hers.

I had several e-mails back and forth with Kate regarding productions at Meadowbrook Theater and an exhibition at the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA), all of which sounded interesting. Our social life is less active at home than on the road so we welcome such opportunities.

I had a phone call from Mike at Rocket Steel Buildings following up on an inquiry I made. He sent me a brochure and a price. It was something but not exactly the quote I was looking for. I still need to follow up with SteelMaster Building Systems and get to work on drawings for the wood-framed basilica design.

I compiled my blog posts for April 21-25, 2015 after finding the one for the 24th. I had e-mailed it from my iPad but it never arrived. I e-mailed it again and it bounced back. The spam blocker even said it was from a white listed sender (me!) but rejected it anyway. Huh ??? I sent it a third time to two addresses, one of which was not attached to our domain, and it came through to both accounts, naturally. I guess this was one of the mysteries of the universe that Chuck and I left unsolved yesterday. Anyway, I finally got it, finished compiling my posts, and uploaded, tagged, and published it.

I also had several e-mails back and forth with Lou Petkus regarding the SKP Photographers BOF and website. Gary sent me a link to a document in his Dropbox with photos and audio files from an interview he did for a featured bus article that never got written. I agreed to take a look at it and see what I can do.

I managed to get more things off of the bus, including bedding, and did two more loads of laundry. I do not like to do more than two loads a day as it over taxes the septic system. Someone rang the front doorbell, the second time this week. This time it was Kaylie, Aaron’s sister, from next door. For the second time this week UPS delivered a package, correctly addressed to me, to the wrong address. I was concerned this would happen and Linda said I was a pessimist. Apparently we were both right.

I called the local UPS store but the only thing they could do was give me the national 800 customer service number. I am a pessimist (just ask Linda), so I was not looking forward to that experience, but I called and fought my through their voice menu system. It did not include an option for my situation (of course) and I finally just kept saying “agent” until the system gave up and connected me to a real person.

“Chelsea” was apologetic, even though she had not personally done anything wrong, because that’s what customer service people are trained to do. I think someone, somewhere, once upon a time figured out that apologizing diffuses customers who are upset. Well, it doesn’t. And assuring me that it “won’t happen again” is equally meaningless when it comes from a person who is not in a position within the organization to make such a statement. But Chelsea verified my name and address and the incorrect delivery address and said she took careful notes and would make sure they got to the right person. I hope so.

What is perhaps most frustrating is that UPS has a local distribution center in Howell, and I have the address, but it is not open to the public except for limited package pickup hours. In other words, the mistake is being made by a driver who is most likely operating out of that location, or by someone scheduling the routing, but there is no customer support person or facility manager that I can talk to, face-to-face, and resolve this at the point of origin of the problem. We buy a lot stuff now through Amazon Prime, and it all gets shipped via UPS, so having it delivered anywhere other than to our house is a problem.

Linda called at 4:30 PM to let me know she was leaving the bakery at 5 PM and heading to Kathi’s. They were going to have dinner at La Marsa in Farmington Hills and give the I-96 traffic a chance to subside before she finished the drive home. I had some of the leftover potato barley ginger curry for dinner and then called Phil Jarrel to remind him that we are still trying to figure out how to put up a bus barn and still want him to do the site prep and driveway. I then called Butch to see if he was able to locate the front brake drums for their MCI MC-9 NJT bus. He was, and already had the driver side front reassembled. I responded to a couple of e-mails and filled out an online RFQ for SteelMaster Building Systems and went to bed.

2015/04/21-25 (T-S) IN, MI, Home

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2015/04/21 (T) Back to Twelve Mile, IN

The outside air temperature dropped into the 30’s (F) last night and the air temperature in the coach fell to 60, so when I got up this morning I turned on the Aqua-Hot diesel-fired hydronic heating system to take the chill off. We eventually got up, got dressed, and walked across to Small Town Brew to get a couple of cups of coffee and chat with owner Lisa Paul and her friend/neighbor, Ashley, who helps her run the coffee shop. Both of them remembered both of us, which was nice.

It’s interesting sitting in a small town coffee shop, where everyone is a friend or relative, and just listening to the conversation. We are outsiders her, of course, strangers to most of the folks who drop in, but everyone is nice to us. Some are curious about who we are, and where we are from, but rarely ask why we are there, in this little coffee shop in this little town, surrounded by corn fields. Of course, we usually mention that we are friends of Butch and Fonda, so that probably answers whatever questions they may have had.

We eventually returned to our coach and had breakfast. We tried connecting our WiFiRanger to Butch and Fonda’s Wi-Fi router yesterday and it was able to connect and obtain an IP address but the data transfer rate was so slow that web pages would not load and e-mail would not download before timing out. I turned our Verizon Mi-Fi on and we had a very weak but usable signal, so I connected the WFR to the Mi-Fi and we were able to do the few things we needed to do online. We then went in the house to let Butch and Fonda know we were awake and see what they were up to.

Butch’s brother, John, and his nephew, Brock, showed up and helped Butch with the driver side front wheel assembly on Butch and Fonda’s MC-9 bus. The tire/wheel was off when we arrived yesterday and I learned that Butch is replacing the hub bearings and seals, installing an automatic slack adjuster for the brake, and replacing the brake pads. It looked like quite a job with some large, heavy parts, so I did my part by staying out of the way. I also took a few pictures at Butch’s suggestion. He does not want to write articles for Bus Conversion Magazine, but he has been interested in having me write articles about projects on his bus.

Linda spent some time working with Fonda’s new sewing machine that she got while they were in Quartzsite, Arizona. It is a little smaller than a regular sewing machine, only weighs 13 pounds, and only cost about $130. Linda gave her sewing machine to her sister many years ago but now that she is retired she is thinking that it might be nice to have one for mending tasks or projects, such as new privacy curtains for the bus.

Butch got a catalog recently from Crimp Supply in Royal Oak, Michigan, which is not at far from our house. I glanced through it last night and it contains a lot of specialized parts that would be useful to a ham radio hobbyist or someone converting a bus into a motorhome. I called and requested a catalog and had a nice chat with Debbie. She was willing to provide me with additional catalogs that I can give to members of GLCC and CCO at the Back-to-the-Bricks and/or Surplus & Salvage per allies in August and September respectively. She was also willing to show up in person and give a brief presentation on her company and hand out the catalogs. Cool.

Brock had to leave after which Butch and John decided to go to the shooting range along with a third guy whose name I did not get. I went along to see the range and watch what they were doing. Butch had home-brewed some shotgun shells for his Ruger revolver and wanted to test them. They caused the revolving chamber to jam so they will require some additional work. John had a new semi-automatic pistol and wanted to see how it handled. He also had ammunition he had loaded with bullets he had cast and wanted to test fire them.

I was offered the opportunity to shoot but declined. I have never handled a pistol and it would have been a waste of good ammunition. I did take a class in rifle marksmanship while I was at the University of Missouri – Columbia many years ago. I was in the Air Force R.O.T.C. Program at the time and thought I should know something about how to handle a firearm. Learning to handle a pistol correctly would have been more relevant, but I do not recall a course being offered for that. I bought a Ruger 10-22 rifle at that time, and I still have it. It’s a .22 caliber semi-automatic rifle designed to look like an M-1 carbine and features a 10-round rotary clip that is flush to the bottom of the stock when inserted. I was only interested in shooting at paper targets so I added a scope to it. It is safely tucked away with a trigger lock on it, but I have not fired it in many, many years. I should probably bring it to Twelve Mile the next time we come down, let Butch inspect and clean it properly, and take it to the range just for grins and giggles.

John and the other guy went back to Logansport from the range. When Butch and I got back to the house he continued working on the driver side front wheel of their bus. I helped a little, but mostly by taking photographs for a possible future article. After putting tools and parts away we sat and relaxed for a while and then all of us went to Logansport for dinner at Pizza Hut. It was 8:45 PM by the time we got back so everyone said “good night” and turned in for the evening.

2015/04/22 (W) Chillin’ in Twelve Mile

Yesterday looked and felt more like winter than spring with gray, cloudy skies and blustery, cold winds. The temperature overnight dropped into the mid-30s but we were toasty warm under blankets with our electric heating pad turned on. I got up at 7:30 AM and turned on the thermostats. The temperature in the kitchen was reading 63 degrees F but the temperature by the dashboard was only 53. The Aqua-Hot has performed very well since I rebuilt the blower bearings and quickly brought the temperature in the coach up to 70 degrees F.

We put on our sweats and walked over to Small Town Brew for coffee and conversation with owner Lisa Paul and whomever else might be there. Three local guys were enjoying their morning brew when we arrived. They eventually left and were replaced by others. Most of the patrons seemed to be retired or semi-retired farmers. One fellow, Lee, chatted with us at length about a canvas covered hoop barn he put up. It was constructed using laminated wood hoops rather than steel, was 30′ wide by 70′ long and cost about $4,000 15 years ago, although I was not clear whether that included the 4-foot high poured concrete walls. He already owned concrete forms and the heavy equipment that one finds on farms, so he was able to do a lot of the work himself without renting equipment or hiring contractors. Still, it has to be the lowest cost way to create a structure for getting our bus out of the weather and out of sight. It is unknown, however, whether the Township and County would let us to put it up.

Butch left at 8:30 AM for medical appointments in Logansport and Fonda came over at 10:45 AM to gather up Linda for a girl’s day out. Linda wanted to go to McClure’s Apple Orchard on US-31 between IN-16 and US-24. Although it is very close to Twelve Mile Fonda had never been there. They were then headed to Peru. Although it is the same distance from Twelve Mile as Logansport and Rochester it is the city that Butch and Fonda visit the least. Peru’s claim to fame is that it was the birthplace of Cole Porter and Emmet Kelly and was the winter home of several circuses many, many years ago. I believe there is a circus museum there that Nick Russell wrote about in the Gypsy Journal.

With no bus project or social interactions I settled in to work on my blog and await everyone’s return. It started out sunny this morning but by 11 AM was thickly clouded over and looking wintery with blustery winds. The only bus project I had in mind to do today was to pull out the chassis batter tray, check the circuit breakers, disconnect the batteries, swap the upper 12 V pair with the lower 12 V pair and reconnect them. It was not something I wanted to do alone and I did not have to do it today, especially under cool, windy, overcast conditions, so I ended up not doing it.

Linda and Fonda eventually returned, having first gone to the Walmart in Logansport. Linda picked up some hummus and Snyder’s sourdough pretzels so we snacked on those for lunch. Linda then hung out with Fonda while I continued to work in blog posts. Butch finally returned from his medical appointments and busied himself with something. Whatever it was, he was not outside working on their bus and neither was I. I managed to get the post for April 1 – 3, 2015 uploaded to our blog.

Linda and Fonda developed a plan for dinner. Fonda made a nice salad and baked a loaf of par-baked bread that we got from Marilyn. Linda made black beans and rice and prepared a mix of fresh blueberries and strawberries for dessert. Linda and I each had a glass of Franzia Red Sangria. After taking all of dirty serving containers back to our coach we returned to the house to visit a bit longer and finally returned to our coach just after 9 PM. That left me enough time to pull together the posts for April 4 – 6 and upload it before turning in for the night.

2015/04/23 (R) Return to Michigan

I was awake at 6:30 AM and finally got up at 7 and put on my sweats. The Aqua-Hot was already on so I turned up the thermostats and turned on the engine pre-heat loop. I also turned on the Broan cube heater and pointed it into the cockpit as the temperature on the dashboard was only 50 degrees F. I walked over to Small Town Brew, got a cup of coffee, and said “so long for now” to owner Lisa Paul. Linda was still asleep when I got back so I fixed a couple slices of toast for my breakfast, turned on our Verizon Mi-Fi, and settled in to take care of a few e-mails. Linda finally got up and, as I suspected, had not slept well last night. She had some toast and orange juice but had no interest in coffee, a strong indicator of just how tired she was and not feeling completely well.

When she was done with the toaster I turned the cube heater off and turned the electric block heater on. The overnight low temperature was forecast to drop into the upper 20’s and starting the big Detroit Diesel at that temperature is hard on the engine so I wanted it nice and warm before I cranked it over.

Butch had an appointment with an ophthalmologist in Indianapolis around noon and had some other things to do down that way as long as they were there so he and Fonda planned to leave by 9 AM. He came to our bus just before 9 AM to let us know they were close to leaving and that he put an air hose out by the automotive bay so I could fill the front tires on the bus if needed. Based on the readings from our TireTraker TPMS, however, no adjustment was needed.

We planned to leave sometime after they did but not later than 10 AM. The main reason for not leaving sooner was to give us time to digest our breakfast, but the other reason was our relatively short drive today to Camp Turkeyville, an RV park on I-69 just north of I-94. This will be the first time I have been in Michigan, which I certainly consider home, since we left on November 30, 2014. Turkeyville is only 80 miles from our house, but we will have a full hookup site so we can dump our waste tanks tomorrow morning and not need to use them on the final short drive to the house.

We started getting ready to leave around 9:45 AM. I shut off the block heater, put Butch’s air hose away, and then took care of the chassis batteries, auxiliary air, and shorepower. The DD fired right up and I switched it to high idle while it built air pressure. As soon as the chassis was at ride height and the air dryer purged I pulled onto IN-16 pointing eastbound and pulled into the curb/parking lane. That was around 10 AM. I left the engine idling while Linda pulled the car up behind the bus. By the time we hooked up the car for towing, checked the lights, and pulled away it was closer to 10:20. I noted that the time was 10:30 AM EDT as we pulled onto US-31 N from IN-16 E.

Traffic was light and we had an easy run up US-31 to US-20 except for the 15-20 MPH crosswind from the WNW. I also had a very cold breeze blowing into the cockpit by my feet and had to turn the heat up to stay comfortable. We were an hour into our trip when I finally realized that I had not opened the air supply valve for the shutters on the two front house air-conditioner condensers which are installed in what is normally the spare tire bay. Those shutters are held open by a spring and held closed by air pressure. When they are open air can easily find its way into the cockpit. There is also a mechanical damper that is supposed to regulate fresh air flow to the cockpit, or cut it off completely, but the flexible actuator cable broke some time ago and the damper/cable are difficult to access so it has not been repaired. Either the cable broke with the damper in the closed position or I taped some sort of cover over the air inlet once upon a time because once I closed the shutters for the A-C compressors I no longer had cold air coming in by my feet.

Traffic was heavier on US-20 eastbound but it always is as it runs just south of South Bend and Elkhart, Indiana, and a bit north of Goshen. It is still a limited access highway until east of Elkhart, so it moved along up to that point. There was one stretch between there and Middlebury where major construction was taking place, but we got through that easily enough. After that it was a nice, rolling, 2-lane highway and we rolled along at 55 MPH except for the occasional town on intersection. We always enjoy driving through this part of Indiana.

We turned off of US-20 onto I-69 N, crossed into Michigan at 12:53 PM EDT, and pulled into the Michigan Welcome Center five minutes later. We only had 37 more miles to our destination but we both needed a short stretch break and I wanted to open the air valve for the A-C shutters, which is in the bay under the driver’s seat. We resumed our trip and exited I-69 at exit 42 around 1:45 PM, crossed over the highway, and traveled the 500 yards to the Camp Turkeyville entrance. We followed the long, wide, winding entrance road and stopped at the office where Linda got us registered. They put us in a 50A full hookup pull-through site with easy access that was long enough for us to leave the car hooked up for towing.

We went through our usual arrival routine and then Linda fixed a light lunch of French Country Vegetable Soup and a tofu hotdog on pita bread with mustard and relish. She also made a pot of coffee. We connected our WiFiRanger to the RV Park Wi-Fi system but did not seem to be able to move any data so we turned on our Verizon Mi-Fi and connected the WFR to it.

Linda spent the afternoon reading a book on her iPad and I mostly worked on my blog post for April 7, 8, and 9. I had 14 photos for that post but inserted them into the post rather than put them in a WP image gallery. I logged into our personal WordPress site, installed WordPress 4.2, and then installed updates to plugins and themes. Once that was done I uploaded the blog post and uploaded/captioned/inserted the photos and generated the tags. I clicked the “Publish” button about 7:10 PM.

Linda put dinner on the table about 10 after I finished working. She made a nice tofu scramble, a dish that vaguely resembles scrambled eggs, and served it with toast and jam, a small glass of juice, and black seedless grapes.

I thought about working on my blog post for April 10th, as it is the last one for which I have photos, but I was too tired to get involved in that tonight. We pointed our front OTA TV towards Battle Creek and Kalamazoo, found the local CBS station, and watched a couple of episodes of The Big Bang Theory and whatever else was one. We caught some local weather and decided to enable the diesel burner on the Aqua-Hot, turn the thermostats on, and set the temperatures for 60 degrees F. The overnight low temperature was forecast to be 27 and it was already 29 when we went to bed. Welcome to Michigan in late April.

2015/04/24 (F) Touchdown

I awoke at 6:30 AM to an outside temperature of 27 degrees F. Our coach has several ways it can be heated if we are plugged into adequate electrical power, including three electric toe-kick heaters. I turned on the Aqua-Hot diesel burner and electric heating element last night before going to bed and left the living room and bathroom thermostats turned on with the temperature dialed back to just under 60 degrees. I also turned on the Broan cube heater, dialed back the thermostat, and set in on the step to blow into the cockpit.

I got up at 7:15 AM and put on my sweats. It was 60 degrees F on the kitchen counter, but the refrigerator adds some heat mid-coach. The thermometer on the dashboard read 53. I turned the thermostats up to 68 and turned on the Aqua-Hot engine preheat loop. I also turned on the front electric toe-kick heater. I made coffee and then turned on the electric block heater for the engine. I checked e-mail and monitored our amperage while I waited for the coach to warm up and for Linda to get up. We were drawing about 30 A on Leg 1 and 20 A on Leg 2. On a true “50 A” RV electrical service with a main circuit breaker that functions correctly we can safely draw 40 Amps on each leg, so our usage was not going to trip any breakers.

By 10 AM the temperature was up to 40 degrees, the sun was shining, and it’s was delightfully cozy in the rig. I got a call from Michele Henry at Phoenix Paint in response to an e-mail I sent her yesterday and talked to her for 15 minutes. We had planned on a 10:30 AM departure but by the time I connected the sewer hose, dumped the waste tanks, and put the hose away it was 10:45. We had the bus and car ready to travel by 11AM and pulled out of our site. We had to wait for a few minutes until someone moved a 5th wheel which they had temporarily parked in the middle of a two-way road while waiting to get into their site. We finally made our way out of Camp Turkeyville and pulled onto I-69 N at 11:13 AM.

We had an easy run to our house and our wheels “touched down” on our driveway at 12:45 PM. Even the dirt roads for the last two miles of our trip were in reasonably good shape, which made for a nicer homecoming. We opened the house, put the cats in their carriers, and took them inside. I got the bus plugged in and the air shut off while Linda put the batteries back in the water softener and sanitizer and turned the well pump on. I turned the gas back on for the kitchen and fireplace and then set all of the thermostats up to 65 degrees F. We unloaded a few things from the bus and then had lunch, after which I sent text messages to both of our children and to Chuck Spera to let them know we were home.

After lunch we unhooked the car from the bus and continued unloading the bus but did not get everything taken off. I was tired and took a long nap, only getting up when Linda told me it was time for dinner. We had a Daiya Mushroom and Garlic pizza. We have used Daiya vegan cheese for a while but did not know they made pizza products until we saw them at the Dierbergs Market in Edwardsville, Illinois. It had a thin, crispy, rice flour crust (gluten-free), lots of garlic and cheese (of course), and was very tasty. I wish we could buy them near our house.

After dinner I called Butch to let him know we made it home safe and without any new or reoccurring bus issues. He had reassembled the driver side steer wheel and discovered that the new brake drums he got from MCI some time ago are the wrong ones, so he is going to have to track down the correct ones next week.

2015/04/25 (S) Return to Regular

Do you remember when OTA TV stations used to break in to programs with special news bulletins or emergency alert tests? At the conclusion of such interruptions the announcer would say “we now return you to your regular programming.” Having spent most of 61 years living in stationary dwellings we still consider being back at our house to be the baseline for our regular lives. The last two years, however, we have spent half of the year, more or less, living in our converted motorcoach. That fact, combined with the fact that we moved to a new-to-us house just before we started our extended traveling, has altered our perception of what constitutes “regular.” All we know for sure is that living this dual lifestyle is our new normal and we like it.

Whether living at home or in the bus we have routines. Part of our “at home” routine is Saturday morning breakfast with our friends from the South Lyon Area Amateur Radio Club (SLAARC) and that is how we started our day. We took our usual route to South Lyon and were surprised by the extent of the construction work at the I-96 and US-23 interchange. We knew this interchange was scheduled to be rebuilt starting this year but as of March 1st, when Linda last drove through there, work had not started. A lot has happened since then, and from the look of things this is going to be a BIG project.

There were a LOT of people at breakfast, 24 by Linda’s count. It was good to see our friends and ease back into ham radio talk. The club president, Harvey Carter (AC8NO), had the personalized club jackets we ordered from Sunset Sportswear in South Lyon over the winter so we got those from him after we were all done eating. The jackets are dark blue with fleece lining and yellow embroidery that looks very sharp. The left breast says “South Lyon Area” on top and “Amateur Radio Club” underneath. On the right breast is our first name (in script) on top and our call sign underneath in block letters.

We stopped at Barnes and Noble on the way home to pick up a gift for grand-daughter Katie and found two books that we thought would interest her. One was on rocks and gems and the other was on snakes, both of which are interesting to Katie. Both are also an integral part of the desert southwest where we spent the winter.

When we got home I set about the tasks of moving various pieces of technology from the entrance foyer to my basement ham shack/office, reconnecting it to power and our network, and starting it up. I started up our Linux box but the video driver would not “catch” so I shut it down and restarted it in Windows 2000 Pro, updated the es|et nod32 anti-virus database, and installed three Microsoft updates. I checked e-mail on my primary laptop, responded to a couple, and then installed updates on all of the websites I manage. WordPress just released version 4.2 and each new release triggers a flurry of plug-in and theme updates.

Our daughter, Meghan, had arranged for us to come over mid-afternoon to visit and have dinner without the bother and fuss of fixing a big meal. Minn, the female cat, hid immediately but Inches, the male cat, hung around for a while. Grand-daughter Katie is working at Pizza House in Ann Arbor where he dad, Chris, has been the general manager for a long time, but she got off work and arrived just after us followed by Chris, who had run out to pick up dinner at Seva.

Our son, Brendan, daughter-in-law Shawna, and grand-daughter Madeline showed up a little later, and Inches promptly disappeared. Madeline is very sweet and interacts with her two kitties, Gus and Iggy, just fine but our cats, and Meghan’s/Chris’s cats, disappear whenever she comes to visit. They are just not used to the size, motions, and sounds of a 28 month old.

Seva is a vegetarian restaurant that has been a staple of the Ann Arbor restaurant scene for many years but recently moved out of downtown to a location on the far west side of Ann Arbor. While not just around the corner from Chris and Meghan’s house it is much closer, and easier to get to, than driving into downtown. Many of their menu items are vegan, or can be made vegan, and that is mostly what they ordered. We had a nice visit with excellent appetizers and main dishes, a dozen choices in all, and a nice Riesling wine from Washington State.

After appetizers we distributed the gifts we had picked up for everyone. Besides Katie’s books Madeline got a “Dr. Seuss” book about deserts and a t-shirt from Marilyn with a design on the front that changes color in the sunlight. Both of our children, who kept an eye on our house for us over the winter and took in our mail, got the following: A bottle of Red Chile Wine from St. Clair Winery in Deming, New Mexico; a bouquet of pequin chiles from Hatch Chile Sales in Hatch, New Mexico; a box of Prickly Pear Cactus jellied candies and a jar of Prickly Pear Cactus jelly from Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in Arizona; a bag of Green Chile Pistachios from Eagle Ranch (Heart of the Desert) in Alamogordo, New Mexico; a two box set of olive oil and peach balsamic vinegar glaze from Queen Creek Olive Mill in Queen Creek, Arizona; and a non-stick grilling mat from the “Big Tent” RV Show in Quartzsite, Arizona. We appreciate what they do when we are away which would be more complicated for us without their assistance.

We enjoy looking for gifts that are unique to the areas we visit and tend to limit ourselves to items that are consumable so no one has to find room to store or display something, at least not for very long. We saw many wonderful art and craft objects this winter but they present a special challenge beyond simply getting them home. We are no longer collecting “things,” as we already cannot display or store the stuff we have, and our children are in somewhat the same situation (which is why we still have a lot of stuff instead of them having it).

Then there is the matter of taste. Both children have their own taste in art and have carefully arranged items for display on their walls and shelves. As much as we might like something, and think someone else might like it, buying art for other people is fraught with peril because there is an implied expectation that it will be displayed. If it is displayed but the recipient does do not like it then the gift is intrusive. If it is not displayed the giver is disappointed and potentially offended. Better to stay clear of all that by avoiding surprise gifts. The exception is if we know they are looking for something in particular and we come across one. In that case it is a simple matter to take a photo with one of our smartphones and message them to see if they want it, making it clear that “no” is an acceptable answer.

Madeline goes to bed at 8 PM so she left (with her parents) at 7 PM. Both Minn and Inches came out shortly thereafter to have a bite to eat and get the attention they had missed for the last four hours, We stuck around for another hour which gave us just enough time to get home before it got really dark. Brendan and Shawna had kept/used Linda’s Honda Civic all winter. They came in two cars and went home in one so that Linda could get the Civic back to our house. There is a chance that she will have to go into the bakery a day or two this week and I do not like be without transportation, especially when we have a lot going on.

We sat in the living room for an hour reading and relaxing with our favorite iPad apps/games but without the benefit of our natural gas fireplace logs. I lit them when we got home and they operated for about 60 seconds and then shut off and would not relight. I turned the pilot flame off and will deal with that tomorrow. I went to bed, read for a while longer, and then went to sleep.

2015/01/21 (W) Quartzfest

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Quartzfest 2015 at the Road Runner BLM area south of Quartzsite, AZ.

There are so many things going on this week it’s hard to decide what to do. Linda decided to do laundry right after breakfast because her sister is arriving tomorrow and she doesn’t want to have to do it while Marilyn is here. The short list included:

SKPs Chapter 6 Loose Gathering at Plomosa Road BLM north of town (we are members of Chapter 6).
Quartzfest at US-95 MM 99 south of town on BLM land (we are both amateur radio operators).
Bluebird Wanderlodge Rally south of town at BLM La Posa South (Bus Conversion Magazine would love to have photos of this gathering).
The “Big Tent” RV Show (there are a couple of things we are looking to buy).

Quartfest is where RVing Hams meet up. There were almost 300 rigs, all with radios and antenna.

While Linda was doing laundry I finished up yesterday’s blog post and started today’s post. A large APS (Arizona Power System) truck pulled into our camp around 10 AM. Jim L. had contacted them and succeeded in getting them to send someone over to check the power. They happened to have someone in town already, so he got here, diagnosed and fixed the problem, and was gone before Jim arrived on his bicycle. We knew the voltage was high and the linesman confirmed that. The transformer had several tap positions and he was able to change it to provide more windings and reduce the voltage. We were consistently seeing 127 to 131 VAC (to neutral) on each leg (258 VAC across the legs) and we know it was rising above 132 because it was causing all of our power protection devices to trip, cutting off the shore power. We are now seeing 118 to 122 VAC (240 VAC across the legs), which is near perfect.

A Crank-IR antenna from Stepp-IR.

Butch, Fonda, Jim, and Barb were all gone but I walked over to let Jim and Chris know that the power would be off for about 10 minutes. I was too late. The power had already been cut and restored and Jim was outside checking their connection. Linda was on her way back from the laundry room and we ended up chatting with Jim and Chris for a while. Chris and Linda went back to what they were doing and Jim L. showed up on his bicycle so we filled him in on the morning’s events. We agreed to get-together at 4 PM for happy hour and went back to our various chores.

The wind had come up so we decided to use the ratcheting tie-down straps I bought a few weeks ago. We rigged up two of them between the ends of the patio awning and the anchors we found weeks ago with Butch’s metal detector. We watched the wind for a while and decided to just put the awning up. Better safe than sorry. Been there, done that, bought the new awning fabric (in our previous motorhome).

The Crank-IR fully deployed.

With the laundry done and the awnings secured we headed for the southern desert to find the Quartzfest and Bluebird/Wanderlodge encampments. I set the 2 meter radio in the car to 146.55 MHz simplex mode. Quartzfest (and RV hams generally) use that frequency for talk-in, info nets, and general contact purposes. Quartzfest was at the Road Runner BLM Short Term Visitor Area (STVA) just south of Mile Marker 99 on the west side of US-95. As we were driving down someone called on frequency requesting assistance. They had just exited I-10 at exit 19 and did not know how to get to Quartzfest from there, so I gave them directions.

When we got there we checked in with the camp host to confirm that we did not need entry permits for a daytime visit. He directed us to the area where Quartzfest was taking place and we eventually found the check-in station after Gordon West (Gordy), WB6NOA gave us directions over the air. We met him going out of the sheltered area as we were going in. We walked around looking at, and photographing, antenna setups and stopped to talk to a few people. Part way through our stroll I thought I heard someone calling my name, albeit somewhat indistinctly. I looked back over my right shoulder and realized we had just walked past the Montana 5th wheel trailer and pickup truck belonging to Lou and Val Petkus. We had a short visit with them and then continued on our walkabout.

That is a Hi-Q HF antenna, just like the one we have but with a different capacitance hat.

With the wind came dust and we decided to drive around the area and then leave to find the Bluebirds. We headed back towards town as far as the BLM La Paz Long Term Visitor Area (LTVA) and turned east into La Paz North. The other side of the road was the La Paz Tyson Wells LTVA but we recalled Jim Guld telling us that the Bluebird Motor Coach / Wanderlodge group was at La Paz North.

We drove in quite a ways and eventually found the BMC/Wanderlodge buses. There were very few people around, and those that were there stayed in their coaches. One guy came out, probably to see who we were and what we were doing, so we introduced ourselves and explained why were there. He directed us to the rally organizer’s bus, but he wasn’t there. There were 28 buses formed into a circle, noses pointed in towards the center, and I shot a full 360 degree panorama from the fire circle at the center. I then shot at least two photos of each bus from just off either side of the front. More buses were arranged in a second, incomplete circle outside the main one, but those rigs were more difficult to photograph.

We saw some fairly sophisticated portable ham setups at Quartzfest. It reminded us of Field Day.

A classic older Bluebird Wanderlodge outfitted for serious desert boondocking.

Linda was keeping an eye on the time and at 3 PM we started working our way towards our camp. We were back before 4 PM and I made sure Butch/Fonda and Jim/Barb were invited to join the happy hour. We all gathered at the appointed hour in front of our coach. Everyone brought a chair, a snack to share, and a beverage of their choice. The bus provided some shelter from the strong northeast winds and the very warm late afternoon sun balanced out the chilly air until it set, at which point our happy hour gathering ended.

The Bluebird/Wanderlodge logo done in rocks on the desert floor. These folks were serious about their gathering.

Jim and Chris stuck around to see our coach and we looked at a few videos on YouTube that he made with his Quadcopter mounted Go-Pro camera. We also introduced them to the music videos of the group “OK Go.” The groups’ most recent video was shot entirely with a Quadcopter mounted video camera. We moved over to their rig, which we had not been in before, and ended up talking for another hour. Some of that conversation was about diet and health. They still had work to do this evening, and we had not had dinner, so we returned to our coach a little after 7 PM.

While Linda prepared two of the Thai Kitchen noodle soup bowls we keep on hand for such occasions I checked the level of the coolant in the expansion reservoir for the Aqua-Hot. I had turned the unit off two days ago to let it cool down and most of the coolant in the reservoir had been drawn back in as it did. There was only about a half inch of coolant in the reservoir so I added some of the 50/50 premix that we carry with us, bringing the level halfway between the “Minimum Cold” and “Maximum Cold” marks. I turned the burner on, let it run through a full cycle while we ate our soup, and then checked the reservoir as soon as it shut off. The level was less than an inch below the bottom of the fill cap, so I had guessed correctly how much to add. I am going to let it cool off again and see where the level ends up.

Happy hour at Camp Lieberville. (L-2-R): LInda (hidden), the Gulds, Williams, and Brockners.

After working on this blog post while my camera battery charged I transferred today’s photographs to my computer, organized them, and backed them up to our NAS unit. It was yet another long but very satisfying day.

2014/12/26-31 (F-W) Wrapping Up 2014

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Note: This post covers the last six days of 2014. It is long and there are no pictures. Sorry. 🙁

2014/12/26 (F) Cool Letters

When we woke up at 7 AM the temperature was 41 degrees F but by 8:30 it had dropped to 35. According to the Weather Channel app on our iPads we have a freeze warning posted for the overnight hours tonight (Saturday 0000-0800). The 12-day forecast is for an extended period of cooler temperatures with highs in the 50s and lows in the 30s, including a few nights near freezing, but that is normal for Q at this time of year. Desert regions are not always hot and actually experience an extreme range of temperatures. The forecast back home has lows dropping into the teens with one night forecast at 13 degrees F. Burrrrr.

Connie was apparently tracking the weather in Q as well, even though she and Joe are back in Nevada for most of the winter, as she called to ask me to turn the water off at the street if the temps got down to freezing. The city water system here has supply pipes that come straight up out of the ground near the street, turn horizontal, go through a valve, then through a pressure regulator or small meter (not sure which or both), go through another valve, and then turn 90 degrees and go back down into the ground. Joe and Connie keep all of this covered under a wooden box and we have noticed other properties doing the same thing, but not all. Although the temperatures here can/do drop below freezing in December and January it is never for more than a few hours just before sunrise.

Presumably the city water lines are deep enough to avoid ever having freezing problems, but I do not know how deeply the pipes are buried on Joe and Connie’s property. The main thing at risk are the stand pipes that come up out of the ground at each RV site and any hoses that are attached to them. I discussed all of this with Butch as it seemed to me that it would have to get below freezing and stay there for quite some time before we would have any problems. It also seemed to me that if we were going to turn the main water supply off we should open a faucet on each of the supply risers so the water would have somewhere to go as it expanded. (Water expands as it cools, reaching a maximum volume at around 34 degrees F. As it changes state from liquid to solid it actually contracts slightly in volume.) To be really safe we would need to drain all of the flexible hoses. That struck both of us as unnecessary.

The aisle lights did not work again last night. It’s always something with a RV and you have to be psychologically prepared for that or the lifestyle will drive you crazy. This problem has occurred before and the usual reason is that the (3-way?) switch by the dinette gets toggled and renders the push switch in the bedroom inoperative but that was not the case this time. One of the three wires that go to that switch was only attached by a few strands and broke when I checked it. None of the connectors are in good shape so repairing those connections moved to the top of my bus project list today. I did not get to this today, I only moved it to the top of my list.

While I made our morning coffee Linda put together an Amazon order. Amazon Prime has worked well for us and Butch has already successfully received a UPS shipment here, so it was easier to order a bag of Science Diet cat food for delivery to our bus than to deal with the limited hours and selection of the local veterinarian or drive to one of the larger surrounding cities in the hope that a pet supply store that might stock the specific formulation we feed our cats. She also ordered two bottles of Hach SofChek water hardness test strips and some additional silicon utensils.

Linda had our holiday letters stuffed and addressed on Christmas Eve, but not in time to get to the post office before it closed at noon, so she went today, bought stamps, and sent them on their way. Hopefully they will arrive by New Year’s Eve while folks are still in the holiday spirit.

Sometime during the morning we got a visit from missionaries of the (local) Jehovah’s Witnesses cult. Our conversation did not last long. After they left I was pondering this day after Christmas visit and it occurred to me that perhaps they do an inventory of Quartzsite and the surrounding BLM camping areas so they know when someone knew has pulled into town. I guess saving souls can be a lot of work.

Linda was doing the dishes and the Black & Decker SpaceMaker coffee carafe broke. She checked online and was going to order a generic replacement but decided she should check the model of our unit. When we lifted it up to look for the model number we discovered water on the shelf underneath it. Ugh. Suddenly we were no longer looking for a carafe but a new coffee maker. We removed the cabinet door, latch, and lower front retaining bar and pulled the unit out. I then removed the shelf, wiped it off, and took it outside to dry in the sun. There are definite advantages to being someplace with bright sunshine and low humidity.

We spent a long time researching a replacement. The particular model/style of SpaceMaker we have has not been made for years (of course), was only available used (naturally), and only for exorbitant prices (can you believe $300?) on Ebay. To add insult to injury all of the reviews were negative, noting in particular that the unit tends to develop leaks. Ya think? We looked instead for something we could install, or at least store, in the same cabinet cubby as the old one. Most of the countertop models were too tall and most of the built-ins and under cabinet models were too big, and very expensive. We ended up ordering a simple Proctor-Silex non-programmable countertop unit without a clock for under $20 on Amazon Prime so the price included the shipping. The reviews were good and it will store in the corner cabinet with room to spare for coffee canisters, freeing up space in the pantry for other things. We will have to take it out and set it on the counter to use it, but that’s OK.

As noted in a previous post, there are quite a few houses and RVs around town with Over-The-Air (OTA) TV antennas on top of 20-30 foot poles and pointed approximately NNE. There is one antenna in particular that we have seen a lot, a high-gain (directional) rotatable unit, and there are several vendors selling it as part of a kit. The unit has an integrated amplifier and rotor and includes the rotor controller and power supply, plus 50 feet of coax and control cables. All of the vendors are selling this kit for $70. That’s a lot of stuff for that price, which suggests something about its quality (not good). Another vendor is selling the poles and fittings that all of the other vendors use to build their “booths” (tents). They have a huge assortment of connectors and will cut the sections to length if asked. Getting the antenna 20-30 feet in the air would cost about $35. We have been pondering whether it is worth it to us to spend this money as our bus-mounted antennas have always worked in the past and this is the first place we have been where they will not pick up even a trace of a signal. We do not have an OTA TV antenna set up at home and it occurred to me that buying one here made more sense if it could be used back at the house. I spent quite some time online researching long-range DTV antennas but did not come to any conclusions.

I needed a break from working at my computer and drove over to K & B Tools to see if they had shorter poles. In the 1″ diameter they had 10′ and 8′. The 8′ length would work well for us. Three sections with two connectors would get an antenna 20-25 feet up depending on the mounting and we can store 8′ lengths in the front bay of the bus or in the car for transport. We would use a base section with a flange by the driver side mirror, put a couple of long spikes through the base to keep it from moving sideways, slip the bottom pole section in it, and bungee cord the next section to the mirror support arm after wrapping it with something to keep it from scratching the paint. Before making a purchase, however, I decided to do some more online research.

The unit being sold by several vendors is the Vortex HD from SewellDirect.com so I checked their website. The unit is discontinued and they are selling the same kit online for $25. That means the unit is of even cheaper construction than I originally thought and the $70 asking price suddenly seemed very excessive. Many of the online reviews confirmed that this was not a serious antenna. Another vendor had the Vortex and two competing units all for the same $70 price and I have concluded that they are all equally junk.

One of the websites I spent some time at was AntennasDirect.com. They appeared to have some serious antennas, with prices to match. One of the challenges in this situation is that it appears we need to pull in OTA TV signals from a very long way away here in Q (70+ miles), whereas at home the distances are more like 40 miles. Here in Q all of the signals appear to be coming from the same direction (although no one can explain why) so a high-gain, highly directional antenna is ideal and does not need to be rotated once it is aimed. At home the TV signals potentially come from 270 degrees and the correct solution is an antenna with a broader reception pattern combined with an accurate and repeatable rotor. If we do not need the rotor in Q we can forego that expense and technical complication until we get home.

One of the websites directed me to www.antennaweb.org. This site is sponsored by the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) and the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB). You enter your ZIP code, and optionally your address, and it tells you what TV stations you might be able to receive and what direction the towers are from your location. I put in the ZIP code for Quartzsite and it indicated five stations (ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, and Independent), all 11 miles away at 234.8 degrees. There are towers on top of a mountain in direction but they do not look like TV towers. The direction was also surprising as it is almost 180 degrees opposite to where everyone has their antennas pointed.

As we know from our ham radio hobby RF waves can do strange things. At the frequencies used for OTA Digital TV (DTV), however, things are “line-of-sight.” The local speculation is that there are “repeaters” to the NNE but if that was the case I would expect the website to indicate that as the signal direction. Another possible explanation is that the signals are coming over the mountains to the SW and bouncing off of the more distant mountains to the NE. I would expect some multi-path distortion in this case, as the signals scatter off the mountains and arrive at the antenna from different directions, but if the antenna is sufficiently directional it might eliminate this problem.

My plan for today had been to work on my Exterior Makeover article for Bus Conversion Magazine and I finally got started on that late in the afternoon. I finalized my selection of photos (I think) and split them up into those that will go in line with the article, print and digital, and those that will appear in the extra section of the digital edition. I had just begun post-processing them when Linda started preparing dinner. I have been wanting some pasta and tonight I finally got my wish. She made a whole wheat linguine with mushrooms, onions, garlic, kale, sun-dried tomatoes, and asparagus. What a treat.

I stopped over at Butch and Fonda’s bus to let them know about the www.antennaweb.org website. Butch was watching an archived webcast that Technomadia did a few months ago with Nina Fusing, of the WheelingIt blog, on health care options for full-time RVers. He had also installed Echolink software on his laptop but it was failing the Internet Connection test for UDP (User Datagram Protocol) ports. The error messages indicated that it was probably a firewall- and/or router-related problem. He had both so I tried opening UDP ports for forwarding in both places but it did not fix the problem. I have never played with Echolink or UDP ports, so I was trying to figure out what to do in real time. More research will obviously be needed.

I continued working after dinner processing photos for my article. I received my draft of the Zena Power Generating System article back from Gary with corrections made by Stacy, his new administrative assistant. I accepted them, made an additional correction, and returned it. They are trying very hard to get the December 2014 issue out on December 31st and my Zena article will be one of the four in that issue.

2014/12/27 (S) Cool Temps

By 6:30 this morning our various weather apps were reporting that the temperature in Q was 31 degrees F. At 7:00 I turned the thermostats up and climbed back in bed (electric heating pad). I had not shut the main water supply off at the street last night so at 7:30 I got up, put on my “sweats,” grabbed a jacket, and went outside to tend to the water. I cracked opened a faucet at each standpipe, ran water through hoses, and ran water through the hot and cold lines for both sinks in the apartment. I shut everything off and went back inside where it was comfortably warm.

By the time I came back in Linda was up and making coffee. How was that possible? We have a single serving coffee funnel that sits on top of a mug. It’s designed for cone filters but she simply folded one of our flat bottom filters and made it fit. She ground up some beans, boiled some water in the microwave oven, poured it over the grounds, and let it drip. I did not think we would have morning coffee in the coach again until the new coffee maker arrived next week so it was a nice treat.

I finished yesterday’s blog post while I enjoyed my brew. I was busy enough yesterday that by the time I went to bed and tried to finish it there was too much to write and I was too tired to write it. Linda developed a headache overnight and spent much of the day medicated and resting. She does not get these very often anymore but when she does they put her out of commission for a day or so. I then spent most of the day processing the photos for my next BCM article.

I took a break after lunch and worked with Butch setting up his laptop to work with Echolink ham radio software. The software use TCP and UDP ports and requires firewalls and routers to be configured to provide port forwarding. His laptop OS is Windows Vista, which has the Windows Firewall. I was not familiar with UDP ports, had never set up port forwarding, and had never worked with Vista, so I was feeling my way as I went. Their computers are connected to the Internet one of two ways, MiFi or WiFi, although the WiFi is sometimes connected through the MiFi. Their MiFi is a Verizon Jetpack (Novatel 5510L), just like ours, so I (sort of) knew my way around that device. Their WiFi setup consists of two WiFi repeater/routers; the WiFiRanger Mobile and the WiFiRanger Go2. We also have a WiFiRanger Mobile, so I also knew my way around that device (sort of) but I had never worked with the WFR Go2. We got the Echolink software to test successfully through the WFR gear using the WiFi signal at our campsite but we could not get it to test successfully through the MiFi.

In the early evening Butch called and said he was having Internet connection issues. I went to their bus and worked four a couple of hours trying to sort out what was going on. I was able to get him back online but saw some strange behaviors that we could not explain and were not able to resolve. He has Nick Russell’s Gypsy Journal Blog set as his Firefox home page and it kept redirecting to the website’s home page. I tried opening it in Internet Explorer 9 and it opened without difficulty. Website’s do not always react the same way with different browsers, but he had been on Nick’s blog earlier in the day using Firefox. I will have to look at it again tomorrow.

When I got back to our coach Linda was starting to prepare dinner. It felt very cold outside even though the weather apps said it was 41 degrees F. I decided to turn off the water supply at the street and opened some of the faucets to relieve the pressure in the pipes and let some of the water out. Dinner was leftovers from our Christmas Day meal and everything was very good the second time around.

I finished up my photo editing a little before 10 PM and backed up my files to the NAS. We turned the three thermostats on and set them for ~15 degrees C (~59 degrees F). We put the extra blanket on the bed and I turned my electric heater pad up to 4. The forecast low for tonight was in the low 30’s and it was already 36 when we turned in for the night.

2014/12/28 (N) Cooler Yet

Our cats snuggled in with us more than usual last night. They like the extra blanket and the heater pads as much as I do. At sunup the air temperature was reported as 28 degrees F, a few degrees lower than the last forecast we saw before we turned in last night. If it seems that we are preoccupied with the weather it is because we are in closer contact with it when RVing than we are when we are at our house. In the motorcoach we have to more actively manage our utilities to ensure they work properly and to maintain our comfort.

We had tea instead of coffee this morning. Until about 15 years I did not drink coffee and enjoyed morning, afternoon, and evening tea. Hot, of course; I have never been a big fan of iced tea and I have never developed a taste for iced coffee, unless it was a Starbucks Frappuccino (in my pre-vegan days).

Linda was finally feeling better and went for a long walk this morning. Before she left I noticed that there wasn’t any water coming out of the bird fountain so she unplugged it and helped me partially disassemble it so I could clean it. I ended up taking it completely apart, which was fun given that it was made of large slabs of granite, in order to get to the pump so I could clean it. I was surprised to find a small gecko-like lizard inside the pedestal base. Butch helped me reassemble and level the unit, allowing the reservoir to hold more water, and we got the outlet tube (fountain) tightened up so the water once again squirts about four inches above the tube. It needs to be filled every day or two. I have not determined if the water is being consumed by birds (there are a lot of doves and Gambrels Quail here) or evaporating (low humidity and sunshine). It is probably a bit of both.

I worked on my article most of the day, inserting photos into the Word doc and writing captions. I took a break mid-afternoon and rode into town with Butch. We found the LED vendor where the hams (amateur radio operators) hang out but the booth was closed. We wandered around looking at flea market junk and I found a set of four ratcheting tie down straps, 25mm wide by 15 feet long, for $5. I had seen similar straps at another vendor for $14, so I bought the $5 set. We stopped at Dorothy and Toto’s Ice Cream Parlor on west Main Street and bought some excellent kettle corn.

Back at the coach I continued working on my article but was having trouble keeping my eyes open so I took a nap. Linda had started making dinner about the time I got up when a white SUV pulled in that we had not seen before. A reddish-chocolate-brown dog appeared and took off after some of the rabbits followed by a man with a leash. We figured Jim and Barbara, the owners of the third motorhome at our camp, had arrived so we put our shoes on and went out to meet them. Jim got Roho on leash and Barbara appeared shortly thereafter, followed by Butch and then Fonda. It was dusk and cooling off quickly, so the conversation was short before everyone returned to their motorhomes. Before going in I turned the water off at the street and opened one of the faucets on our standpipe to relieve the pressure and let some of the water out.

For dinner Linda made skillet black beans with potatoes and tortillas. Besides the title ingredients it had onions, garlic, poblano pepper, and salsa. I added a little Tabasco Chipotle sauce to mine. We each had a glass of sangria, which was refreshing with this hearty dish. After dinner I finished working on my article and I uploaded it to the BCM folder in my Dropbox. I sent an e-mail to the publisher, editor, and new administrative assistant. I then started uploading the photo files and went to bed.

2014/12/29 (M) Cool Cruiser Redux

We had English Breakfast Tea to start our day, followed by store bought (bulk) granola for breakfast. We have run out of Linda’s homemade granola and I really miss it. The stuff we buy at the store just doesn’t taste like much of anything by comparison. After breakfast I started working on my next article for BCM. Actually, it was an article I wrote back in February of this year but had not quite finished. Besides the text I had already selected the photos but, as often happens, I had not finished the process of putting them in order, sorting them into print edition and digital edition extra section, post-processing them, and inserting thumbnail versions into the Word document. So that’s what I started working on this morning.

Late morning I took a break from the photo work and pulled the cover off of the dashboard to check the turbo boost gauge. It was, indeed, a mechanical gauge with a very small nylon tube coming out the back of it. I opened the Prevost CatBase Viewer and looked up the part, thinking I might order one today. The specified part was a VDO gauge, 1/8-27 NPT, but did not give the mounting hole size, the, range, or the sweep degrees. Both 24V and 12V bulbs were listed. I think we need 24V. What I found interesting was that the gauge for the VIP (conversion shell) was shown as “dummy,” which meant the unit was originally shipped with a filler plate rather than an actual gauge. The turbo boost gauge in our coach is functional but is the wrong gauge for our engine. It’s a Sentry vacuum/boost gauge. The vacuum side is useless on our turbocharged engine and the boost side only goes to 15 PSI, which is not high enough.

VDO makes two turbo boost gauges that should work as replacements. Both are 2-1/16 (52mm) size, 0 – 30 PSI, 270 degree sweep, mechanical units. They come with 12V bulbs but those are easily changed. The differences are in the faceplate markings and the mounting systems. The Cockpit Series gauge is marked in 1 PSI increments, which I prefer, but uses the traditional rear U-bracket to hold the instrument in the dashboard. The Vision Series gauge, which is what our new speedometer is, has 2 PSI increments but mounts using a collar that threads onto the body of the instrument from the back side of the dashboard. I was going to call Prevost and order a gauge but both gauges are available from PartDeal.com, which is run by ISSPRO. ISSPRO sells their own line of gauges in addition to VDO and other brands. I was chatting with Butch and he mentioned that they were closed for the holidays and would reopen on January 2nd, so I did not order a gauge today.

We left around noon and drove to the vendor area at Central Avenue and Kuehn Street. We parked the car and wandered around checking out vendors who were not set up or open the last couple of times we were here. While we were strolling I got a call from Frank Morrison. Frank was at the Arcadia Bus Rally in Arcadia, Florida and wanted to know if we were there. I photographed Frank’s bus, the Cool Cruiser, at last year’s rally and the article was the cover story in the June 2014 issue of Bus Conversion Magazine. Frank said that in the welcome bag each attendee received there was a second bag from BCM and in that bag was the June 2014 issue. Cool. I wrote two other articles for BCM as a result of that rally. The February 2014 issue was on the rally itself and the April 2014 issue featured the Iron Horse, an Eagle bus conversion. Both articles ran in the cover/centerfold position.

For lunch we had chickpea salad on sourdough bread with dark greens and were surprised to see a Trek motorhome backing in to the property. Jim and Barb obviously knew the people and helped them get parked. Once they were in their site we went out and introduced ourselves, as did Butch and Fonda. Jack and Maria were only here for the night. They had been camped at the BLM Pyramid Lake LTVA, about 60 miles south of Quartzsite, but developed issues with their solar charger and a squealing/screeching noise when they start their engine. They had appointments first thing in the morning to have these problems addressed and were planning on heading back to the desert tomorrow. Barb mentioned that she had talked to Joe and Connie and Joe said we did not have to turn the water off at night. One less chore is good by me.

Linda went for another power walk while I worked on my article. I want to get my “almost finished” articles done and off to the magazine so I can work on some new pieces. It’s easier on me and them if I can keep the pipeline flowing and stay ahead of them.

For dinner we had soy riblets with barbecue sauce, macaroni and cheese (gluten and dairy free), and fresh sautéed green beans. The riblets were tasty, as always, and the green beans were excellent, but the mac & cheese was not good eats. It was the second of two boxes we bought somewhere and Linda even added some things to try to improve them but it didn’t help. We won’t be buying this product again.

Having spent a portion of the day processing photos I did not feel like doing more of that after dinner. I played a few puzzles on my iPad while Linda played word games on hers with Karen and Ron. We were in bed by a little after 9 PM and I went right to sleep.

2014/12/30 (T) Trash Day

Tuesday is trash day. The collection truck comes at noon so the trash can has to be to the curb by 11AM. I happened to glance outside as we were sitting down to enjoy our mourning tea and it was already at the curb. Jim or Barb are responsible for this when they are here, along with maintaining the apartment and laundry room, and one of them had obviously taken it out.

Jack and Maria pulled out around 8:30 AM with Maria driving their Trek and Jack following in their SUV. We figured we had seen the last if them and did not even get to say ‘goodbye’ so we were surprised when they returned an hour later and backed their motorhome back into their spot and leveled it. They left in their car fairly soon thereafter and did not return until later in the day.

Linda went for her usual morning walk and I continued working on my Habitat For Humanity article for Bus Conversion Magazine. Around 11:15 AM my Bluetooth mouse signaled that its battery was critically low and needed to be recharged. I plugged it in and figured that was a good time to take a break and do something else. Butch was outside with his tool bay open and Jim was out there with Roho so I went out and chatted for a while. I needed to repair the connections on the front switch that controls the aisle lights so I borrowed Butch’s VOM, wire stripper, and terminal crimper and got three 1/4″ female crimp connectors from him. I have all of these tools and supplies, but his were more convenient.

Being a 3-way circuit the switch has three wires. It’s a double-pole double-throw switch so it had a second set of unused contacts. I used the VOM to determine if the unused set of contacts worked as expected. They did, so I removed the old connectors, one at a time, cut the wire loose from the connector, cut about an inch off of the end, crimped the new connector onto the wire, and pushed the connector onto the corresponding unused terminal. I tested the circuit and I was able to turn it on and off from both switches. (The other switch is in the control panel in the bedroom by my side of the bed).

My recollection is that the 3-way circuit feature did not work prior to this. That could have been because the wire that broke off the other day was only attached by a few strands, or because of a failure in the switch on that set of contacts, or both. The plastic insulated housings on the old connectors were very brittle and showed signs of heat damage, which could have occurred as the result of a very marginal connection. When I tried to pull them off of the switch terminals they shattered. I was also unable to pull the metal connectors off of the lugs and had to pry them open and then pry them off. The first 1/2 inch of each wire was also discolored and brittle, indicating heat damage. I did not bother to check the other set of switch contacts for correct function as the lugs also showed signs of heat damage and I do not plan to use them again. In fact, I plan to replace the switch if/when I happen to find one or get around to ordering one. The whole repair, including borrowing and returning tools, took less time to do than it took me to describe the work in this post.

Linda confirmed that our Fedex delivery was scheduled for today. We have been rationing the cats’ food the last 48 hours and they are confused as to why. They do not usually finish the dry kibble in their bowls but insist on having fresh kibble added each morning and evening. To accommodate this expectation we have been adding very small quantities of fresh kibble to their bowls. I don’t think cats can count, but they can definitely tell the difference between serving sizes of kibble and are not pleased at our puny offerings.

Jack and Maria returned sometime during the afternoon. I saw them pull in but did not note the time. We had sandwiches for lunch and then went for a walk. We headed southwest from our campsite and worked our way over to Moon Mountain Avenue. Our destination was the Salvation Army Store but we stopped to look at things along the way. We checked out the Mountain Quail Cafe, but the only thing on their menu we could eat was the side salad. Too bad, it looked like a cozy, comfortable place and the sign said they featured ‘home cooking.’ Well, not our home, of course. ‘Home cooking’ is usually code for “everything is cooked in butter, we make liberal use of eggs and dairy, and treat bacon as a condiment.”

Moon Mountain Avenue between Main Street and Quail Trail seems to mostly be developments rather than individual lots. We stopped at one place that had a lot for sale at the corner of Moon Mountain and the entrance road. All of the lots were separated on three sides by the exact same low brick wall construction that we have seen all over town. Some of the lots had the brick wall with a gate across the front. As we were studying this lot the man across the street pulled out and drove over to see if we had any questions. We really didn’t, but he answered them anyway.

It turned out that most of the developments on Moon Mountain Avenue were co-ops. The price on this particular lot ($49,900) did not buy you a deed but rather a fractional ownership of the co-op with a lease for the perpetual use of that particular lot. The price also included compensation to the current leaseholder for improvements to the lot, and whatever appreciation in value the market would bear. You were free to sell your ownership share along with the leasehold for your lot, or will it to your children. (This co-op, like many of the RV Parks in town, was a 55+ community, so it would be a long time before our “kids” could use it if they were interested, which I doubt.) The annual maintenance fees for this co-op were $56/month ($672/year) and included water, sewer, property taxes, and association dues; everything except electricity. Each site had its own billable electric meter. The only added expense would be property taxes for improvements, such as a park model trailer or RV port.

We were glad we stopped and that this fellow was willing to share this information with us. We suspect that many of the similar looking areas around town are probably also co-ops or even developments with deeded lots. Every little thing we learn like this helps us develop a better understanding of Quartzsite. BTW: the Salvation Army store was closed. We have walked or driven by at various times on different days and have yet to find it open for business.

When we got back to camp Linda needed a few things for dinner and thought the Road Runner Market might have them. She grabbed Fonda and they took off in our car. Butch was working on his HF mobile ham radio antenna on the roof of their bus and Barb was scurrying around the property taking care of things. I was going to help Butch but got a phone call from Michele Henry of Phoenix Paint to discuss the spots on our roof and what to do about them. Once we were done talking I was able to lend Butch some assistance with the antenna project which involved the installation of bonding (grounding) straps between the antenna and the roof of the bus.

The FedEx truck showed up before Linda and Fonda got back so I opened the box and unpacked the contents. The kitties recognize Science Diet cat food bags and were very happy to see it. I was opening the new coffee maker when Linda returned. We got it unpacked and stored in the cubby where the old one was installed. She had started cleaning and rearranging drawers before our walk so she finished putting everything away or set aside things she had decided she did not need to have on board.

I’ve been needing a haircut for a while and prevailed on Linda to take care of it while we still had sunlight. After she was done I used the clippers to trim my beard and then put everything away. Linda checked our log book and according to our records the last time we dumped our holding tanks was on the 20th. We like them to be as full as possible before dumping, as they evacuate better but cannot let them overfill so we decided to dump them while it was still daylight. Better safe than sorry.

I got another Hach SofChek water hardness test strip from Butch and checked the output of our water softener. It measured 7 on a scale of 0 (soft) to 25 (very hard). A reading of 7 is considered ‘hard’ water but the softener was still working somewhat as the water coming straight out of the tap measured 25. We still had 1/3 tank of fresh water and I decided to add 1/6th of a tank, about 20 gallons, and bring it up to the 1/2 level. I will have to recharge the water softener tomorrow before adding any more water to our tank.

I was able to finish editing photos while Linda prepared dinner. She cut a large poblano pepper in half lengthwise and stuffed it with leftovers from two nights ago. She also made Mexican rice from scratch using Texmati rice, onions, garlic, tomato sauce, cumin, and vegetable broth. The peppers and rice were very good and went well with a glass of sangria.

Early this morning I thought I might finish my HFH article for BCM and be able to upload it this evening, but that did not happen. I still needed to insert the thumbnails into the Word document and write the captions. I was too tired to start that work, knowing how long that would take, so I played a few puzzle games and went to bed.

2014/12/31(W) Adios 2014

The polar outbreak that is gripping most of Canada and the U. S. A. has also made its presence felt here in Quartzsite. The overnight low was 35 and we had light rain. The high today won’t break 50, and the lows for the next two days are forecast to be in the upper 20s. Not that far from us (~180 miles) Joshua Tree NP had a rare dusting of snow and the forecast for Flagstaff is for as much as 16 inches of holiday whiteness. The temperature back home is in the teens, so we have no complaints about the weather in Q.

Linda went for a long morning walk and found the Salvation Army store open. Apparently their hours are 8 AM to 1 PM Monday through Friday and we had managed to always walk past outside that time frame. She picked up a few things from the Road Runner Market while she was out. By the time she got back at 1 PM I had just finished inserting photos into my Habitat For Humanity article and captioning them so I had her proofread it.

With the proofreading done we had a bite of lunch and then drove to Blythe, California to pick up some grocery items that are not available here in Q. We stopped first at the AutoZone store, in the northwest corner of the Albertson’s parking lot, and bought supplies for cleaning the bus. Now all we need is a nice warm day so we can get out early and work at it until we are done. We need to do the car, too.

We got a TXT message from our son while driving back to Q. It was a short video of grand-daughter Madeline climbing into her car seat all by herself. That led to an exchange of messages leading to the question from our daughter as to whether she could climb out by herself. That question will apparently be answered tomorrow. The growth from age one to age two is quite amazing.

When we got back to our coach I carried in the groceries. While Linda put them away I added 30 gallons of water to our fresh water tank. I really wanted to recharge the water softener first, and bought a 40 pound bag of solar salt at Albertson’s for that purpose, but it was too late in the afternoon and too cold to start that process. I still need to fabricate the special perforated tube for the water filter housing, so it will take longer than a normal recharge.

We had some hot tea and cookies and relaxed for a while. Linda finished proofreading my HFH article and I then went through it one more time to make sure it was ready to upload. She also e-mailed Mara, one of the women who participated in the HFH build, to wish her a happy holiday and see what part of the country she was in at the moment.

Dinner was a simple, easy affair; a nice salad of fresh greens with other goodies mixed in and a couple of Asian noodle soup bowls. Sometimes Linda does not feel like cooking and we keep a certain amount of packaged convenience food on board for such occasions.

It has been our tradition since we started dating in high school to stay up and celebrate the coming of the New Year. We rang in three calendar changes while dating and have observed 42 more since getting married. Tonight was number 43. For all of that time we have rarely gone out on New Year’s Eve, preferring to stay close to home and off the streets. Besides, large, loud parties have never been our style, especially since I do not dance.

When we were dating, and in the early years of our marriage, we would spend the holidays in the St. Louis, Missouri area visiting family. My parents hosted a New Year’s Eve party that, in retrospect, was quite a large and well-attended event, and that is where we hung out, often joined by a few friends from our high school days. As we attained legal age a champagne toast became part of the tradition (although in the privacy and safety of my parents’ home we probably started this tradition a bit sooner).

As our children came into the picture we still traveled to St. Louis but when they got a bit older we started spending our holidays at home. Linda’s sister, Marilyn, started visiting us between Christmas and New Year’s and the tradition of assembling a 1,000 piece jigsaw puzzle on New Year’s Eve began. Linda usually did not cook a New Year’s Eve meal. Instead we had California Dip (made from Lipton’s Onion Soup mix) and chips, jumbo shrimp with cocktail sauce, smoked salmon, and other munchies that we nibbled on throughout the day. This was, of course, all pre-vegan. Starting around 11 PM we would turn the TV to one of the networks doing the countdown from Times Square in New York City. I think it was ABC as we usually watched Dick Clark. At 11:55 PM we would open a bottle of champagne and fill our glasses. When the ball dropped and the clock struck 12 we would toast the New Year.

Since our children became adults they have spent New Year’s Eve with their friends and families. Besides Marilyn we have had occasional guests at our house but more often it has been a quiet evening at home with just the two or three of us and we often went to bed shortly after the arrival of the New Year. The last two years have been unusual in that we moved to a different house in 2013 but have never celebrated New Year’s there. Given that we plan to do most of our extended RVing from mid-fall to mid-spring it may be quite (if ever) before we celebrate New Year’s at the new house.

For the 2013-to-2014 change we were at the Arcadia Bus Rally in Arcadia, Florida where we attended a party with 200 other people and a live band. We spent much of the evening outside where the volume was about right and the temperatures were pleasant. This year we are camped on private property in Quartzsite with three other couples, none of whom seemed interested in staying up until midnight, so we toasted the New Year in the privacy of our coach three times before going to bed. We are unable to receive OTA TV signals here, so we watched (listened to) the ball drop in Times Square on Linda’s iPad (at 10 PM MST) and shared a champagne toast. She then sent TXT messages to both of our children. At 11 PM MST we shared another champagne toast. I sent a TXT message to my sister and niece while Linda sent one to her sister, all of whom live near St. Louis, Missouri in the Central Time Zone. At our local midnight we shared our final toast and welcomed the New Year in the Mountain Time Zone. If we had been so inclined we could have driven to Blythe, California, returning temporarily to 2014, and celebrated the coming of the New Year in the Pacific Time Zone. But we didn’t. That kind of thing is more fun to “brag” about than it actually is to do.

Before turning in for the night I updated my article status spreadsheet and then uploaded it to the BCM folder in my Dropbox along with the HFH article and associated photos. I then e-mailed the team at BCM to let them know it was there and wished them a Happy New Year. I also e-mailed a link to a PDF version of the article to Steven Gullette, our team leader on the HFH build that was the main focus of the article, and wished him a Happy New Year as well. So endith another year. Adios 2014.

2014/12/01-04 (m-r) Westward Ho!

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2014/12/01 (M) Back in Twelve Mile IN

As I indicated in yesterday’s post we are back in Twelve Mile, Indiana for a couple of days before heading on towards the southwest United States. Butch and Fonda are scrambling to get ready and although there isn’t much we can do to help, we have made ourselves available. If nothing else we can cheer them on.

We went to bed early last night, tired from our final departure preparations and 270 miles of travel yesterday, and slept in this morning. Once we were up we had our usual granola with fresh fruit for breakfast and then walked over to Small Town Brew for coffee and conversation with owner Lisa Paul and whoever else happened in while we were there.

Well caffeinated, and pushing 9:30 AM, we checked in on Butch and Fonda. There wasn’t anything we could help with so we both set up our computers and got online. Linda paid bills while I updated the spreadsheet I use to track cross-purchase costs. I hooked up their small Canon iP90 inkjet printer and printed out a copy for Butch and wrote him a check for the balance we owed them. I showed Linda the MFJ-998 full legal limit antenna tuner that Butch wanted to sell and decided to buy it, resulting in a second check. We plan to (eventually) use this in our base station, but it was a good enough deal that it was worth buying now and transporting to Arizona and back. Buying it now also helped out our friends. I logged in to RVillage and updated our location while Linda walked down to the Post Office two buildings to the west. (Twelve Mile is a pretty small, compact town.)

Bill and Butch finished repairing Brittiny’s car this past week and she and Rock showed up mid-morning to pick it up. We visited with them for a while and then Rock headed back while Brittiny visited with her mom. While they were talking someone stopped across the street and off-loaded a camel. They had three on the trailer but I’m not sure where they put the other two. The three wise men, however, were nowhere to be seen.

Although the air temperature was in the upper 20’s it was sunny most of the day, which kept the front of the bus comfortable and well lit. Given those conditions I decided to work on some projects in the center cockpit area.

First up was (finally) mounting the inclinometer, which turned out to be quite the little project. I had to remove the mounting bracket from the case in order to attach it to my mounting blocks on the center windshield pillar. That, in turn, required me to take the case apart and remove the mechanism so I could get to the ‘C’ clips that prevented the bracket retaining screws from coming all the way out of the body. But I got it apart, mounted, and reassembled, minus the retaining clips. Really, why would I put them back in?

Linda split the one remaining Tofurkey brand Italian sausage and served it on a couple of hotdog buns for lunch along with a couple of Clementine oranges. A quick and simple but tasty lunch.

The inclinometer and the compass both have light bulbs in them and needed to be wired up to 12VDC accessory plugs. The inclinometer already had a power cord but the compass did not, so I got some scrap wire from Butch and fashioned a 2-conductor power cable. I only have four accessory outlets and three of them were already in use so I attached both power cables to a single plug using wire nuts. I then dressed all of the wires to make for a neater looking installation that would keep them out of the way and prevent snagging and/or tripping problems. All of this was a long-term temporary solution; I plan to eventually install a 12 VDC PowerPole distribution system for all of these accessories and hide the wiring to the extent possible or enclose it split cable loom.

I removed the four screws that hold the panel with the 12 VDC house system switches so I could get to the back side of them. It took a while but I eventually puzzled out how the three air-conditioner switches were wired. I removed the wire that feeds +12 VDC to the Rear A-C switch and checked for voltage at the loose end of the wire. There wasn’t any, as expected, so I put a 2 Amp blade fuse in the 12 VDC distribution panel and checked again. This time I had +13.2 VDC, so everything was good down to that point. I removed the line and load wires from each switch in turn and checked to make sure the contacts opened and closed the way they should. They did, so I checked each pin to ground to see if any of them were somehow shorted to ground. They were not, so the problem was probably downstream from there. I did not, however, specifically check the bulb circuit for each switch, so I don’t know if there’s a problem there or not. The bulbs, however, get their power from the load side of each switch, so in the next paragraph the tests I did included the bulbs in parallel with whatever other loads existed.

I tested each load wire for continuity to ground and was surprised that they each appeared as a short. I did this test with the DC- lead to ground and the DC+ lead to the wire. When I reversed the leads each wire tested as open. That suggested there was a diode, or something, acting as a one way current check valve. I switched the VOM to measure resistance and rechecked each wire. Where I had previously seen short circuits I saw 0 ohms; where I saw open circuits I now saw about 630 ohms. Those readings might be a problem, but I don’t yet understand them well enough to know.

The bulbs are incandescent, so their resistance should measure the same in either direction. If they are 0.6 W they would draw ~0.047 A and have a resistance of ~265 ohms (when illuminated), not the 630 ohms I saw with the red test lead grounded. Regardless of the exact value, if a bulb was shorted I would see 0 ohms whichever way the test leads were connected. With the black test lead to ground the 0 ohm readings were, therefore, presumably through the load wires not the bulbs. If the relay coils were very low resistance (and protected by diodes) they would determine the meter reading in the forward direction, but I would have expected something more than a zero reading. It seems very odd to me that all three of these loads tested as short circuits in one direction.

I had a weak Verizon 4G/LTE signal at the front of the bus so I tried calling Donn Barnes in Alvarado, Texas. I got his voice mail and left a message indicating he could TXT message me back. He did later and I replied that I would call him from Logansport a bit later. Butch needed a 1/2″ x 1-1/2″ NPT male nipple so Linda and I drove to Logansport to buy one at Home Depot. While we were there I called Donn and confirmed that he would be home this weekend and that we were still welcomed to visit and spend Saturday and Sunday at his place. The timing looks like it will work out well as he has to work on Friday and Monday, so we will take our leave on Monday morning.

When we got back to the coach we had some pita chips with hummus while Linda prepared a green salad and started heating some lentil soup. While we enjoyed the soup she reheated some pita bread and the leftover Koshary. A small glass of Moscato went nicely with the meal. After dinner we went in the house to visit with Butch and Fonda for a while and transfer some PDF files onto a flash drive for Butch. We returned to our coach for the evening at 9 PM. It was certainly an easier day for us than for Butch and Fonda, but we were tired nonetheless.

We were sitting quietly, reading and writing, when things suddenly got exciting. Juniper made a sudden movement near the food bowls and I immediately glanced in her direction to see that she had caught a mouse. We knew at least one was probably still living in the bus because yesterday we found a partially shredded blue paper shop towel in the tray where we store the shore power cords, along with two nuts that had been chewed open.

Juniper is a very skillful huntress but I was surprised that the mouse attempted to get to the cats’ food bowls, which are not in a really safe place for a mouse, with two cats on board. Juniper is very protective of her catches, so she headed off towards the bedroom, trying to find someplace where we could not try to take it away from her. We wanted to get it from her and remove it from the coach but our main concern was that she not kill it and try to eat it.

I got a container to try to capture it and Linda managed to get hold of the scruff of Juniper’s neck which caused her to drop the mouse. It immediately ran further under the bed, a direction from which there did not appear to be an escape path, but we could find no sign of it save a few stool pellets. I would have needed a much deeper container, like the trash can, to capture it. Our best guess is that it disappeared into the OTR HVAC duct on Linda’s side of the bed. Once in there it could travel the length of the bus with impunity, including moving from side to side and between the house and the bay’s. With any luck it took the hint and moved outside.

Juniper took up her post by the rear corner of the dinette, where she originally caught the mouse, to wait for its reappearance. A black cat sitting quietly on black tile at night is a pretty effective camouflage. The problem for the mouse is that it needs to eat and even in its natural (outdoor) environment constantly takes risks to obtain food.

2014/12/02 (T) Tire(d) Pressures

Some nights we sleep better than others. Last night was not one of our better nights. The cats were still wound up because of the mouse and I suspect we were anticipating its return as well. Because neither of us slept well, we slept in this morning. By the time we were up and dressed it was 8:30 AM. Linda was pretty sure she had left her gloves and knit hat at the coffee shop yesterday so we decided to go have coffee at Small Town Brew before we ate breakfast.

Linda’s things were there waiting for her to claim them. We had a nice long chat with proprietor Lisa Paul and invited her to stop over after she closed the coffee shop for the day and get an inside tour of both buses. We also inquired as to whether she had any post cards of Twelve Mile. She did not but thought it would be nice to have a few available. She has a friend, Derinda, who is an artist and thought she would ask her to make a few. We were interested in one we could mail to our grand-daughter, Madeline, who will be two years old in less than three weeks.

Breakfast was raisin toast and grapefruit, simple but yummy. We were both dressed to work and went in search of Butch and Fonda to see if we could be of any assistance. Linda took her computer in the house to transfer some PDF manuals to Butch and then take care of some bakery-related issues. I used Butch’s MFJ-269 SWR Analyzer to check the VSWR on his 2 meter ham antenna and his (11 meter) CB antenna. Both antennas are glass mount. The 2m ham antenna was tuned fairly well, showing a VSWR of 2.1 at the low end of the band (144.000 MHz) and 1.8 across most of the band (up 148.000 MHz). That is certainly a usable range.

The CB antenna did not test nearly as well. The CB band is channelized, with channel 1 just below 27.000 MHz and channel 40 just above 27.400 MHz. At 27.0 MHz the VSWR was greater than 6.0. It declined steadily as I went up in frequency but was only down to 2.9 by the time I got to Channel 40. A reading greater than 2.0 (a ratio greater than 2:1) becomes problematic for a transmitter and readings greater than 3.0 are generally unusable. Both of Butch’s antennas are tunable but we did not take the time to adjust them today. Butch is taking the analyzer so we can work on the antennas while we are in Quartzsite.

Their bus is parked in between our bus and their house as a consequence of which our WiFi Ranger is not able to pick up their WiFi network signal which is already weak outside the house. I am having a problem with the unit that has me concerned, but I won’t be able to sort it out until I can get it connected to a working Internet connection. The problem is that the WFR finds their network and tries to connect to it, requests an IP address, and while it is waiting for a response disconnects from my iPad, which serves as its control panel. This annoying at best since the WFR and the iPad are only 10 feet apart.

We had lunch at 1:30 PM. Linda heated up a couple of Thai Kitchen brand hot and sour rice noodle soup bowls. It had been cold, damp, and dreary all day and we were both feeling a bit chilled so the soup was very soothing in addition to being very tasty. By 2 PM it was obvious we were not going to get the mid-to-upper 30’s temperatures that had been forecast and there was no advantage to waiting any longer to check/set the tire pressures. I bundled up, put on my mechanic’s gloves, and set about the business at hand.

Butch turned the auto shop compressor on and I pulled the air hose out and connected it to our hose. I removed the Pressure Pro sensors from all 12 tires and then worked my way around both vehicles in the same order. When the sensors have been off for a minimum of one minute putting them back on resets the baseline pressure, which determines the pressures at which you get over- and under-pressure warnings. I set the bus tires as follows: front tires to 115 PSI, drive tires to 95 PSI, and tag tires to 85 PSI. I set the car front tires to 32 PSI and the rear tires to 34 PSI. I noted that the ambient temperature was 30 degrees F. I then plugged in the Pressure Pro receiver and repeater and checked the pressures they were reporting. The four car tire readings were essentially identical to the known pressures in the tires, but the sensors on the eight bus tires all registered low, in one case by 6 lbs. As I indicated in a previous post I think the batteries are just about drained and are giving tire(d) pressure readings. I know that I am tired of the discrepancies as I count on these readings to tell me it’s OK to drive or I need to add air to certain tires.

Bill and Bell showed up in his custom car hauler while I was working on the tires. Bill and Butch worked on some stuff and Bell helped Fonda load food and sundries onto the bus. Lisa Paul showed up for a brief visit and tour of both buses. See also brought a postcard that her friend Derinda made. It featured the building that houses Lisa’s Small Town Brew coffee shop. Linda is going to post it to Madeline in the morning so it has a Twelve Mile, Indiana postmark. It will be the first of what we hope are many such postcards from far away exotic places. Being almost two years old we hope these mementos will provide a tangible connection to us while we are traveling. I know her parents will use them as learning opportunities.

Linda and I took showers in the house to minimize the use of our stored water and waste tank capacity. The six of us then drove down to The Old Mill restaurant just west of town for an earlier than normal dinner. The restaurant also allowed us to use their dumpster to dispose of our accumulated household trash. That was nice because Butch and Fonda had already suspended their dumpster service for the winter.

When we got back from dinner we got online and checked the weather forecast and road conditions along our planned route. Bill had recently driven I-70 west of Indianapolis and strongly advised us to avoid going that way. Our check of the INDOT website confirmed that we were well advised to avoid Indianapolis altogether. We settled on SR-16 east to US-31 south to US-24 west to I-57 in Illinois. From there we will take I-57 south to Mt. Vernon, Illinois where we will overnight at Wally World (Walmart).

Bill and Bell said they would be back in the morning to see us off (“watch this thing launch” is how Bill put it) and took their leave. We hung out a while longer trying to be useful but mostly providing moral support and comic relief until it was time to winterize the plumbing. Butch hooked up a line from his big shop air compressor, ran it through a pressure regulator, and attached it to the main plumbing line at the surge tank and pump. Just like an RV he used air pressure to drain both water heaters and then had us open each fixture in turn and let the air blow the water out and down the drain. We then filled the traps and toilet tanks with potable RV antifreeze. The reason for using potable antifreeze is that it will eventually end up in the septic tank and drain field.

We finally retired to our coach leaving them to finish up some last minute things before retiring to their coach for the night. We had some very tasty red grapes for dessert (and a couple of cookies) while we studied maps for our next few days of travel. We had not really looked at them carefully before now and were surprised to find that we will not be in either Kentucky or Tennessee. We had presumed that we would be, but I-57 runs into the extreme southwest corner of Illinois and then crosses the Mississippi River into Missouri, ending at I-55 in Sikeston. From there we will continue south into Arkansas on I-55, which stays on the west side of the Mississippi river, until we intersect I-40 west of Memphis and head west towards Little Rock. Thus we will never enter Kentucky or Tennessee and we will not drive through Memphis; at least not on purpose.

Fonda has to run to Logansport first thing tomorrow and while she is gone we will prep our bus for travel, hitch up our car, and give Butch whatever assistance we can. We plan to be on the road by 10 AM and safely parked at the Walmart in Mt. Vernon, Illinois well before dark.

2014/12/03 (W) Finally On Our Way

We were up around 7:45 this morning anticipating a 9 AM departure even though we knew that was unlikely. I turned on the Aqua-Hot engine pre-heat pump to start warming the engine. There was a dusting of snow on the ground and on our car; a sure sign that our departure had been delayed long enough.

Bill and Bell arrived a little after 8 AM so we invited them into the coach and chatted for over an hour while Butch and Fonda got their morning organized. Fonda left for her run to Logansport at 9:15 AM followed by Bill and Bell at 9:25 AM when they decided they needed to go to Logansport to get breakfast. Fonda returned at 9:50 AM and we started making our final departure preparations. We had hoped to leave by 10 AM but suspected that was optimistic. It’s Butch and Fonda’s first extended use of their converted coach and they have had a lot to do to get ready to leave.

We straightened up the interior for travel as soon as Bill and Bell left so all that remained for us to do was unhook the shorepower cord and store it, start up the main engine, move the bus across the street, and hookup the car for towing. We can do all of that in 15-20 minutes if absolutely necessary, especially in warmer weather, but it typically takes a half hour. We do not like to rush this process; it’s important that we do it correctly each and every time. It is also a commonly understood etiquette among RVers that you do not try to chit-chat with, or otherwise disturb, fellow road warriors while they are hitching something up.

Butch & Fonda’s MC-9 getting ready to depart Twelve Mile, IN.

We were idling and ready to go by 10:25 AM but Butch had to make some final adjustments to his toad towing/braking setup. Bill and Bell were back in time for Bill to help and Bell to take pictures and give us a good send off. We pulled out a little after 11 AM and headed east on SR-16 with Butch in the lead but only got to the edge of town before Butch pulled off the road. We pulled off behind him and Bill pulled off the on the other side. We had noticed that their bus was smoking but they realized something was wrong before we could even call them on our 2m ham radio. It wasn’t the engine; the brakes on the toad were partially engaged and he could feel the drag. He readjusted it and we were on our way again, this time for good.

The trip to Mt. Vernon, Illinois was an easy and uneventful run. From SR-16 we turned south on US-31 and picked up US-24 westbound. We took this same route in June 2013 when we left Twelve Mile headed to the state of Wyoming so we knew it was a good route for us. We had to slow down going through small towns, but that gave us a chance to catch a glimpse of these quaint little places. A couple of larger towns had stop lights, but mostly we were able to keep rolling.

We stopped at a Pilot Truck Stop just west of I-65 for a quick walk-around and so Fonda could take the dogs out. We continued west on US-24 into Illinois and eventually got to I-57 where we headed south. We saw occasional construction signs but very little construction and did not incur any delays. Butch lead most of the day and we just followed along with generally light traffic.

We stopped at the rest area just north of I-70 and took a stretch break, after which we took the lead. A few miles later we got to the construction on the short stretch where I-57 and I-70 run together. We had to drive 45 MPH but rolled right through. After the construction zone we took the center lane knowing that I-57 would split to the left from I-70 and continue southbound. Slow traffic is often worse than fast traffic as the cars end up bumper-to-bumper leaving no space for larger vehicles to change lanes.

Following the directions on our GPS we took exit 95 for Mt. Vernon, Illinois, drove a quarter mile, and turned left onto a road that ran down the west side of the Wal-Mart property. Linda had called ahead and been told it was OK for us to spend the night in their parking lot. The first two access drives, however, had crossbars at 12 feet so we could not turn in. The third driveway was for delivery trucks so we turned in there and headed back towards the north end of the lot by Ryan’s as Linda had been instructed on the phone. There were signs posted prohibiting semi-truck parking so we parked temporarily while Linda went in to check on the situation.

A women at customer service confirmed that we could spend the night and asked that we stay near the periphery of their parking lot away from the main doors. No problem. The lot we had pulled into was not the Wal-Mart lot and was a little tight but were able to extricate both coaches without unhooking our toads and moved them to the northeast corner of the adjacent/connected Wal-Mart parking lot. I leveled up as best I could, shut the engine off, and then closed the various air valves and switched the chassis batteries off.

The house batteries were at an 89% state of charge (SOC) when we arrived. We locked the bus and went for a walk around the east end of the building to scout out an exit route. We stopped in the store and bought a bag of Fritos and some popcorn oil. When we got back to the coach I started the diesel genset and turned on two of the electric toekick heaters while Linda used the induction cooker to prepare vegan burgers for dinner.

After we had eaten Linda and I sent TXT messages to several people. We then went over to visit briefly with Butch and Fonda and look at maps for tomorrow’s leg of the trip. When we returned to our coach we noticed that the generator had stopped running. Not good. I was able to restart it but each time it shut down, so I got Butch to come look at it.

There’s a solenoid that holds a fuel valve open and we thought that might be the problem, but it wasn’t. We checked the level of the oil but it was OK. I started it again and Butch noticed that the squirrel cage fresh air blower was not turning so I shut the engine off. Linda had been watching the gauges inside and said the water temperature was very high (off the end of the scale). Butch checked the blower to make sure it wasn’t stuck. I traced the wiring back to a panel with a couple of circuit breakers and one of them was popped. I reset it and restarted the engine and the blower came on. Linda reported that the water temperature immediately dropped. We suspected, but did not confirm, that the same breaker controlled the power to the large squirrel cage blower for the radiator, which is located in the inverter bay on the other side of the bus. I let it run for another hour and brought the house batteries up to 95%. It ran fine with normal water temperature and oil pressure so I think we found the problem and fixed it.

Linda read while I changed most of the clocks to Central Standard Time. I turned off the electric heating element in the Aqua-Hot to unload the GenSet and then shut it down for the night. I dialed the three Aqua-Hot thermostats back to 15 degrees C (59 degrees F) and turned on the Diesel burner. It is only supposed to get down to 32 degrees Fahrenheit overnight but Linda put an extra blanket on the bed since we will not be using the electric heating pads as they would draw too much energy from the batteries.

It was a long day but largely uneventful except for the beginning and the end. But all’s well that ends well, and this day did.

2014/12/04 (R) Roadside Repair

I was awake at 4:30 AM and got up to check on the SOC of the house batteries and turn on the Aqua-Hot engine pre-heat pump. The batteries were at 68 SOC. They were at 95% when I shut the generator off around 9 PM last night, so they had dropped 27% percentage points in 7.5 hours, a rate of 3.6 percentage points per hour or 10 percentage points every 2 hours and 45 minutes. We did not go out of our way to minimize loads, leaving some night lights on (DC), the Aqua-Hot (DC), and the main inverter loads (refrigerator, auxiliary air-compressor, microwave clock, outlets with chargers, etc.). At that rate it would take just under 14 hours for the batteries to drop to a 50% SOC, starting from 100%. I was satisfied with the performance of the system and went back to bed.

It started to rain off and on around 5:30 AM, the first sign of a wet day. I got up to stay at 7:15 AM and got dressed. I checked the SOC of the house batteries and it was 58%, so it had dropped another 10% in 2 and 3/4 hours, consistent with the 4:30 AM data. I started the generator to provide power for hot water, lights, and additional engine pre-heating. It would also start to bring the SOC of the house batteries back up before we started driving for the day, although the Zena power generating system on the main engine should be capable of recharging them in a couple of hours while we are driving.

Since we were not leaving until at least 9 AM we decided to have a light breakfast of raisin bread and grapefruit. After breakfast I powered up our Verizon Mi-Fi device, got my laptop connected to it, e-mailed yesterday’s blog post to myself (from my iPad), and then checked my e-mail (on my computer).

We had the coach straightened up and ready to go well ahead of our departure. Around 8:45 Butch indicated that they would be ready to go in 15 minutes. That was all the time I needed to get the car ready to tow, switch the coach batteries on, open the various air valves, shut off the Aqua-Hot pre-heat loop, and start the main engine. With the main engine running I turned off all of the loads on the generator, let it run unloaded for a few minutes to cool down, and then shut it off.

We pulled out at 9 AM and worked our way around behind the store and back out the unblocked entrance we came in yesterday. Instead of turning on Broadway to go back to the Interstate we crossed over and pulled into the Pilot Truck Stop so Butch could top off their fuel tank. We did not need fuel yet but I pulled in right behind him so we were positioned to pull out together.

We were back on I-57 headed south by 9:25 AM with Butch in the lead. We ran at 60 MPH through light rain and fog with overcast skies all the way to the end of I-57 at I-55 near Sikeston, Missouri, where we continued south towards Memphis, Tennessee. We eventually crossed into Arkansas and out of the rain, although the cloudy skies continued. About 25 miles north of the junction with I-40 Butch called on the radio to let us know that he needed to get off the road at the first safe place I could find. His air pressure had dropped to 60 PSI and was not building. A couple of miles later I pulled off onto the shoulder of an entrance ramp and he pulled off behind me. The brakes and suspension most highway buses are air-powered. Without proper air-pressure the bus cannot be driven.

The pressure in the system was holding which indicated a supply issue rather than a leak. The usual suspect in this situation is the “governor” (or less likely the unloader valves) on the main engine air-compressor. Butch had a spare governor in his parts kit but we were not in an ideal spot for changing it. He decided instead to hook up his portable air-compressor to his air system auxiliary fill connector. He put the portable air-compressor in the bedroom at the rear of the bus and had Fonda run the air hose out the passenger side window were I took it and zip tied it to the side radiator grill. Butch then ran it through a small access door by the passenger side rear lights and connected it to the fill valve. The portable air-compressor is an AC powered device, so Butch had to start their generator to power it. It gradually built the pressure to 100 PSI. The pressure was holding so Butch dial it up to 110 PSI. He left the portable air-compressor on for the rest of the trip and allowed us to get back on the road, making this a very clever emergency roadside fix.

After a 20 minute delay we pulled back onto I-55 and finished the run to I-40 with heavier traffic. We exited onto westbound I-40 in West Memphis, Arkansas and completed the 38 miles to Forest City, Arkansas without difficulty. We negotiated a tight turn onto the street where the Wal-Mart was located but had an easy time getting in at the far west entrance. From there we pulled up parallel to a north-south curb that ran the length of the west edge of the parking lot. We leveled up the coach (using the air springs), shut down the engine, and went through our usual dry-camping arrival routine.

As soon as we were set up Butch was back looking at his main engine air-compressor and then on the phone with Luke at U. S. Coach in New Jersey. He decided to change the governor as it couldn’t do any harm. I helped him (as best I could) but once the new governor was installed the compressor still would not build air pressure. The unloader valves were the next most likely (easiest to fix) culprits, but neither of us had the parts. There was an O’Reilly’s Auto Store across the main road from the Wal-Mart so we walked over there. They did not stock them either, but at least we got some exercise.

The house batteries were at 78% SOC when we arrived which disappointed me as I expected them to be at least at 88% like they were yesterday at the end of our drive. We were on the inverter from the time we started up at 9 AM until I turned the generator on at about 3:30 PM. At our normal rate of 3.6 percentage points per hour we would have been at ~72% SOC without any charging from the ZENA system, so 78% did not seem very good to me. It appears that I am going to have to adjust the charge voltage up somewhat on the ZENA power generating system as it should be supply enough current to run any AC loads while traveling (mostly the refrigerator) and fully recharge the house batteries. I let the generator run through dinner until bedtime. It brought the SOC back up to 91% with the charger in float mode supplying 10 Amps of current at 26.3 VDC. Once the charger is in float mode it can take a surprisingly long time to finishing bringing the batteries to full charge.

Some weeks back Butch bought a grandfathered Verizon unlimited data plan on Ebay using the Assumption Of Liability (AOL) process. He also picked up a used phone and a used Jetpack MiFi device. Both devices can use the SIM card, but he had not had a chance to connect the MiFi through to the Internet. We removed the card from the phone, installed it in the MiFi and powered it up. It found a strong Verizon 4G/LTE signal right away. The menu gave us the password and we were able to connect his laptop computer and my iPad. He started searching the web while I downloaded e-mails.

Linda and Fonda had walked to the store to buy a few things. When they got back we chatted for a bit and then went back to our coach. Linda made popcorn for me (she wasn’t hungry) and we relaxed for a while before going to bed.

2014/11/24-30 Together and Apart

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2014/11/24 (M) Martin Diesel

I set my alarm for 6 AM and got up when it sounded. I finished packing all of the things I had in the bedroom and then stripped the bed. At 6:45 AM I moved everything to the bus and started my final departure routine. I set the car for towing, opened all of the auxiliary air valves, and switched the chassis batteries on. I cleared the kitchen counter and checked that the refrigerator doors were latched. I then turned off the shore power, stowed the cord, secured the utility bay, and checked that all of the bay doors were closed and locked. I started the main engine and put it in high idle to help build air pressure. Once the bus was running I shut off the lights in the house and locked the door behind me.

I pulled out of Butch and Fonda’s place at 7:28 AM with the temperature in the low 50’s and strong winds out of the southwest. I took SR-16 east to US-31 south to US-24 east to Roanoke (IN) where I turned east on County Road N 900 E (Vine St.). I followed N 900 E, a two-lane road with a lot of heavy truck traffic, for about four miles where it became I-469 with exits for I-69. I-469 took me around the south and east sides of Ft. Wayne, Indiana to exit 21 where I rejoined US-24 eastbound. Except for the wind it was a shorter and easier run that staying on US-24 all the way to I-69.

The stretch of US-24 east of Ft. Wayne, Indiana is apparently new enough that my relatively new and updated Rand McNally RVND GPS did not know it existed and kept trying to route me onto the old roadway. Although not a limited access highway, it was posted at 65 MPH and I was able to travel comfortably at 62 MPH with very light traffic for the entire trip. I crossed into Ohio and continued on towards Defiance. I passed the main exit for Defiance and took exit 28, Domersville Road (OH-284), a little farther to the east. I headed south for about a mile and turned left on Deerwood, which intersects with County Road 424 (OH-284 passes over CR-424). Another mile east along the north bank of the Maumee River and I was at Martin Diesel. The new speedometer/odometer worked perfectly and I did not get a Check Engine Light the entire trip. At this point the “fuel temperature voltage high” problem is either fixed or has stopped registering fault codes. My transmission retarder was still not operational but I managed my deceleration by anticipating the need to stop and manually selecting lower gears. I arrived with the house batteries at 97% state of charge, indicating that the 24 VDC Zena power generating system appeared to be doing its job maintaining the house battery bank.

I pulled off the road, parked, and went in. Jim Martin wasn’t there but Paul seemed to know I was coming. I had to unhook the car and move it out of the way. I then had to back the bus between a racing trailer and a light/power pole with no more than 18″ to spare on each side. I raised the tag axle to shorten the turning radius and pulled around behind the building to the spot where they wanted it.

The motorcoach at Martin Diesel in Defiance, Ohio.

Paul assigned Jay to work on the generator and Mike came out to look at it. The hour meter on the unit showed 3099 hours and the one in the house systems panel showed 2625 hours but I had no idea if either of those were correct. Mike said it was important to replace the rear bearing on the generator before 5,000 hours and I decided to have them go ahead and do it. The unit was put in service in October 1990, after all, and I have no idea how many hours are actually on it or if/when/how it has been serviced. Jay changed the oil and filter, the fuel filter, and the air filter, and replaced the drive belt. I got a spare set of filters and a belt to take with me.

When Jay was done servicing the unit he started the unit to check for leaks and check the speed (frequency). It was running at 62.3 Hz with no load, and that is where they like to have them set. Jay pulled the cover off the free end of the generator and checked the gap, which he said was good (equal all the way around). He showed me the part he had to remove to get to the rear bearing and explained that it could take up to 2.5 hours to complete the job. That would have delayed my departure enough that I would arrive home after dark, or have to spend the night there. Getting home after dark was not an ideal scenario on such a windy day and I was anxious to get home rather than spend a night on the road. Jay also indicated that a replacement part was no longer available should this one get damaged. He had done this job before and was confident he could do it without damaging the part, but it was clear that he wasn’t keen on the idea, especially as he was working outside in falling temperatures and serious wind.

Jay and I discussed the situation with Paul and his opinion was to hold off and replace the bearing as part of a more extensive out-of-vehicle overhaul. Between the time required, the risk involved, and the “fact” that the unit was only 62% of the way to the recommended replacement hours, I decided to have them quit while we ahead.

Jay wanted to run the unit under load for a while so tried to turn on the air-conditioners, but they were all dead; no power. I turned on the electric toe kick heaters instead, but only the front and rear ones would run, so I also turned on the auxiliary air compressor. The refrigerator was running as was the house battery charger. The bathroom electric heater is on its own circuit breaker and Just this past week I tied in an outlet to that circuit for the vacuum cleaner and used it as recently as yesterday. I checked and had voltage and current on both legs, so it seemed unlikely that the GenSet was the problem.

The end of the generator exposed to get access to the rear bearing.

Jay had the work wrapped up by 2 PM and wrote it up so I could settle the bill. I had to back the bus out and get it turned around so I could hook up the car and pull out headed west on CR-424 back to Deerwood and then north on Domersville and back to US-24. My route home from there was US-24 east to I-475 north to US-23 north. I was unsure of the status of the construction work on Grand River Avenue so I sent Linda a TXT message before I pulled out. She confirmed that the construction was done so I exited US-23 onto westbound I-96, took exit 145 for Grand River Avenue towards Howell and then north on Hacker to our street. I pulled into the driveway at 5:02 PM. The wind was very strong and gusty out of the southwest the entire drive, and the temperature had dropped into the 30’s, but the bus and I did just fine, even without the transmission retarder.

Linda got home about five minutes after me. I turned on the outside RV outlet, plugged the coach in, closed various air valves, and turned off the chassis batteries. We sat for a while in the living room with the fire logs blazing and enjoyed a cup of hot tea. Butch had called me while I was driving so I called him back around 6 PM and brought him up to date on the electrical issues I discovered while I was at Martin Diesel. After another cup of tea Linda started fixing dinner while I unloaded clothes, technology, and some food items from the bus. We had an Amy’s Pizza Margherita for dinner with some Red Guitar Sangria. Yum. I enjoyed my time at Butch and Fonda’s, and got a lot done while I was there, but it was nice to be home.

2014/11/25 (T) New Tires

We slept in and had a lazy start to the day, enjoying our morning coffee in the living room to the warmth and glow of our new natural gas fireplace logs. I finished up yesterday’s blog post and continued working on the article for the GLCC newsletter about the October Surplus and Salvage rally. As much as we both would have liked a down day, and could have used one, we had too much to do to get ready for our family gathering on Thanksgiving and to get us, the bus, and the house ready for our departure on Sunday.

The Salvation Army was scheduled to pick up our old propane range today sometime between 8 AM and 7 PM, so that required us to coordinate our errands so that one of us was always at home until they got here. As it turned out the Salvation Army truck showed up at 9:15 AM, loaded the range, and were on their way by 9:30 AM. That freed up how we went about the rest of our day.

Linda got several calls from the bakery and ended up working on software issues off and on throughout the day. She cut my hair, which was overdue, after which I worked on the design for the organizer I’m going to build for the Honda Element. I unloaded the back of the Element so I could take measurements and to make room for the wood I needed for the project. I called Bill Gerrie in Ontario to discuss the transmission and engine computer issues that have appeared with the bus. I had no sooner finished the conversation when it was time for lunch.

After lunch I took a box of gifts for my sister to the UPS Store in Howell. I stopped at Teeko’s Coffee & Teas just up the street and ordered three different coffees for pickup on Friday. I then went to Discount Tire to get new tires for the Element. This is the busy season for Discount Tire and it took two hours before they were done, but to their credit that is exactly how long they told me it would take. I switched from the B. F. Goodrich trail-rated tire that was on the car to a similar, but better rated, Cooper Tire. I was told that the new tires should be a bit quieter and have better traction on slick surfaces but still hold up to the dirt roads in our area and when we travel.

Home Depot was next door to the tire store so I stopped there to see if they would cut plywood sheets to smaller sizes. They would, but they had pieces already cut to 2’x4′ and 2’x2′. I had planned to use 3/4″ plywood, but the 1/2″ pieces seemed sufficiently strong for my purpose. I assessed my design with respect to these sizes and decided they would work. I picked up some 36″ long 1″X1″ material to use as cleats. The size of this material made it easy to handle and get into my car. I bought a bottle of Tightbond wood glue but forgot to buy screws, so I stopped at Lowe’s and picked up some nice star drive 1-1/4″ outdoor wood screws with special points and a cutaway drill-like design. I will still pre-drill the holes to make sure the cleats do not split.

Linda had a 4 PM appointment to have her hair cut by Renee at the J. C. Penney’s salon at 12 Oaks Mall, so she was gone by the time I got home. I unloaded the wood I just bought, threw some laundry in the dryer, and got back to work on the GLCC rally article. Linda got home shortly thereafter and started putting dinner together. She made a whole wheat pasta with sun-dried tomatoes, onions, garlic, and greens lightly sautéed in olive oil. We had a glass of the Red Guitar Sangria to go with it. I have missed her cooking while I was away working on the bus.

After dinner I sent a TXT message to Chuck to let him know I was back and had some issues with the coach. I finished the GLCC rally article and sent it to the newsletter editors, Scott and Tami Bruner, and the rally hosts Pat and Vickie Lintner.

The things on our list that did not get done today included the following bus-related items:

Completely unloading the house portion of the bus.
Cleaning the interior of the bus.
Checking/diagnosing the bus AC house circuits.
Removing/checking/reinstalling the ATEC (?) connector on the DDEC II.

I also need to move items from the garage to the library that cannot be allowed to freeze and remove the wasp nest from the front of the house.

I plan to work on the organizer for the Element tomorrow morning and leave the bus stuff for Friday and Saturday. Brendan is bringing Madeline over tomorrow. She is going to stay overnight and we will take her to Meghan’s house on Thursday for the family Thanksgiving gathering. We will get some work done while Madeline is sleeping, but she gets our full attention when she is awake.

2014/11/26 (W) Return of Schmoo

I awoke at 5 AM and realized fairly quickly that I was not going to fall back asleep so I got up, put on my nice warm winter robe and fleece-lined slippers, and worked at my computer and iPad until Linda got up a little before 8 AM. I copied and pasted draft blog posts from my e-mail to MS Word from yesterday all the way back to November 7th. I have tried to write every day but have not uploaded to the web since the end of September. Next I organized the photographs I have taken this November. I then started updating the MS Excel spreadsheet I use to list my various bus projects and track their status.

When Linda arose she made a pot of coffee, so I took a break and enjoyed the brew. I had planned to start working on the plywood divider for the Back of the Honda Element, and Linda had planned to start preparing some of the food for tomorrow, until Brendan called at 8:45 AM to let us know he and Madeline would be at our house in about an hour, if that was alright with us. Of course it was. Given the short time until they arrived I continued working at my computer and Linda took a call from the bakery.

Brendan and Madeline arrived a little before 10 AM. Madeline was quickly engaged with the house and her special toys and books. Brendan stuck around through lunch and then headed back to Ann Arbor. Schmoo went down for her nap at 12:30 PM and I took advantage of her nap time to start building the first of two plywood dividers for the car. The first thing was to remove the passenger side rear seat from the Element, which took both of us. Linda then worked at her desk on bakery and personal items and made two relishes for tomorrow: regular cranberry-orange relish, and “Mama Stamberg’s Cranberry Relish,” made with cranberries, onions (Linda substituted shallots), horseradish, and “sour cream” (Linda used a vegan version, naturally). At the point where I had to assemble two sides and a shelf Linda helped hold the pieces together while I secured them with glue and screws.

We finished the divider, except for a couple of notches I have to cut out, around 3:15 PM just as Madeline was starting to wake up from her nap. Linda got her up and dressed at 3:30 PM. They played at various games while I took a little time to call my sister. I played with Madeline until dinnertime at 5:30 PM, giving Linda a chance to get the meal on the table. We all had the same thing; vegan “chicken nuggets”, corn kernels, baked sweet potatoes, and brown-n-serve dinner rolls with some orange juice to wash it down.

I amused Madeline while Linda cleared the table and loaded the dishwasher. We played at various things that delight an almost two-year-old child until 7:10 PM when I turned on the fireplace logs and dimmed the lighting in the living room. We started putting toys away and creating a calm mood to counter Madeline’s tendency to get slightly frantic just before she’s tired enough to go to bed. Linda got her changed into her pajama’s (“jammies”) at 7:30 PM and we all sat and watched the fire dance in the fireplace for a while until Madeline said she was ready to go to bed.

Once she was asleep we checked the fit of the divider around the air-compressor and determined it was good. I had a brief call from Pat Lintner about the GLCC rally article and exchanged TXT messages with Chuck about our transmission issues. I did a final check of e-mail and shut my computer down for the night. We had a few cookies and then turned in for the evening.

2014/11/27 (R) Giving Thanks

Linda was up at 6:30 AM and working in the kitchen on dishes for the family gathering later in the day. Madeline woke up at 7:00 and Linda had her up shortly thereafter. I got up and put on my robe and supervised her first play of the day while Linda got breakfast ready. Linda made a pot of oatmeal with raisins, which we enjoyed, but Schmoo preferred her banana and “toast” (bread) with peanut butter. We all had orange juice and the adults had coffee. I suspect Madeline will learn to enjoy coffee much younger than most people, but not for quite a while yet.

There are lots of little rituals at this age and one of them is the washing of hands and face after a meal. Madeline likes our hall bathroom because the mirrored walls on three sides of the counter allow her to see an infinite set of receding images of herself. She and I sat in the living room and played with Legos while Linda cleaned up the breakfast dishes. I then took a shower while Linda played with Schmoo. Once I was dressed I took over child amusement duties while Linda showered and dressed and gathered up all of the stuff that had to go with us to our daughter and son-in-law’s house for Thanksgiving.

We took two cars with Linda driving Madeline in her car and me following in mine. Our son and daughter-in-law are going to keep Linda’s Honda Civic for the winter, so they will take it to their house after dinner and I will drive us home. Linda had finished the holiday and birthday shopping over the weekend and we brought all of the presents with us, to be distributed and opened at the appropriate time in our absence. We got to Chris and Meghan’s house around 11 AM. Katie (Chris’ daughter) was already there, having spent the night, and Brendan and Shawna showed up around 11:30 AM, completing the family gathering.

Madeline was very excited to see her parents, of course, although she is also very comfortable being away from them if she is with people she knows and trusts. She was a busy girl for about an hour and then went down for her afternoon nap. That gave the adults a chance to visit and finish the dinner preparations. Madeline got up at 2:30 PM, a shorter than normal nap, and was active until dinnertime. We brought a bottle of champagne that we used to toast the occasion before sitting down to eat at 4 PM.

We had a nice assortment of dishes for dinner, many of them vegan in consideration of how Linda and I choose to eat as well as Meghan’s food sensitivities. The meal was the combined effort of Linda, Brendan, and Meghan and included turkey and gravy that Brendan made and everyone but us had. Everything else was vegan. Linda made Tofurkey and gravy, dinner rolls, cranberry orange salad, Mama Stamberg’s cranberry salad, quinoa salad with pomegranates and pistachios, and mashed sweet potatoes with currants and spices. Meghan made white chunk-style mashed potatoes, corn bread stuffing, and green bean salad. Brendan and Shawna brought a couple bottles of wine, a 2012 German Kreuznacher Kronenberg Riesling Spatlese and a 2010 French Chateau Le Gay Bordeaux. It is fun having adult children who enjoy and appreciate these things.

Shawna and Meghan changed Madeline’s dress and Brendan took “Christmas” pictures, hoping to get one they could use on their holiday card. While the photo shoot was going on Meghan made an avocado chocolate mousse for dessert. She served the mousse with fresh berries and also had a spiced pumpkin cake she had made earlier. Both were vegan and amazing. The entire meal was skillfully prepared and very tasty; as good a Thanksgiving dinner as one could want.

We visited for a while after dinner and Katie received 18th birthday gifts from her dad and Meghan and from us. Brendan and Shawna gathered up their stuff first and got Madeline bundled up against the cold for the ride home. Linda gave Brendan the registration and insurance and two keys to her car and he drove it to their house for the winter. We packed up some leftovers and left about 15 minutes later. When we got home I made some green tea while Linda called her sister, who spends Thanksgiving with their brother Ron, his wife Mary, some of Ron’s children and her family. At least that is what they usually do. I checked e-mail and realized that MS Outlook 2013 has been shuffling e-mails to my junk folders since July, so I dragged all of them back to my various inboxes. We watched an episode of NCIS on the iPad and then went to sleep.

The notion of Thanksgiving, of setting aside a special day to “give thanks,” is based at its core on the idea that something outside ourselves is responsible for what we have in life, whatever degree of good fortune (or lack thereof) we might have experienced, either in the prior year, or cumulatively. For many people this is a giving of thanks to a higher being that is globally credited with this responsibility. That idea holds no meaning for us, of course, but we certainly recognize that there are numerous people who daily impact our situation in life and are (or should be) thanked for what they do. When the interactions are direct there is the opportunity to say “thank you” and we try to do that. Yesterday and this morning, for example, we were gently reinforcing Madeline’s use of “please” and “thank you” in her common, daily interactions with people.

I am certainly glad to be with family on a day that is set aside for enjoying their company and reflecting on the fact that all of us have so far worked out very good lives and have bright futures to the extent they are under our control. I looked up the term “gratitude” and although Wikipedia links it to “thankfulness” and “appreciation,” and discusses its religious connections at length, it also discusses the recent interest in the study of gratitude by psychologists as a positive emotion that enriches our own lives and the lives of others. I am, in that sense, grateful for the people in my life and the life we have and do not have a better term to express a conscious recognition of the quality of my life and the importance of the people in in it.

2014/11/28b (F) Black Friday

The leftovers have barely cooled off and the commercial holiday season is red hot. I know, because we are receiving a steady flow of e-mails alerting us to “once-in-lifetime, lowest-price-of-the-season, never-to-be-seen-again, Black Friday” deals. Pardon me if I’m a bit bah humbug about this, but I am still digesting my dinner from yesterday and I am just not that found of crowds, shopping or otherwise. No, we slept in, had our usual breakfast, drank our coffee by the warmth and glow of our fireplace, played a few games on our iPads (because we are retired and we can), and got ready for our final two-day push to get the bus, the house, and us ready for the winter.

We are more relaxed about all of this than we were last year for several reasons. For one, we are now “experienced” so we have a clearer picture of what we need to do and how long it will take. For another, we are leaving 20 days earlier than last year with a weather forecast that is still colder than we would like but without significant snow or the threat of ice. We also do not have to be at specific places on specific dates, so we have more flexibility in our preparations and travels than we had last year. We have a different guy (Kerry Fear) doing snow removal this year and are more comfortable that he will reliably take care of our driveway since he lives nearby and only does about a dozen residences (no commercial properties) including our neighbor to the rear (Sean) which is where we got his name. Finally, we now have natural gas being piped to the house and are disconnected from our propane tanks, which means we do not have to worry about running out of fuel and not being able to get more and/or being gouged with spot market prices.

Once we got busy our first task was to put the air-compressor box in the Honda Element to see how it fit and so I could get final measurements for the second box that will go behind the driver side rear seat. We then unloaded the house portion of the coach and brought everything into the (fixed) house so we could: a) clean the inside (of the bus), and; b) sort through all of the “stuff,” decide what was going back onboard, stage it for reloading, and store what was staying behind.

I helped with the unloading process and then busied myself finishing the air-compressor box. I had planned to build a second box to put behind the driver side passenger seat. However, once I got the air-compressor box trimmed and we got it installed there wasn’t enough room for the second box. I also thought about building a shelf to put under the dinette seat so the dinette base could slide under it, allowing us to store things under the seat without them being disturbed by the in/out motion of the table. I did not have pieces of plywood the size I needed and Linda correctly noted that we planned to tear out that side of the bus next year anyway so perhaps this wasn’t the best use of my time. She’s good that way.

Instead of building things I started sorting and staging all of the stuff we took off the bus this morning. Some of it is staying home, some will go in the car, some will go in the bus bays, and the rest will go in the living area of the bus. Somewhere in the middle of that process we took a break and had some of the leftover quinoa salad, only Linda served it warm instead of cold. We had a few grapes to go with it.

I decided that I wanted to take our extra Webasto burner assembly with us with the hope that I might order a blower bearing kit and new style banjo fuel fittings and rebuild the burner once we get settled. The burner was installed in Butch’s old Aqua-Hot so I removed it. We put it in a 10 gallon ZipLock bag, wrapped it in bubble wrap, and stored it vertically in a 5 gallon utility bucket with the nozzle and ignition electrodes pointing up. The bucket had a gasket sealed lid and we had been using it to store cat food until today. The burner is a very expensive assembly and we needed to ensure it did not get damaged.

While Linda worked at her desk I investigated the problem with the (lack of) AC power to the air-conditioners. I consulted the conversion documentation, which includes a list of the numbered wires in the 12VDC distribution panel in the front center ceiling area, and it indicated that wire #17 was the feed for the air-conditioning switches. I located wire #17 in the panel and checked for voltage on the feed and load sides of the 2 Amp blade fuse. I had 13.3 volts on the feed side but nothing on the load side indicating a blown fuse. I pulled it out and examined it and it was definitely open. I checked a replacement fuse for continuity before I inserted it but forgot to check for voltage on the load side before turning on the switch for the rear air-conditioner. (I chose the rear air unit because it does not involve the Mac solenoid air valve that controls the shutters in the front of the spare tire compartment where the front and middle air-conditioner compressors are located.) I did not get power to the unit so I pulled the new fuse and it was blown open. Clearly there is a short but I will have to track it down another time. It was getting dark and dinner was about to be served.

We had leftovers for dinner; Tofurkey with vegan gravy, cranberry-orange relish, and dinner rolls. Linda also roasted some fresh asparagus to round out the meal. After dinner I drove to Teeko’s to pick up our coffee order but discovered that they closed at 4:30 PM today so I drove back home. It was the end of the evening rush hour, dark, snowing, and Black Friday so I had no interest in being out on the road or in any stores.

I brought both of our GPS units into the house intending to update them tonight, but it’s going to be tomorrow. I called Butch and talked to him briefly, and then called Chuck and left a message. He called back and we had a nice chat.

Our pace was not frantic but we were busy most of the day and very focused on getting certain things done. The bus is clean (on the inside), we are in the process of organizing all of the stuff that has to go onboard, and the car is set up so we can take the large air-compressor and still carry lots of other stuff, including a spare starter motor for the bus engine and a spare Webasto burner head for the Aqua-Hot. Trying to figure out what spare parts to carry is a never-ending process, and whatever we bring we usually don’t need but wish we had brought something we left at home. It is one of those things we just have to accept about this lifestyle.

2014/11/29 (S) 73s

Today was our last opportunity to have breakfast with our friends from the South Lyon Area Amateur Radio Club (SLAARC) until we return from our winter adventure. We overslept, got there about 15 minutes later than normal and left earlier than usual. “Seven Three” (singular) or “Seven Threes” (plural) is what ham radio operators often say when concluding a conversation. It’s a shorthand for “goodbye” or “farewell till next time.” It isn’t shorter when spoken, but it’s a carryover from CW operation (Continuous Wave, more commonly known as Morse code) where it only involves keying two numbers. Ham radio has a lot of things like that which adds to the challenge and enjoyment of the hobby.

From breakfast we headed to a couple of different banks, Walmart, and finally Teeko’s Coffee and Tea to pick up our order of custom roasted beans. We then headed home to start loading the bus. Linda kept adding items to her shopping list as she only wanted to make one trip to the store if possible.

It was a busy day and would be difficult, and perhaps a bit tedious, to try to describe exactly what we did and in what order. Basically, I sorted stuff according to where it had to go and then loaded/organized the car and the front bus bay while Linda took care of organizing the living area, which included all of the food and clothing. I replaced our sewer hoses with the new RhinoFLEX components from Camco and filled our fresh water tank with nice filtered/softened water.

While Linda was at the store I worked on the transmission retarder problem. I disconnected all of the harnesses from the DDEC II engine control module and checked for bent pins. All of the pins where present and straight so I carefully reconnected all of the harnesses. I checked the front and rear chassis electrical bays and found three circuit breakers that had tripped; one in the front that had something to do with the transmission retarder switch and two in the rear, one of which had to do with the retarder and dashboard “tattle tale” light. The other one was marked for the air dryer. I connected the chassis batteries and turned the ignition switch to the ‘on’ position and checked that the circuit breakers did not trip.

I decided I wanted to start the engine so I turned on the electric block heater, the Aqua-Hot electric heating element, and the Aqua-Hot engine pre-heat pump and let them run for an hour. I started the bus and backed it up about 10 feet and then pulled it forward to its original parking place. I had the retarder switch on with my foot off the accelerator and on the brake pedal, but the tattle tale light still did not come on. I took the cover off of the dashboard and removed the light bulb from the tattle tale to see if it was burned out. It wasn’t, so I buttoned everything back up. I put all of the tools back in the correct tool boxes and loaded them into their storage places for travel.

Linda returned from her shopping trip and finished loading food onboard the bus. She also picked up some of our favorite food from La Marsa; crushed Lentil soup, green salad, and Koshary, with pocket bread and garlic spread. Not having to cook gave her the time she needed to go through the mail and pay bills.

I made my first pass at selecting clothes so Linda could load them on the bus while I made a run to Walmart for batteries for her BAHA and some shaving cream. I stopped at Lowe’s for some 1.25″ 8×32 machine screws (that might work to mount the inclinometer) and some decorative head wood screws (that might work in place of the filler plugs used to hide the screws in the woodwork). I then stopped at O’Reilly’s Auto Parts for two 12 VDC automotive accessory plugs.

When I got home Linda heated up dinner and we enjoyed a nice meal that did not take a lot of time/effort on her part. After dinner I started a second load of laundry (Linda did the first one) and then took my computer, digital camera, and both GPS units downstairs to my desk. I transferred photo files to the NAS drive that will remain at home and then went through the update process on each GPS. When the laundry was done I made my final clothing selections. I did not have time to gather up CD’s, so we will do that in the morning. As usual, the GPS update process took a very long time so I left it to run overnight and went to bed.

2014/11/30 (N) Arizona Bound (Eventually)

I woke up at 4:30 AM and got up to check on the progress of the GPS update process. I also needed to install 96 updates on my Linux box so I started that process. While I was in my office I put pre-cut pieces of insulation in the three windows of my office and the window in the sump pump closet. I went back to bed at 5:30 AM and slept until Linda got up at 7 AM.

We skipped breakfast and started the final loading of the bus, which included shoes, coats, and computers. When everything was onboard we connected the car for towing. We then disconnected the AC shorepower cord, stowed it for travel, and turned our attention to closing up the house.

Linda closed all the blinds, set the thermostats back, and opened all of the cabinets that contained water pipes while I went around and poured RV antifreeze down every trap in the house. She also turned off the pilot light for the gas fireplace logs. We turned off the well pump, shut the valve on the incoming water line, unplugged all of the water treatment equipment, and removed the batteries from the softener and sanitizer. She took pictures on her phone of everything in its normal (operating) condition so she could turn it back on when she flies back in February to do tax work. I showed her where the small gas shutoff valve was located and she turned that off, cutting off gas to the fireplace, the kitchen range, and the outside grill quick-disconnect. Two of the computers still needed to install their updates. We did not want to wait for them to complete the process so I selected “Install updates and shut down.” Our second-to-last task was installing the glass storm door insert in the front door and storing the screen insert downstairs. Our last task was putting the cats onboard the bus.

One of the decisive moments in this departure process, albeit not at all dramatic, was locking the front door to the house for the last time in quite a while. Another was walking down our relatively new front stairs and sidewalk, which had made loading the coach a much more pleasant and safe endeavor, again for the last time in a while. Or perhaps it was finally turning the ignition key, such a small simple object, and bringing the large, powerful, and complex Detroit Diesel engine to life along with the rest of the coach. Or maybe it was pulling up the tag axle in preparation for the tight 180 degree turn we had to make to get out of our pull-through driveway and onto our street headed in the right direction. But the final, decisive moment, was putting the transmission into 1st gear, releasing the parking brake, touching the accelerator, finally moving the great beast of a bus forward, the first inches of a round trip that will likely cover at least 5,000 miles. We noted the time of our departure at 10:52 AM EDT, marking the end of preparation and the beginning of travel.

We turned off of our street onto Hacker Road which, we learned from Saturday’s mail, is finally going to be paved from Golf Club north to M-59. Hacker is the eastern boundary of our township and the western boundary of the township to the east and the two townships are apparently going to split the cost of the project equally. This was welcomed news for us as it will reduce the amount of dirt road we have to deal with to just our street.

Our first destination was Twelve Mile, Indiana where the bus has been since late September. We took my preferred route, following M-59 west to I-96 west to I-69 south into Indiana where we picked up US-20 westbound. I really like this stretch of US-20; there are very few stops or places we have to slow down, the road surface is in excellent condition, and the last 20 miles before US-31 is a multi-lane divided limited access freeway. We exited US-20 just south of South Bend, Indiana onto southbound US-31. This was the first time Linda has been on the new section of US-31. We passed SR-16 (IN) and drove another six miles to Gallahan’s Truck Stop and topped off the fuel tank. Based on the mileage on the new odometer our fuel economy computed as 4.9 mpg. I had topped off the tank this past Sunday but I had also been running the Aqua-Hot. Still, we were expecting more like 5.9 MPG, which is 20% better.

We back-tracked north on US-31 to SR-16 west and arrived in Twelve Mile just after 4 PM. I pulled into the U-shaped driveway that services the grain elevator across the street from Butch and Fonda’s place, parked the coach, and shut off the engine. We grabbed our rain coats and went in search of Butch and Fonda. We found them in the parts room working on insulating their well pump, pressure tank, filter, and lines. They had a dumpster sitting where I usually park our coach so Butch moved it inside the warehouse with his forklift. While Butch took care of that we unhooked our car and moved it out of the way. Linda then spotted for traffic and got me backed into our parking spot. We were positioned a little better for electrical power but still had to use our 50 Amp extension cord to reach the outlet. With temperatures dropping back below freezing tonight and Linda cooking our meals I wanted the full electrical hookup rather than the 30 Amp outlet by the automotive garage.

We visited briefly with Butch and Fonda but did not want to take them away from their work. Fonda and I gave Linda a tour of their bus, after which we retired to our own coach for the evening. Jasper had come out from under the front passenger seat as soon as we got parked. Juniper was much slower to emerge but finally did. Linda made seitan stroganoff for dinner, served over white rice (the way I like it) accompanied by a nice green salad and a glass of Moscato. We were very tired and went to bed at 8 PM, but it was nice to finally be back on the road together.

2014/11/03-09 A Week at Home

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Note: There are no photographs for this consolidated post. Sorry. 🙁

2014/11/03 (M) Getting Ready

Linda was up early and off to the bakery. I got up an hour later and had some raisin toast for breakfast. Whenever I have had time since I got home on Friday I have been working on the project list for our bus. I worked on it some more this morning but eventually had to set it aside while I made some phone calls, tried to deal with an issue with Linda’s Samsung laptop computer, and got documents ready to upload to my Dropbox for a meeting on Wednesday afternoon.

I called Bill Jensen, the national service advisor for conversion shells at Prevost Car Inc., but his voice message said he was unavailable indefinitely and gave alternate contact info. The main contact was Kevin Laughlin so I called him. I described the shorter ride height linkage and the downward pointing position of the ride height valve lever arm in its neutral position. He agreed that neither of these seemed right.

I called Prevost and ordered a new ride height valve and two CX-96 (Gates) drive belts for the OTR air-conditioning compressor. I then called Martin Diesel in Defiance, Ohio and made an appointment to have the diesel generator in our coach serviced on the 20th and 21st if needed. I also needed to call Webasto technical support but did not get that call made today; maybe on Wednesday (or Thursday).

Linda’s Samsung laptop suddenly decided to turn the screen brightness down and she has not been able to turn it back up. It’s bright enough to see in somewhat dim conditions, but still uncomfortably dim for general office use. I did a Google search and found that lots of other folks had encountered the same problem and had advice on how to fix it. I shared several links with Linda but she could not get it to work.

I put the finishing touches on the FMCA Freethinkers Associate Chapter’s financial statements, roster, and minutes of last year’s’ meeting. I uploaded them to Dropbox and e-mailed the chapter members that the materials where there.

Linda got home later than usual from the bakery so we decided to go to La Marsa in Brighton for dinner. It’s our favorite local restaurant but was more crowded than on a regular Monday due to the buffet they have the first Monday of each month and we had to wait about 20 minutes for a table. We ordered the almond garlic Ghallaba from the menu, one of our two favorite vegan dishes, but it was not as good as usual. Not bad just somewhat flat, as if they had left out the garlic. It was 8:30 PM by the time we got home and we turned in for the night fairly quickly.

2014/11/04 (T) Election Day

Linda did not go into the bakery today. We spent much of the day together and this is what we did:

Had raisin toast for breakfast with Orange juice and banana…
..
Got passport photos at Rite-Aid in Brighton…
Went to Panera for coffee…
Drove to Dearborn for dental hygienist appointments…
Drove back to Farmington Hills where we went to McDonald’s and had French fries for lunch…
Drove a mile to the Henry Ford Health System Columbus Center in Novi for flu shots…
Drove back home where we had a few chips and hummus for an afternoon snack…

I drove to Brighton Honda for a 3:30 PM appointment to have the Element’s recalled air bag serviced. The appointment took 45 minutes by which time the traffic was really bad. Because of the combination of rush hour traffic and the ongoing re-paving of Grand River Avenue just west of the dealership a left turn was going to be near impossible. I needed to get to Latson Road and Grand River Avenue so I made the easy right (and correct) turn out of the dealership and quickly got on I-96 westbound. I took the relatively new Latson Road exit and stopped at Walmart to stock up on ICE brand water. I went to Meijer’s for a Mega-Millions lottery ticket and then to O’Reilly’s Auto Parts for two more 12VDC duplex power outlets. It was still raining lightly, as it had been for most of the day, so I returned home by way of Grand River Avenue and Hacker Road which kept me on pavement for most of the trip.

Linda heated up the leftover chili for dinner. She continued to try different things to get her Samsung laptop to allow her to adjust the screen brightness and return it to normal but nothing worked. I took a little time to update WordPress websites and tweak the Wordfence login security. We then filled out and printed our passport renewal applications and got them ready to mail. We also figured out how to create, share, and synchronize multiple calendars on multiple devices so that we can now see the same information on our laptops, tablets, and smartphones. It’s all about Google.

Linda was tired and needed to get up early but something had broken on our bed foundation and needed to be fixed, if only temporarily. We are still using the plastic foundation that came with our select comfort air mattress years ago and one of the cross members that carry the load to the side rails had come loose from the interlocking top platform and dropped down. We had to get the mattress off the bed to work on the platform. We got it put back together for now, but we need to get a box spring or other foundation to replace it. That probably won’t happen until spring.

2014/11/05 (W) The Day After

Yesterday’s election results were generally as predicted, so nothing to cheer about from our point of view, but the world did not come to an end either. Elections change very little in the short-term and the daily tasks of living continue regardless of who does or does not get elected. We were happy, of course, that Gary Peters won the U. S. Senate seat and that Debbie Dingle was elected to the U. S. House of Representatives. We were especially pleased that our friend, Brian Robb, won re-election to the Ypsilanti City Council and that Richard Bernstein was elected to the Michigan Supreme Court, but saddened to learn that Casandra Ulbrich failed in her attempt to get re-elected to the State Board of Education. And so it goes with American politics.

Linda was back at the bakery today reviewing the period accounting and continuing to answer questions and monitor the use of the new software. I took care of some e-mails and then headed to the Brighton post office to mail our passport renewals. I refueled my car at Meijer’s for $2.899/gal and then stopped at Bed, Bath, and Beyond to exchange two Sodastream CO2 cartridges. BB&B is in the same strip mall as the Panera, so I stopped in for some coffee.

When I got home UPS had already delivered my package from Prevost. I took the trash can to the street first and then I opened the box and verified the contents. I installed one of the Sodastream cartridges but the display would not reset. The unit has an LCD display so I figured it had a battery hidden somewhere. I released a clip at the top of the display and the whole display module came out with the nickel-sized battery was installed on the back side. I started to remove it and the display changed, so I figured it needed a new battery. I did not think we had any of this type of battery in the house but Linda told me later that we did.

I had not backed up all of my photo files from last week so I spent some time in the early afternoon copying files from my camera to my laptop and then from my laptop to both of our NAS units. I printed off all of the documents I needed for the FMCA Freethinkers Associate Chapter annual meeting and was responding to an e-mail when Tony and Mark from GSI showed up to install the new natural gas fireplace logs and hookup the new natural gas outdoor grill.

Tony and his wife own GSI but he had Mark install the fireplace while he worked on the grill. He installed the new disconnect but when leak testing discovered that there was a small leak on the output side of the shutoff valve. I had to shut off the gas supply to that branch circuit, which also supplies gas to the kitchen range and the fireplace, so he could work on it. Tony removed the new disconnect, installed a new valve, and reinstalled the disconnect. I turned the gas supply on and he retested for leaks but did not find any. He suggested that we run it for a while to burn off manufacturing oils and other things that initially produce odors and can affect the taste of foods cooked in the unit. I got the stainless steel heat diffuser and two cast iron grills and set them in place. The left burner lit easily using the battery powered piezoelectric igniter and the right grill lit easily from the left one.

Linda got home at 3:30 PM while Tony and Mark were still working and took over interacting with them while I got ready for our 4 PM telephone meeting. She got instructions on how to light/operate both appliances, paid them, and then joined me for the meeting. By 4:05 PM we had 14 “F” numbers represented, safely exceeding our quorum requirement of 10, and Bob Pelc called the meeting to order. The meeting was friendly but efficient. We conducted all of the necessary annual chapter business and adjourned at 4:42 PM. I was re-elected to another 2-year term as chapter secretary but did not run for chapter vice-president, the position I have held since the chapter was formed in June 2010.

After the meeting Linda shut off the outdoor grill and we sat in the living room monitoring our fireplace logs and discussing dinner options. As a result Linda decided to make waffles. She tried a different recipe and substituted pastry flour instead for regular flour. Neither of us understand the difference, at a food chemistry level, but she apparently invented/discovered something that will stick to Teflon-coated cookware; really, really tightly. The waffles were crispy and tasted fine, once we got them out of the waffle iron, but they would not have won any prizes for presentation.

We spent a couple more hours after dinner sitting in the living room letting the firelogs operate with the flue opened a bit. Tony and Mark said it can take up to 20 hours of use for the unit to stop producing odors and suggested that we operate it with the flue slightly open while breaking it in. The logs are a non-vented design, just like a kitchen range, which means they are designed to operate without being vented to the outside yet not produce harmful combustion by-products such as carbon monoxide. At 8:50 PM I turned the logs down to their lowest setting. Linda shut the unit off at 9:15 PM (it has an On/Off/Remote switch but we do not have a remote). The pilot light does not consume enough air or produce enough heat and combustion by-products to be a safety or economic concern, so I left it on, closed the flue, and went to bed.

2014/11/06 (R) Inductive Thinking

Linda left the house before I awoke and spent a long day at the bakery. I spent most of the day at the dining room table working at my computer. I typed up the draft minutes from yesterday’s FMCA Freethinkers annual meeting, generated PDFs of the chapter’s financial reports, uploaded files to the Dropbox folder, and reorganized it.

I took a break at noon and drove into Novi to have a look at Chuck’s latest bus projects and then go to lunch at the local Leo’s Coney Island. The new wedge cabinet and Corian top look and fit great between the end of the new couch and the kitchen base cabinet. He did a nice job replacing the outside Jenn Air electric cooktop/grill, which was mounted in a pull-out tray in one of the bays, with two Indufix 2-hob induction cooktops. The tray has an open bottom and is supported by four heavy duty extension slides, two on each side. The induction units are from Germany and came with European “208VAC” plugs. They are strictly 208/240 VAC devices and do not have a neutral connection. The wire colors are also different with brown and blue for the L1 and L2 (hot, load) and yellow/green for the ground. Chuck had an addendum sheet explaining the color codes and how to match them up to the U. S. standard.

For lunch I had a small Greek salad without feta cheese and an order of French fries. Chuck had a more substantial meal with a salad, chicken on skewers, and rice. I was back home by 3:00 PM and settled back into my computer-based work.

Linda got home around 6:15 PM and made barbecued tofu sandwiches with grilled onions and corn on the cob. We washed it down with Leelanau Cellars sweet Red Table Wine. It was labeled semi-sweet but it reminded me of the King of the North wine from Red Trail Vineyards in North Dakota which had a distinctly grape juice taste. I liked it and Linda said she did too, which surprised me a little, as she tends to like dryer red wines.

After dinner Linda read and played online word games on her iPad to the warm glow of our new natural gas fireplace logs. These logs are a high-efficiency, unvented design and actually through heat into the living room rather than up the chimney. I continued reformatting the Freethinkers chapter roster, uploaded it to my Dropbox, and e-mailed the members to let them know it was available and ask them to review their listing and get back to me with corrections. RVillage had notified me that someone wanted to join both the CCO and GLCC groups so I logged in and approved those.

I discovered the other day that Wordfence will allow me to block individual IP addresses so I would like to find the time to go back through the “User Locked Out” notification e-mails and enter some of the most egregious repeat offenders. But not tonight. It’s late, Linda is already asleep, and I’m tired.

2014/11/07 (F) 50% plus

My objectives for today were the following:

Finish up yesterday’s blog post and start working on today’s…
Read a few of the blogs I follow in Feedly (I am way behind)…
Move the spare Aqua-Hot from the garage to the library…
Move any other freeze sensitive items from the garage to the library…
Finish the drywall compound work in the library…
Call Webasto technical support…
Measure the inside of the Honda Element…
Buy plywood to build the storage divider for the Element…
Start building the storage divider for the Honda Element…
Use the blower to clear the leaves from the deck and planting beds….
Prepare the FMCA Freethinker annual chapter certification paperwork…
Select a few photos to go with blog posts going back to early October…
Start uploading blog posts to our website…

That was obviously more than I could possibly accomplish in one day, but it helps to write it down. Here is how I did…

Finish up yesterday’s blog post and start working on today’s…check.
Read a few of the blogs I follow in Feedly (I am way behind)…check.
Move the spare Aqua-Hot from the garage to the library…check.
Move any other freeze sensitive items from the garage to the library…some.
Finish the drywall compound work in the library…check.
Make an unplanned trip to Lowe’s and Sherwin Williams for paint supplies…Yes.
Prime the areas in the library where the drywall work was done…Yes!
Call Webasto technical support…check.
Measure the inside of the Honda Element…check.
Buy plywood to build the storage divider for the Element…no.
Start building the storage divider for the Honda Element…no.
Use the blower to clear the leaves from the deck and planting beds….no.
Prepare the FMCA Freethinker annual chapter certification paperwork…no.
Select a few photos to go with blog posts going back to early October…no.
Start uploading blog posts to our website…no.

That’s 6-1/2 + 2 out of 13 + 2 or 8-1/2 out of 15 which is over 50%; not bad. I might have gotten one or two other things done, or at least started, but we ended up meeting Chuck at BD’s Mongolian Bar-B-Que in Novi for dinner at 7:00 PM. Barbara was still attending to out-of-town family business and Chuck appreciated not dining alone. We were at the restaurant for over two hours and had a nice meal and great conversation in spite the very loud, upbeat youthful vibe of the place. Next time we will try Sizzling Sticks in Northville; same kind of food but a much more subdued atmosphere according to Chuck. Overall it was another good day.

2014/11/08 (S) Steve and Karen

We had a good sized crowd at the ham radio breakfast this morning. We did not have to be anywhere at any particular time, and we were enjoying the conversation, so we stayed a little longer than usual. Once we got back to the house I changed into work clothes for drywall and painting while Linda gathered up the recyclables and finished her grocery list. She left to run the errands and I got the painting tools/supplies out.

Linda dropped off the recyclables, stopped at the bank, stopped at Lowe’s to return something that it turned out we had not purchased there, and then did the grocery shopping at Meijer’s. While she was gone I put a first coat of paint on the areas of the west wall of the library where I had repaired the drywall. The item she planned to return was a can of Great Stuff Fire Block that broke yesterday when I tried to use it. It turned out that I had not purchased it at Lowe’s as they do not sell it. They sell a 3M product for the same application, which I had sitting in the garage but had overlooked. I used it to try to fill gaps around the gas supply pipe and the condensate drain, which were open clear through to the outside, and the double-walled flue pipe and gas pipe that pass through the furnace closet wall. I applied the foam from inside the furnace closet and will need another can to finish the job from the outside of the closet.

Linda started putting together supper while I gathered up laundry and started a load. I spent some quiet time with Jasper, our very sweet 10-year old cat, and then settled in to write and read for a while.

Steve and Karen arrived at 5 PM and we visited while Linda put the finishing touches on dinner. She made the warm Farro dish with kale, dried cranberries, almonds, garlic, and onions and roasted asparagus as a side. She has the Farro dish tagged “good for company.” We still have a few bottles of the 2009 Egri Merlot and the slightly sweet full body of this wine went very nicely with the earthy Farro. She made a chocolate cake for dessert with raspberry sauce made from fresh raspberries. I think the cake was her best yet; very moist with just the right texture. Vegan baking is tricky and Linda is still figuring it out. Sometimes the cakes are a bit dry and other times they lean towards being brownies but tonight she got it just right.

Steve brought his Raspberry Pi single board computer (SBC) and an SD card with photos of their recent (September) trip out west. He connected the Pi to our TV/monitor in the basement so we could all comfortably see the photos. They had excellent weather and some fall colors the days they were in Yellowstone National Park and got some nice images. But we spent most the evening sitting in the living room enjoying the new natural gas firelogs and catching up on what we had been doing since we last saw each other. They left around 10:30 PM and we had everything picked up by 11 PM and headed off to bed.

2014/11/09 (N) Wrapping Up

Today was mostly about wrapping up the library drywall/painting project and other minor chores, doing laundry, and getting me packed for a two week return visit to Twelve Mile, Indiana to work on our bus and help Butch and Fonda work on theirs.

Linda made blueberry pancakes for breakfast, which is always a treat. I made a trip to Lowe’s for a nine inch disposable paint roller cover and another can of 3M Fireblock spray foam. I used the can of spray foam to finish sealing the gaps in the utility closet wall openings where the black iron gas pipe and the double-wall flu pass into the garage. I only needed a little more foam to finish the utility closet openings so I used the rest of the can to fill gaps around the rear entrance door in the garage.

I used some scrap packing paper from recent Prevost shipments and some frog tape to mask the opening for the library furnace return air grille. I then used flat black spray paint to make everything that is visible through the slots in the cover disappear. Finally, it was time to paint walls.

I used a small brush to cut in the adjacent wall and ceiling with the Sherwin-Williams Extra White satin finish paint. I removed the cover plates from two outlets and a switch and then rolled on a new/final coat of paint. I cleaned up my paint supplies and then we brought the outdoor grill (and cover) into the garage to store for the winter. We also brought the patio table umbrella and base into the library and set the umbrella in the base for the winter rather than let in lie on the floor.

Linda made another batch of granola while I checked stuff on my computer and took care of laundry and packing. We had leftovers for dinner at 5:15 PM and then headed to South Lyon for the monthly SLAARC (ham radio) meeting where I was re-elected as VP for a second year and Linda was elected Treasurer for the coming year. The program was a presentation on Software Defined Radios (SDR) by Mike Alexander (N8MSA). When we got home we finished the chocolate cake and raspberry sauce with a glass of Leelanau Cellars Autumn Red wine and then turned in for the night.

20141030-1102 Fixing Buses in Indiana

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2014/10/30 (R) To Kokomo We Go

Well…sort of. Our actual destination was Maple Grove Distributors in Galveston, Indiana, which was in the general direction of Kokomo, but not as far. (It’s pronounced “gal VES ten” with the emphasis on the second syllable.) The tie rod ball ends that Butch ordered had finally come in and he wanted to get them early this morning so that: 1) We could get back and take advantage of a relatively nice late October day, and 2) He would have them for tomorrow when the weather is forecast to be lousy and thus a good day for inside work such as fabricating ride height linkages.

PS rear corner bedroom cabinet with slot in door for TV/monitor wires.

In spite of the nice weather I spent most of the day working inside my bus, stopping occasionally to help Butch with something. I don’t have a lot of outside projects at the moment, or at least none that I felt like working on, and I really wanted to get the bedroom TV cabinet taken care of. As with the front TV cabinet that I worked on for the last couple of days, the bedroom cabinet once housed a 19″ CRT TV set and a VHS tape deck. I removed those in late 2011 while the bus was at Phoenix Paint and had Jaral Beaty make doors to cover the openings. Once those doors were installed, I mounted 22″ diagonal, 16:9 aspect ratio, LCD/LED flat panel TV/monitors on each door. The power and signal connections, however, were inside the cabinets, so for the last couple of years the cables have come out of the bottom/rear of the TVs and under the bottom edge of the doors and into the cabinets. This arrangement prevented the doors from being closed, even though they had spring loaded ball catches, so we have held them closed with a couple of pieces of bright green Frog Tape. The tape is sticky enough to hold the door closed but does not seem to leave any reside even after being in place for a while.

The wires from the TV/monitor pass through the slot in the door so the dorr can be closed and latched.

As with the front TV cabinet door, I created a horizontal slot behind the TV, positioned to allow the cables to come down out of the back of the TV and bend gently through to the inside of the cabinet. I removed some unneeded cable and coiled up other cables and secured them with zip ties that have a mounting tab with a hole for a screw.

My two outside projects were brief. I got back under the front of the bus between the front tires and unbolted the ride height linkage. It unbolted from the ride height valve lever arm easily but not from the axle bracket. Fonda got a can of Cyclo Breakaway and some paper towels for me, but even after spraying the nut and letting it sit it would not come loose. I am not the strongest guy in the bus yard so I put some more muscle into it and broke the bolt off with the nut still stuck tight to it. The other half of the bolt then slide out easily.

As long as I had my wrenches out I slide under the rear end of the bus to see if I could free a couple of wires for the auxiliary braking system that were pinched under a mounting pad for the rear bumper fascia. The stud had a Nylok nut on it that was barely threaded onto the stud. The reason, I guessed, was the stud was at an angle that made it difficult to get a socket and ratchet on it. I was able to loosen/tighten it using a universal (swivel) adapter between the socket and the ratchet. While I was under there I noticed a second stud with a barely threaded Nylok so I tightened it as well. One of the things you have to watch out for on a used RV is all the work that other people have done ‘just well enough’ to get it ‘out the door’ without something falling off in the parking lot. These are always things that are hidden and relatively inaccessible, which is why they were not done correctly or completely in the first place, but the assumption is you will never see them.

My other inside project was to separate the load wires for the lighted entrance handle and the patio light and put them on separate switches. It turned out that the front most switch just inside the entrance door (next to the passenger seat) was supplying 12VDC power to three circuits, the two just mentioned and a third one that, as of this writing, is still a mystery in that I was unable to determine anything that was being controlled by those wires. The first (front) switch now controls only the lighted entrance handle, the second (middle) switch controls only the patio light, and the third (rear) switch controls…well, I don’t know what it controls but it definitely puts 12VDC power onto a wire that goes somewhere.

I assisted Butch briefly in locating their front fan-coil heat exchanger relative to the bay where the coolant lines will go. Later in the day I helped him position the front suspension of their coach to the MCI specified spacing for the air springs so he can fabricate the ride height linkage to the correct length.

I needed a few parts for projects I might want to work on tomorrow so I left at 7 PM and drove to the Home Depot in Logansport. That also gave me a chance to call Linda and chat about cell phone data plans. I got back to Twelve Mile at 8:30 PM. Butch and Fonda were already having their dinner so I went to my bus and made a salad. After I cleaned up the day’s food utensils I installed the 6-outlet surge protected adapter in the AC duplex outlet in the bedroom TV cabinet. That completed my work for the day and I returned to the house, visited briefly, and retired to my room to check e-mail, offload photo files from my camera, and write this post.

2014/10/31 (F) Boo! Snow (Boo)

After a relatively mild October the weather decided to turn more seasonable just in time for Halloween. I was originally going to title this post “Foot Pounds and Gigabytes” but decided to acknowledge All Hallows’ Eve instead, along with the dramatic change in the weather.

A couple of days ago I bought a torque wrench from Butch that is adjustable up to 600 foot pounds, which is the kind of torque needed to tighten and loosen the lug nuts on our bus wheels. It’s a very big torque wrench; over three feet long. I need to buy a compatible socket to go with it. Today was also the last day for the Verizon and AT&T double your data plan promotions, so I planned my day to put me in Elkhart, Indiana while one of the corporate stores was still open.

I got up around 8 AM and spent 45 minutes doing some preliminary packing after which I went out to my coach and had breakfast. We had snow flurries around 9 AM this morning and did not work outside today save the few minutes I spent adjusting the air pressure in the tires of my Honda Element. Today was mostly about shopping.

I got a cup of coffee from Small Town Brew and then we headed to Logansport where we did most of our usual circuit: NAPA Auto Parts, O’Reilly’s Auto Parts, Rural King, Aldi’s, and Walmart. (The only regular place we did not go was Home Depot.) My only purchase was a 12VDC dual outlet with a mounting flange that I found at O’Reilly’s. I plan to use it to create power connections for the GPS and TPMS receiver. (I realized later that I should have bought three of them as I also need to supply power to the DVD camera/recorder up front and the TPMS repeater which I plan to mount in the rear TV cabinet.)

We got back around noon and I spent the next couple of hours straightening up the inside of the bus and packing everything that was going home with me. Around 2:45 PM I finished packing the stuff I had in the guest bedroom and began loading the car. I wrote up a list of things we owed each other money for and, as I expected, I owed Butch more than he owed me. (He tends to order things we need on his accounts and I pay him back.) I bought a Variac from him, added it to the list, and put it in the car. Fonda has been working on a wedding dress for their daughter Gene for quite some time and was done except for some trim, so I got to see it before I left, which I did at 3:15 PM. It was very nice.

I had located a Verizon corporate store on US-33 just south of US-20 which was on my normal route home. I arrived at that intersection around 4:45 PM and first stopped at the Burger King next door for some French Fries. The Verizon sales associate, Hector, claimed to know nothing about the double data promotion and insisted there was no such thing available. I called Linda from their parking lot and we discussed what to do as today was the last day for the promotion. She had checked our account online last night, and although we could change our monthly data allowance online (for a price, of course) there was no information about the promotion available there either. Very strange considering how much this has been in the media all month.

Linda was stuck in traffic coming home from the bakery so we chatted while I made my way over US-20 to CR-17 (IN) to I-80/90 (Indiana Tollroad) to the I-69 exit where I had to pay my toll. Traffic on her end had also loosened up by then so we ended our call.

My entire trip home was in some form of precipitation; mostly rain but occasionally sleet or snow, with very strong and gusty winds from the north that made for somewhat more difficult driving. It also made it difficult to judge the effect of the adjusted tire pressures on handling although the shimmy seemed to be gone. I stopped at the Michigan Welcome Center on I-69 and unpacked some of the food I had with me. I stopped again at M-60 for coffee at McDonald’s and fuel at the TA/Shell station where Regular gasoline was $2.929. It’s been a long time since we have seen gasoline prices below $3/gallon. That was my last stop before arriving home at 8:45 PM. The last few miles were through moderate snow and the strong winds had coated the north facing side of trees and road signs.

Linda helped me unload the car and get everything into the house. I gave Butch a call to let him know I had arrived home safely and we chatted briefly about bus projects. I took a shower and went to bed where I finished this post before 11 PM and went to sleep.

2024/11/01 (S) Words

Although we were both very tired we did not sleep well last night. We awoke early to find a thin covering of snow on our rear deck and over parts of our yard with the temperature in the upper 20s. We went to our SLAARC ham radio club breakfast this morning anyway, the first time in several weeks for Linda, and there was a good turnout. Those members who came from east or south of us did not have snow on the ground.

When we got back to our house Linda worked at her desk on our personal finances while I worked at the dining room table on e-mail, websites, and bus project documentation. Our son and daughter-in-law showed up around 3:30 PM with their daughter. They had a baby shower to attend in Detroit and Madeline was spending the night with us.

Linda had given me the heads up that Madeline’s vocabulary had increased significantly since I last saw her and that certainly proved to be the case. She finally had understandable words for many things including the counting words from one to ten. She is now 22-1/2 months old and is a very active and busy little girl. We played with lots of different toys, including a new little Thomas The Train locomotive that Grandma Linda bought for her.

We had dinner between 6 and 6:30 PM. Madeline had mock chicken tenders with broccoli, cauliflower, mandarin orange segments and sliced strawberries. Linda and I had yummy homemade chili that she had been cooking in the crockpot most of the day. I played with Madeline after dinner while Linda cleaned up the dishes and then joined the fun. Nighty-night is her current pre-bedtime game, but by 7:15 PM she was tired enough let Linda get her into her pajamas and then sit quietly while I read a couple of story books to her. As always, she went to bed without a fuss.

Once Madeline was asleep Linda read and played online word games with friends and relatives and I continued working on my bus projects list, light bulb inventory, and reconciliation of purchases that Butch and I have made for each other. By 10:45 PM I was tired and ready to do something else so I climbed in bed and worked on this post.

2014/11/02 (N) An Extra Hour

At 2 AM EDT this morning it was suddenly 1 AM EST so when Linda got Madeline out of her porta-crib at 8 AM, according to the clocks in our house, it was officially 7 AM. We all slept well last night and Madeline woke up well rested and in a pleasant mood. She enjoys her meals so before any playtime we had breakfast of toast and juice and fresh fruit. Brendan called around 9 AM to see if we could keep her until after her afternoon nap as he and Shawna had professional work they needed to concentrate on. I suggested they come for an early dinner and they agreed. Linda checked her ingredients on hand and then agreed to make her seitan stroganoff served over rice. This is one of my favorite vegan dishes and a standard ‘go to’ when we are having non-vegan company for dinner.

You cannot have too many bows in your hair, apparently.

We played with Madeline all morning and she was a very busy girl. She has understandable words for a few things and a much richer, if somewhat secret, vocabulary that she takes great delight in using. She knows the names of her basic colors and has started to get the idea of counting. She enjoys building tall structures with her Lego blocks and is still fascinated with the organ. Running around the island in our kitchen is another favorite activity; sometimes chasing, sometimes being chased, and sometimes holding someone’s finger.

I got a TXT message from Chuck asking if I was back in town and had time to talk. Linda let me take a break from playing with Madeline so I could call him back. He has been working on their bus and wanted to bring me up to date on his projects and get caught up on my projects and timeline.

Our other grand-daughter, Katie, is up in the U. P. with Chris (her dad) and Meghan (our daughter) visiting Northern Michigan University in Marquette. They visited the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore yesterday and made it out to Castle Rock. This evening they had a banquet to attend and tomorrow she has an interview for a scholarship. Katie is interested in animals and wants to study zoology. NMU is one of the few universities that offer a true zoology major rather than a biology major with an emphasis in zoology. It may sound like a distinction without a difference, but it is an important distinction to Katie. Katie is a serious young lady who has done well in school and will certainly represent herself as such during the interview. We are excited for her and hope she is successful in obtaining this merit-based financial support.

By 11:30 AM we were anticipating lunch and Madeline requested pizza. We happened to have an Amy’s Roasted Vegetable pizza in the freezer (our favorite) so Linda preheated the oven and baked it on our pizza stone. We sat down at noon and enjoyed our pizza accompanied by seedless red grapes. We were all full by 12:30 and Madeline was showing signs of being ready for her nap so Linda helped her wash her hands and face and then got her settled in her porta-crib. Madeline enjoys sleeping almost as much as eating and went to bed without any fuss.

The cats, who had retreated to the basement this morning as soon as they heard/saw Madeline, are keenly aware of when she is eating and sleeping. Once we have her in her high chair at the table we usually open the safety gate at the top of the basement stairs so they can come up. Both of them did and walked around under the dining room table, apparently aware that she was not mobile. They eventually went back downstairs but came back up once she was asleep. We decided to leave the door to the middle/blue bedroom open about six inches to see what the cats might do. Jasper immediately turned around and went back downstairs but Juniper stuck her head in the room, probably got sensory overload, and also left.

Linda needed a few grocery items and went to Meijer’s in Brighton where she topped up her gas tank for $2.919 a gallon. If only the price of diesel fuel would pull back to corresponding levels. It has dropped but not by the same amount. I stayed home and worked on my bus projects spreadsheet. When Linda got back with batteries I changed all of the clock batteries and reset the time.

Brendan and Shawna arrived at 3 PM just as Madeline was waking up from her nap. She was thrilled to see her parents, of course, as they were thrilled to see her. It was a beautiful, if somewhat chilly, day and they got her coat, hat, and mittens on and played in the yard while Linda started preparing dinner while I cleared the table of my computer and papers and set it for the meal. We sat down to eat at 4:15 PM and started with a nice salad of chopped greens and cabbage, an Asian dressing, and crispy Asian noodles. The main course was the seitan stroganoff served over white rice and accompanied by roasted Brussels sprouts and a sliced multi-grain baguette. The adults had a small glass of the Leelanau Cellars Witch’s Brew, a seasonal mulled (spiced) red wine.

After dinner Brendan and Shawna began the process of getting ready to leave which includes delay tactics on Madeline’s part and their response to them which is always gentle but persistent. They were out the door at 5:30 PM and by 6 PM we had cleared the table, rinsed the dishes, loaded the dishwasher, and picked up the few toys that were left out in the living room. Although the clock said 6 it felt like 7. As hard and as long as I have been working on bus projects, I am surprisingly tired after spending a whole day with Madeline. I opened the safety gate and Jasper came upstairs right away, eager for our company and attention. He curled up in my lap while I worked on this post.

We watched Inspector Lewis (streamed), the first TV program I have watched in quite some time. Part of the PBS Masterpiece Mystery series, it is a really excellent production. I did some online research on 2m/70cm ham radio antennas and dual (co-phased) CB antennas but did not come to any conclusions about what to get. The problem remains the same; I cannot put anything tall on the roof of the bus and even if I wanted to I have little-to-no access to the underside of most of the roof. The fact that the lower roof sections in the front and rear are part of the front and rear fiberglass caps just complicates matters even more as they do not provide a conductive path or ground plane.

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Category Archives: Ham Radio

2015/06/26 (F) Field Day Setup

2015/06/25 (R) The Mouse

2015/06/24 (W) Up The Tower

2015/06/23 (T) Grounded

2015/06/22 (M) Cable Me This

2015/06/21 (N) Father’s Day

2015/06/20 (S) Cable Entry Box

2015/06/19 (F) Roof Box

2015/06/16 (T) More Stupid

2015/06/15 (M) Cover Up

2015/06/14 (N) WordPressing

2015/06/13 (S) On to Illinois

2015/05/30 (S) Chuck and Barbara

2015/05/29 (F) Many Celebrations

2015/05/23 (S) Radio Cabinet Company

2015/05/21 (R) Cats, Cars, and Tenure

2015/05/16 (S) Trucks and Buses

2015/05/15 (F) Hamvention

2015/05/11 (M) Bus Barns Reconsidered

2015/05/09 (S) ICAAN, Can You?

2015/05/08 (F) Bus Barn Trojans

2015/05/05 (T) BAF & MEF3 Visit

2015/04/02 (S) SLAARC and Company

2015/04/26-30 (N-R) Routine Returns

2015/04/21-25 (T-S) IN, MI, Home

2015/01/21 (W) Quartzfest

2014/12/26-31 (F-W) Wrapping Up 2014

2014/12/01-04 (m-r) Westward Ho!

2014/11/03-09 A Week at Home

20141030-1102 Fixing Buses in Indiana