Tag Archives: WiFi

20140605 (R) Apple Roku

Linda had to go into the bakery today which left me to catch up on phone calls and errands. I made more phone calls to contractors this morning and had better luck than yesterday reaching people or at least leaving messages. I rescheduled with Gary from GM Construction to come discuss the pole barn project. I also got hold of Bratcher Electric and determined that the annual maintenance on the whole house generator could wait until we are ready to do the conversion from propane to natural gas, which they can handle. In talking to Mike Bratcher I also determined that we can install a main panel in the garage just after the transfer switch and then run power directly from there to the pole barn rather than from the main panel in the basement. While we are at it, we could redo the sub-panel in the garage, feeding it directly from the new main panel rather than the main panel in the basement. The basement panel is very crowded and we have wires carrying electricity back and forth unnecessarily.

I got a call from Butch with an update on the negotiations of the sale of the major portion of their business assets. Linda has been advising them relative to valuation, accounting, and tax issues and we have been helping them with purchase agreement language. It looks like they are in the final stages leading up to a closing of the deal. Their big annual event is coming up in early July and they will likely be busy with the transfer of inventory and training of the buyer during and after that event. I need to get our bus down to their place to work on some projects and help Butch work on getting their bus conversion done enough that they can live in it this winter in the southwest. Based on things going on at both ends, it looks like the window for that work will be mid-September to sometime in November, weather permitting.

Our converted coach friends, Pat and Vickie, have some older Motorola GMRS handheld radios that they like but the charger bases have disappeared. My ham radio friend Scott (AC8IL) is in the commercial mobile communications business so I checked with him to see if chargers were still available. They were and he had a couple of the drop-in style charger/bases in stock! Scotty is just that kind of guy. I picked them up this morning and will deliver them to Pat and Vickie at the GLAMARAMA rally.

Apple Roku sounds like an interesting dessert, but it’s not. It might be an either/or situation, but it could be a both/and. John Dewey was a both/and kind of guy, so I favor that approach. We were intrigued by Steve and Karen’s Roku Internet TV streaming device last night so I stopped at Best Buy today on my way home from running my errand to see if they had them in stock and if so at what price. Not only did they have them, they had three different models. The “stick” was $50, the Roku 2 was $70, and the Roku 3 was $100. (The Roku 3 does not have A/V connectors like the Roku 2, only HDMI, but it has a five times faster processor.) But that was not all, oh no. They also had the Apple TV device for $100 and two other similar products, one of which looked like an Amazon/Kindle thing and the other one a WD thing, whatever that is.

The Roku units (2 and 3) have access to a lot of content on a free, subscription, and pay-per-view basis. The Apple TV unit has access to content on the same basis but the selection may not be as extensive; it’s hard to say for sure as the devices are not easy to compare directly. The Apple TV unit, however, has one huge, unique feature; it can mirror anything on an iOS device, such as our iPads, to a TV/monitor. The iPad can also be used as a control panel for the Apple TV device.

We do not have to choose between a Roku and an Apple TV unit, of course, we can get and use both if we want; it’s just a matter of money. Between the two TVs in the house and the two in the bus it could be a lot of money if we wanted dedicated units of both types on all four TV/monitors. We always have the option of moving things back and forth, but in general I prefer not to do that. To the extent we can afford it I prefer to have the house and the bus set up so that the only things we move between them are the things we have to, such as ourselves, our food, our laundry, our computers, our cats, and some of our ham radio gear (at least for now). The best solution, however, may be to get one of each device and move them around as needed. That would give us the best cost/benefit ratio, but not the most convenience.

When Linda got home from her day at the bakery we finished the Egri Merlot we had opened the other night and caught up on the day’s events. We decided to try the Apple TV device first and see how it worked in our situation. Linda made an onion, mushroom, tomato Ragu, and served it over the leftover power grains. It was very tasty. After dinner I went to Best Buy to get the Apple TV device while Linda prepared fresh strawberries for dessert. Fresh strawberries are a favorite treat of ours. She served them with small pieces of Dandelion Small Batch Chocolate made from 70% Ambanja Madagascar 2013 Harvest beans. The chocolate was excellent and unique. It was a thank you gift from our son and daughter-in-law for Linda’s babysitting services while they were in San Francisco, California.

We connected the Apple TV box to one of our HD TV/monitors and went through the setup procedure. We decided to test it on some PBS content, which required us to set up an account with PBS and enter a validation code that the Apple TV box provided. We also downloaded an app onto Linda’s iPad2 that allowed it to mirror whatever was on its screen to the Apple TV.

We used the mirroring feature to watch Season 1, Episode 5 of Doc Martin, but it proved to be unusable. The image was fine on the iPad2 but the Apple TV could not keep up. I found that to be odd as our home WiFi network should have more than enough bandwidth to deliver the data stream between the devices, but maybe not. I presumed that the limiting factor in our network was the data rate coming into our DSL gateway from our AT&T landline, but that was obviously fast enough to deliver the content from the gateway to the iPad without buffering hesitation.

We turned off the mirroring and finished watching the episode on the iPad. Still, the content delivered directly from the gateway to the Apple TV looked great, and the mirroring will be useful for showing photos and anything else on our iPads. We may reconfigure the Apple TV to use one of our other wireless networks and see if that helps.

2014/04/07 (M) Big Wheels Keep On Turning

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The boots may have been made for walking, but the wheels were made for turning and it does not make much sense (to us) to own a motorhome and not use the motor to move the home around at least occasionally. Checkout time at Williston Crossings RV Resort is nominally 11 AM. We were planning to leave by then, but a call to Suncoast Designers at 9 AM caused us to push our departure time back. They suggested we not arrive until about 4 PM to make sure we had a place to park with hookups. That put our departure time target at 2 PM. We walked up to the office to make sure this would be OK. It was; we have been here a long time and been good residents, and no one was scheduled to go in to “our” site today.

Given some extra time we had not planned on, we went for one last, long walk around the RV resort. How different it looked and felt. The resort is turning over from long-term winter/seasonal use to short-term summer/vacation use and there were many empty sites. Eighty-nine rigs left yesterday. Many were Carriage 5th wheels that were part of the 70 rig Carriage Travel Club rally that was here all last week. But some were winter seasonal residents who have been dribbling out since April 1st and will continue to do so into May. We were not the only rig pulling out today. Our other neighbor, Sharon, is leaving this coming Sunday. A few rigs were pulling in, of course, but the departures currently exceed the arrivals on any given day.

When we returned from our walk I mixed up a batch of the concoction we use in the waste holding tanks (48 oz PineSol, 48 oz water, 1cup Calgon). I dumped the black-water tank and back-flushed it, followed by dumping the grey-water waste tank. I ran additional water through the drain hose and then disconnected the hoses and fittings and stowed them for travel. I reconnected the water softener and filled the fresh-water tank. Once that was done Linda helped me disconnect, clean, and stow the fresh water hoses and the water softener.

We tend to forego coffee and breakfast on travel days, but had a little of both this morning as we were not leaving right away. Because of the delay in our departure we did not have lunch. To pass the time I continued with travel preparations. The last time I had the coach batteries connected I noticed that the Pressure Pro TPMS (tire pressure monitoring system) was not reading one of the sensors (PS outside drive tire). We have a repeater for this system that I plan to install in the rear of the coach someday, but for now it gets attached to the rear view mirror of the car. I took care of that task and then decided to move the car up onto the patio next to passenger side of the coach. I left the ignition on to power the repeater and connected the coach batteries to power the TPMS receiver. After a few minutes all of the tire sensors were active and the tire pressures were OK for travel. I disconnected the coach batteries and put the car back in front of the coach.

At 1:30 PM we started our final travel preparations, clearing off the counters and moving stuff from the cockpit to the sofa, the bed, and the bedroom floor. At 1:45 PM I shut off the 240/120 VAC electrical power to the coach, disconnected the shoreline, and stowed it in the slide-out tray over the DS drive tires. I installed the screw-in cover for the utility port hole in the bay floor, and closed/locked the bay. I then checked the Magnum 4024 to make sure it had switched to inverter mode, which it had.

Once the shore power is cut we seem to develop an increased sense of urgency about leaving. I think this is due, in part, to the fact that I do not have the ZENA power generator operational yet, so our house batteries do not get charged while we are driving. That’s OK, up to a point; the battery bank was designed to be large enough to run the inverter and power reasonable loads for a reasonable length of time. But the sooner we leave, the sooner we arrive, and the sooner we arrive, the sooner we can plug back in to shore power. We have an auxiliary power plant, of course, so we always have the option of using that if needed. The other reason we are probably anxious to leave is more psychological. Once we are completely disconnected (physically) we are become disconnected mentally, although not necessarily emotionally. We are no longer “tethered” to that spot, and that means it is time to go.

I connected the chassis batteries, fired up the engine, and set the level low system to the driving position. While Linda moved the car to street I drained the auxiliary air tank using the nice dry air from the main engine air compressor. With John’s assistance we got the coach out of the site and lined up on the street. Linda pulled the car up behind the coach and we went through our procedure for hooking it up to the tow bar. We did our standard light check and found that the turn signals on the car were not working. A quick check of the connectors on both ends of the cable revealed a socket on the car end of the cable that was corroded. I used the awl on John’s Swiss Army Knife to clean it up. A recheck of the lights indicated that everything was working. After a final “goodbye” with John and Ali we were on our way.

Our departure delay meant we would be traveling SSW into the sun at the hottest part of the day. The air temperature was 85 degrees F when we left, and the engine ran slightly hotter than usual, indicating just above 195 degrees F on the coolant temperature gauge, so I decided not to run the coach air conditioning. The drive to Hudson was warm, but not unbearable. A cold front was approaching the gulf coast of Florida so we had increasing cloud cover as we progressed south and west towards the coast, which helped keep the cockpit from getting too warm.

We had a nice run from Williston to Hudson. We headed south out of Williston on US-41/US-27/FL-121. US-27/FL-121 split off to the west a mile south of town, made a sweeping turn to the left and then followed a nice straight line SW for 17 miles to its southern terminus at US-19. This stretch of FL-121 is straight but hilly. With the cruise control set the engine is very sensitive to hills. I always know we are on a grade, however slight, by the reaction of the turbo boost gauge and the pyrometers.

Most of the rest of trip was on US-19 except for the last three miles. Traffic was light until we got to Crystal River, which had slower speed limits, lots of stop lights, and lots of vehicles on the road. It opened up a bit after Homosassa Springs, but got congested as we approached Weeki Wachee where FL-50 ends at US-19. From Weeki Wachee to just north of Hudson traffic remained slow and congested with increasingly dense commercial use on both sides of the road and stop lights every mile. Just north of Hudson we turned east onto Little Road, which immediately swung south, and followed it for about two miles to New York Avenue, where we turned west and went another mile to Labor Place, the location of Suncoast Designers.

The coach ran fine, although the Check Engine Light came on almost immediately and was on more than it was off for the whole trip. That did not surprise me as we had not done any work over the last couple of months to fix the fuel temperature sensor voltage problem that is apparently setting a fault code in the DDEC II. I had hoped that the repairs we made in the dashboard wiring harness would fix the speedometer/odometer problem, but they did not; the gauge sat on zero for the whole trip. The left pyrometer (exhaust gas temperature) gauge, however, was much more responsive and tracked the right pyrometer gauge much more closely than it ever had before. It appears that the wires we repaired were for this gauge rather than the speedo/odo.

Once we pulled in to Suncoast Designers we pulled to the side of the road, so as not to block traffic, and unhooked the car. While Linda parked the car I found the office and checked on parking arrangements. Suncoast Designers has at least a dozen RV sites with water and 50 A electric hookups. The only one open was a somewhat tight spot between two other large Class A motorhomes that required me to back in. The maneuver was made more difficult by the fact that the road in front of the sites had a curb on the far side and was not wide enough to allow me to swing the front end without scrubbing the front tires. I repositioned the coach so that I was turning in from the driver’s side, but Linda and I could not figure out how to get the coach into the site. The guy next to us on the driver’s side offered to help. A former truck driver, he knew exactly what to have me do. Unlike some RVers, our pride is not injured by not knowing how to do something, and we gladly accepted his help.

I pulled past the site close to the front of his rig and then turned out to the passenger side, putting the coach at an angle to the open site. He had me back part way into the front of the site at that angle and then turn the steer tires full left to start to bring the coach around. He had me stop and then turn the steer tires full right and pull forward. Steer tires full left again and back up some more, then full right and pull forward. We repeated this one more time and finally had the coach lined up straight and centered between the coaches on either side without having hit either one! Linda was keeping an eye on the back of the coach the whole time (to make sure I did not hit anything) and guided me into our final position. We then leveled the coach and shut the engine down.

The outside air temperature was only in the upper 70’s, but it was 90 degrees F in the coach and the outside humidity was high. In spite of having nine windows that open, the three ceiling vent fans are not very effective at cooling down the interior under such circumstances. In theory we can run all three air conditioners on a “50 A” shore service, but we have tripped breakers before when doing that. (The issue is that circuit breakers are commonly designed to only carry 80% of their rated current on a continuous basis, so two of our A/C units plus a little bit of miscellaneous load can exceed 40 A on one of the legs.) Besides, as soon as I plugged in the Magnum 4024 was going to switch to charger mode and start recharging the house batteries.

I got the shore power connected and checked the Magnum 4024. It went into bulk charging mode and started charging the house batteries at 86 Amps. Since it is a 24 VDC charger, it was drawing ~1/5 that much AC current, or ~17 A, the equivalent of one of our air conditioners. The front (living room) and center (kitchen) A/C’s are on separate legs of the 240/120 VAC power supply, so we can run them at the same time. The bedroom A/C is on the same leg as the front A/C and the Magnum is on the other leg. We ran the front and center A/C’s along with Magnum and let the bedroom stay warm for the time being.

Suncoast Designers provides free WiFi for customers camped at their facility, but the signal we thought was theirs indicated it was “filtered” and we had not obtained the login information from the office before it closed. We used our Verizon MiFi instead and had a good, strong signal. I had a chance to ask our neighbor (helpful truck driver guy) later, and he said the open signal was the one they were using. Although it was a weak (one bar) “g” signal, our WiFi Ranger latched on to it without difficulty.

Linda needed a few grocery items and located a Publix grocery store on Little Road less than three miles from Suncoast Designer’s. As evening settled in we switched off the front A/C and turned on the bedroom unit. Linda reheated some of the leftover Sloppy Joe’s from the pot luck dinner the night before, and we had that on the skinny buns we have started using, along with a simple spinach salad and a few Fritos corn chips.

After dinner Linda sent e-mails to several of our new friends from WCRVR while I checked in to RVillage and took care of a few e-mails of my own. The overnight temperature was forecast to only drop into the upper 60’s with high humidity, and with rain starting before sunrise, so we decided to leave the rig closed up and the kitchen and bedroom A/C’s on all night. We rarely do this because of the noise and because we prefer fresh air, except when it is too warm and/or too humid. Considering that we had traveled less than 100 miles and been on the road just under two hours today, we both felt like it had been a very long day. As much as we enjoyed the social life at WCRVR, it was nice to not have anything to do but go to bed and get some rest.

2014/01/16 (R) Wi-Fi Woes

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The Wi-Fi at Williston Crossings RV Resort has been very good since we got here. There are professional grade access points with decent antennas positioned on towers all through the park. The signals have been strong and steady, and the bandwidth generally very good. Wi-Fi is always going to slow down when lots of people are using it, but the resort seems to have enough access points feeding into a robust enough router and gateway to handle the demands placed on the system by the residents.

A couple of weeks ago the resort announced that they were going to reconfigure the Wi-Fi system slightly and that starting on January 10 we would need a username and password. We generally prefer “open” Wi-Fi signals since we connect to them with our roof-mounted Wi-Fi Ranger Mobile, which repeats the signal as a secure hot spot around out coach. Our current configuration goes one step farther. We have an Amped Wireless SR20000G Wi-Fi router/repeater configured as a bridge to the Wi-Fi Ranger. The SR20000G creates a local area network to which we connect wirelessly along with a RAID 1 Network Attached Storage device connected via Ethernet. The SR20000G then connects to the private/secure hotspot side of the Wi-Fi Ranger Mobile, which is connected to the wide area network on the public side and from there to the Internet. It’s a great setup when everything works correctly.

In the past we have used our Wi-Fi Ranger Mobile successfully with both secure and filtered Wi-Fi networks, and both types are handled through the Wi-Fi Ranger web-browser interface. Secure Wi-Fi systems require an encryption key, which is entered through the Wi-Fi Ranger control panel and stored for future use. Filtered Wi-Fi networks are not secure. After the radio and logical connection is established, you are taken to a web page where you enter a username and password and accept the terms and conditions of use. Indeed, places like Panera don’t even bother with the username and password, they just want you to acknowledge the terms and conditions of use before allowing you access to the Internet through their system. Fair enough, the Wi-Fi Ranger is designed to handle that as well right from the control panel.

We have had our system configured and working flawlessly right through yesterday morning. When we returned from a day of hiking and visiting it was obvious that something had changed. It still wasn’t working properly this morning so I inquired in the office and they confirmed that the guy who takes care of their Wi-Fi network had made changes yesterday and was working on the system today. I reconfigured some of our equipment to use our Verizon Mi-Fi to get online and take care of e-mail and some BCM article tasks. I called the Wi-Fi guy and chatted with him briefly, just to explain our setup and make sure there wasn’t any reason for it to now work. I spent part of the rest of the day working with and reconfiguring our equipment and by late afternoon everything seemed to be back to normal. I even found a better spot in the coach for the Verizon Mi-Fi device.

The day ended well, however, as Linda made whole-grain angel hair pasta with garlic, onion, mushrooms, and sun-dried tomatoes, perfectly dressed in olive oil. It’s one of my favorite dishes.

2013/12/26 (R) Our Recent Travels

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We left Williston Crossings RV Resort in Williston, Florida at 10:15 AM and traveled to the Turner Agri Civic Center in Arcadia Florida for the Arcadia (Bus’in) Rally 2014. Our route took us down US-27 to I-75 to FL-70 to US-17 and over to the rally venue, covering 200 miles in 3 hours and 45 minutes. I-75 had a lot of traffic and a few construction zones, but US-27 and FL-70 we excellent roads with very few vehicles. I have not been posting maps of our daily travels, so here is the route we have traveled starting on the 19^th. We have traveled about 1,300 miles in that time.

View Larger Map

We were met at the check in station by Bill and Brenda Phelan who now run the Arcadia Rally. Linda took care of the paperwork while I introduced myself, indicating that I had been asked by the publisher of Bus Conversions Magazine to do an article on the rally. We unhooked the car and were escorted to our back-in site. We immediately recognized the bus parked behind us as belonging to Bill and Karen Gerrie. They always travel with Karen’s sister Katherine and her husband Mike, and sure enough, they were here too! By the time the rally starts on Sunday we expect there to be other converted bus people here that we know.

We were escorted to our site, backed in, straightened out, and leveled and then went through our usual arrival routine; Linda setting up the inside while I hooked up the electrical shoreline and checked the house battery state of charge and that the inverter/charger was working. We then deployed the awnings.

While opening and securing the main patio awning the front rafter arm started to come off of the awning shaft. Closer inspection revealed that there was supposed to be a retaining pin or bolt holding these two pieces together, but it was missing. Yikes! I looked down and there was a black bolt of approximately the right diameter and length on ground in front of me. Was it possible that this had just fallen out? I looked at the other end of the roller tube and there was the matching part, but with a Nylok nut on the end. I went back to the other end and looked for the nut, but didn’t see it. It probably fell off a long time ago, if it was ever there in the first place. No one has worked on these awnings since they were installed by the Zip Dee Factory outside of Chicago, Illinois in October 2012. It would have been very, very bad if these two parts had separated while we were traveling on the highway.

I managed to get the bolt back through the mating holes, but I did not have a Nylok nut of the correct size in my parts kit. The Gerrie’s have a 1965 GMC bus that they converted. Bill is a very knowledgeable and resourceful guy when it comes to buses, but he did not have an 8-32 Nylok nut either. I did have some regular 8-32 nuts, however, so I double nutted the bolt and snugged it up nice and tight. We added 8-32 Nylok nuts to our growing list of supplies we needed to buy and things we need to do.

With that chore out of the way, we pulled up the chairs and settled in for a chat. I mentioned the Check Engine Light issue and erratic speedometer problem we’ve been having, and quick as a wink Bill had his ProLink/NexIQ engine diagnostic tool out, hooked up to our bus, and we were reading codes. The DDEC II engine computer did not have any active codes set and only one inactive code. The inactive code was for a fuel temperature sensor high voltage. Joe Cannarozzi (our mobile mechanic) and I had replaced the fuel temperature sensor back in the spring but I never got around to hooking up my ProLink and clearing the old code. That little oversight has caused me way too many anxious moments. My bad.

Bill also had a special card for his diagnostic equipment that allowed us to look at the error codes from the ATEC transmission computer. No codes were set, indicating that the vehicle speed sensor was sending a good signal at least as far as the transmission computer. We assumed that was the case as the transmission was working great and the cruise control was working as it always has. The erratic speedometer appears to be either a wiring problem between the computer and the dashboard or the speedometer gauge itself. The easiest/cheapest thing to do would be to clean the connectors on both ends. The next easiest thing would be to replace the speedometer and hope that’s the problem, but that will not be the least expensive solution if turns out not to be the gauge.

Although I had stopped worrying about the Check Engine Light, it was a great relief to know that there were no active error codes being generated by the engine or transmission computer. One of the great things about rallies in general, and converted bus rallies in particular, is that many converted bus owners have done their own conversions and have a special sense of community about their machines. They know their way around buses, travel with tools and parts, and are usually willing to help each other when there’s a problem.

With a potential awning disaster discovered and averted and the Check Engine Light issue resolve, we finally settled in to our chairs for a long, well-deserved, chat. While we were talking four Sandhill Cranes walked by about 50 feet away. These magnificent gray birds have a distinctive red cap on their heads, and can stand almost 4 feet tall. Although they tend to spend summers much farther north in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and Canada, we have them on our property in southern Michigan during the late spring to early winter. We also saw kildeer, and several other birds we did not recognize. On the drive down today we saw pelicans and egrets plus the usual raptors that can often be spotted along highways.

By 5:30 PM it was getting dark and mosquitoes started to appear so we wrapped up our conversation and headed inside for the night. With all of the activity and socializing we had managed to skip lunch. Rather than take an hour to prepare something, we had the chickpea salad Linda made the other day. It’s one of our favorite cold dishes and reminds us of egg salad.

Linda turned on the TV and scanned for channels. We are parked facing west with the front OTA TV antenna pointed slightly north of our nose. That’s somewhat in the direction of Tampa St. Petersburg although they are actually northwest of our location. The scanner found 60 digital stations, so she flipped through them to see what was there. We had the PBS trio, a weather station, the usual commercial offerings, and lots of Spanish language stations. Impressive really; if you look at a road atlas Arcadia is 40 miles east of I-75 and appears to be in the middle of huge swamp.

We could not find a usable Wi-Fi signal so we turned on our Verizon Mi-Fi device and got online. If you need to be online while traveling, you need to have more than one way to get there. (Technomadia has the definitive book on the subject for RVers.) We checked e-mail and I worked on this post. We took a few minutes to have vegan chocolate cake with fresh strawberries. We finished up our online work and went to bed early. Although the rally does not start until Sunday, I have to start acting like a reporter tomorrow so I can write a really good article on this event with lots of good photographs.

2013_12_23 (M) Williston Walkabout

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The FL-121 entrance sign.

With 3.5 days of hard driving behind us and nothing we had to get up and do first thing this morning, we slept well last night and got up when we were ready. That turned out to be around 7:30 AM, but that was two hours later than the last few mornings. We had a leisurely start to the morning and eventually went on a walkabout to explore the Williston Crossings RV Resort and the town of Williston, Florida.

The new FL-121 entrance/gate.

Besides the beautiful landscaping, the high quality of the sites/infrastructure, the excellent Wi-Fi, and the nice people we have met so far (staff and residents) one of the things we like about Williston Crossings RV Resort is that it appears to be very quiet and relaxed even though lots of people are out and about. The people parked next to us, for example have an outside TV. They were watching it at 7 AM this morning while smoking, which they do constantly, but we never heard the TV and we never smelt the smoke. We only knew they were there because we looked out our window and saw them.

The recycling area.

A couple of bonus features we discovered included the recycling program and the RV/Car Wash station, available for use at no extra charge. Another plus is that the resort is walking distance from Williston, a city of 2,200 residents (not including the RV Resort). We walked downtown this morning and discovered a grocery store, two drug stores, two hardware stores, and a variety of non-chain eateries. When we got back we walked the RV Resort and took pictures. Our estimate is that there are at least 600 sites here so there are, or will be, at least half as many people staying at the RV park during January and February as live in Williston. It’s a BIG park, but you can only see limited portions of it from any given vantage point, so it has much more intimate feel to it.

The RV/Car Wash station.

We also checked out a possible different site (#439) that was available in the old section of the resort and decided to move our reservation to that site. The pull-through site we originally reserved for January – March was in the new section where the tree cover is sparse to non-existent, making the sites much more exposed to the sun. Site #439 is a back-in rather than a pull-through which will save us $400 over the three months we are here. The main reason for moving, however, was that it has the mature trees of the older section, including Live Oaks draped with Spanish moss, which will provide a more attractive setting while affording us good shade from the sun. By the time we got back to our coach we had walked about 6,000 steps. At 2 feet/step that was 12,000 feet or a little over two miles. At 2.5 feet/step it was 15,000 feet, or just under three miles. Either way, we would not have done that at home with temperatures in the mid 20s and lots of snow on the ground.

Linda with the Christmas dolphin near the swimming pool.

The north end of the resort is still under development and the landscaping is sparse compared to the south (older) end. We were told that the northwest corner is being developed with sites that can be purchased. The roads and utilities are in, but most of the sites have not been paved and landscaped. This part of the resort is closer to the club house, swimming pool, and pavilion. At the center of the north section are three full size train cars and a caboose. We do not know what plans the owners have these but they are badly in need of restoration.

Three train cars and a caboose.

The nearest cities of any size are Gainesville (20 miles) and Ocala (25 miles). Gainesville is a college town. It has a Trader Joe’s, a few “health food” stores, several farmers markets, and a Panera so we will be making that trip occasionally for items we cannot find in Williston. We are looking forward to eating a lot of locally sourced fruits and vegetables while we are here. The Nutrition Facts daily video reports for the last few days have been about recent studies on the remarkable properties of berry fruits. It’s worth checking out.

We were surprised this morning when we got an “access denied” message when we tried to view the Nutrition Facts video. Nutrition Facts uses YouTube to make their videos available and had a problem a few weeks ago with a false report of “offensive/inappropriate content” which shut them down for 24 hours until they got it straightened out with the powers that be. We weren’t sure at first if this had happened again or if we were being blocked from getting to YouTube by the resorts Wi-Fi system. A quick check of YouTube directly indicated that the resort was apparently blocking YouTube. As large as the resort is, it is understandable that they don’t want people streaming video content, and YouTube would be an obvious site to block.

(Opinion: People who abuse the ability to report offensive or inappropriate content of YouTube by making false claims should themselves be barred from ever using YouTube again.) Nutrition Facts is now backing up their collection of almost 800 videos to another service (Vimeo, I think) as a precaution against this happening in the future.

Verizon Mi-Fi to the rescue! We always try to use Wi-Fi when it’s available but we have the Mi-Fi device for just those situations where we can’t. As long as we were powering up the Mi-Fi device we did a little experiment: Instead of connecting to it directly, we had the Wi-Fi Ranger connect it and then connected our computers to the Wi-Fi Ranger. Bingo, worked like a charm. More to the point, we were able to watch the Nutrition Facts dot Org video.

We connected back to the resort Wi-Fi system and turned off the Mi-Fi. I then downloaded a new version of a program that was 84 MB without objection from the resort Wi-Fi system. Linda renewed a few memberships that we had not taken care of before we left and I continued to work on cleaning up e-mail. Adobe has an interesting offer available to anyone who wants it for Photoshop CC (creative cloud) and Lightroom 5; $9.99/month with a minimum one year contract. But you have to order by December 31^st. They are no longer going to sell these programs, so if you want them, this is how you will have to get them. You can install on two computers under the terms and conditions. Renewals will be at “current prices”, so no guarantee it that the price will remain at present level.

I did not order it yet as some of the features appear to require a 64 bit operating systems (Win 7, 8, or Mac). That works on Linda’s laptop, but not mine. I downloaded a new version (18.0) of WinZip this morning, only to discover that it would not install on anything less that MS Vista. I like my existing Dell laptop computer, and I like Windows XP Pro SP 3, but it’s becoming all too clear that I am going to have to get a new machine, probably sooner rather than later. Ugh. In the world of computing one of my least favorite things is the process of moving to a new operating system.

It was pleasantly warm today, in the lower 80s, and bit humid but with a light breeze, so we wanted something light for dinner. Linda walked back to the local grocery store to pick up some fresh greens for a dinner salad and few odds and ends from the drug store. Around 3 PM the grounds crew passed through our area and used a leaf blower to clean the patio portion of our concrete pad. Nice touch. They also mentioned to Linda that the reason the current occupant was vacating site #439 was because one of the adjacent neighbors liked to build a fire every evening and he didn’t like the smoke. We often have campfires at night when we are camping in cooler weather, but decided to check that out after it got dark. We did not see any obvious problem, but we will investigate a little further tomorrow.

2013_09_28-30 (S,N,M) Gone Fish’in

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No, I have not given up my WFPB way of eating, but one of the things I did on Sunday was to run a new network cable from our main Internet gateway (in the kitchen) to my office (in the basement). I had to pull the cable above a suspended ceiling and then “fish” it up through the floor boards into a wall cavity. There is a special tool called a “fish tape” that is made for this purpose. It’s a thin but stiff piece of metal that is coiled up inside a housing with a small hook on the free end. Because it is relatively stiff, you can push through holes and into wall cavities and other such places until it emerges somewhere, hopefully where you need it to emerge. I have a fish tape (of course) but I can’t find it (naturally) because the garage/workshop will be the last part of our move to get organized. So I improvised, and after several false starts ended using a scrap piece of 3-conductor sheathed electrical cable that was long enough, small enough, and stiff enough to get the job done. But I have gotten way ahead of myself.

As usual, Linda and I went to our South Lyon Area Amateur Radio Club (SLAARC) breakfast on Saturday morning. Well, almost as usual; we took two cars this time as Linda was headed to Ann Arbor to babysit munchkin Madeline after breakfast, and I was headed in the opposite direction to do ham radio stuff.

Madeline’s domestic servants (our son and his wife) wanted to attend a wedding on Sunday in Madison, Wisconsin and thought the three days required to drive there, celebrate, and drive back might work out better for all involved if their daughter did not make the trip. They also figured that Madeline would do better in their absence if she was in her own home. Madeline approved of these plans and gave them the requested 3-day pass. Although Madeline’s aunt (our daughter) provides child care one day a week, a 3-day stint, over the weekend, in a house without television would mean no college or professional football, and would have been heroic beyond necessity. This was clearly a job for GRANDMA, who doesn’t have functioning television in her new house anyway, so she wouldn’t miss it. Besides, when sitting the baby, there’s no time to watch TV (or do much of anything else).

Mike (W8XH) and I had plans to work on the new SLAARC website, but first he had to help Bruce (W8RA) set up his new LP-PAN and integrate it into his ham radio station. Working on Bruce’s ham shack is no small undertaking. I’ve never been in the Space Shuttle simulator, but I’ve seen pictures, and sitting at Bruce’s ham station is a pretty good facsimile. It took Mike a couple of hours, but he got it all working. We then headed to his QTH to do the website stuff.

Mike and I are building the new SLAARC website using WordPress with the help of fellow SLAARC member Larry (K8UT), who is a bonafide expert in such matters. A couple of weeks ago we decided to create the new website as a subdomain of the existing website, which is hosted by GoDaddy, and that was an experience in itself. This would make it very easy, however, to later change some DNS entries and have the original domain name point to the new website. Larry did the WordPress installation manually rather than using the automatic WordPress installer that most web-hosting companies have available (including GoDaddy). As a result it has taken longer to get the new site functional, but Mike and I now have a much better understanding of subdomains and an appreciation for some of the complexity that is “under the hood” when using WordPress. One more call to Larry resulted in some magic on his end, and we were finally up and running. We then spent several hours installing, activating, and exploring themes. We haven’t made any final decisions, but we are starting to figure out what questions to ask. While Mike and I are anxious to move this along, we are not under any external pressure to have it ready by a certain date and want to take our time on the front end. While it is relatively easy to change WordPress themes even after a website is populated with content, there is a point beyond which that is still going to involve a lot of work. I like projects, but I don’t like doing projects over (and over, and over …).

I was still in WordPress mode when I got home, so I did some work on our personal website. I created a tab (main menu item) for “Ham Radio” and created a sub-menu item for “SLAARC”. These are just placeholders for now, but will eventually have content. I have also fleshed out the WFPB tab as I start to build out the main menu structure.

Mike lent me an AmpedWireless dual-band WiFi repeater that he wasn’t using and I spent some time Saturday evening and Sunday morning playing with it. It is a very cool device. In WiFi repeater mode it will pick up a 2.4GHz and/or a 5.0GHz WiFi network and rebroadcast it. What’s really cool, however, is that it will pick up a 2.4GHz WiFi network and rebroadcast it as 5.0GHz WiFi network. I have been looking for a device that will do this for quite some time. Our iPads and smartphones are all 5.0GHz capable, so using them with a 5.0GHz WiFi signal offloads that traffic from the 2.4GHz network, leaving it for 2.4GHz only devices. The 5.0GHz band also has a lot more bandwidth than the 2.4GHz band with very few devices using it, so there is less interference and more reliable network connections. Unfortunately, the device did not work well at our house as it appeared to be in conflict with our WiFi thermostat.

Wireless repeaters, access points, bridges, etc. are all designed so that they can be setup and configured wirelessly through a web-browser. In order to accomplish this they map a specific URL to a specific IP address in the 192.168.xxx.yyy range. In this case, 192.168.1.240. Unfortunately, I think the WiFi thermostat also uses that IP address. There may be a way to work around this, but I did not have time to pursue that today. The AmpedWireless device is actually configurable in five different modes. WiFi repeater is the default, but it can be a Wireless Access Point or a Wireless Bridge, or two other things.

As a result of playing with this device, I think I finally understand the difference between various networking technologies. A Network Switch (NS) is a device that allows multiple devices to be connected together using network cables, with one cable going back to the router (where the IP addresses are controlled through DHCP). A Wireless Repeater (WR) is just that; it picks up a WiFi signal and rebroadcasts it (repeats it), usually on the same frequency and channel, but with a different SSID; no cables required. (The Amped Wireless WiFi Repeater can rebroadcast it on a different frequency and/or channel, very nice.) A Wireless Access Point (WAP) generates a WiFi network and is connected to the main router through a network cable. We have a Linksys WAP running now. A Wireless Bridge (WB) is the mirror image of a WAP. It allows multiple devices to be connected to it using cables (sounds like it’s a NS) and then communicates using WiFi with a wireless router or WAP. This allows lots of equipment to be located remotely from the main Internet gateway/router without running a cable between the two locations.

While Linda continued her marathon munchkin duty on Sunday, I worked around the house trying to check things off my “to-do” list faster than they got added. I didn’t succeed, but I did get a lot done. My main focus was my office, which had become the place where stuff was getting piled so we could feel like we had put other parts of the house in reasonably good order. I either needed to get it organized or close it off for the open house. Some of our fellow hams are coming to the open house and will want to see the ham shack (which is also my office), so closing it off from public view wasn’t really an option.

Monday was odds-n-ends day. I continued to try to clean up and organize my office and the basement, installed two new door closers on the front screen/storm door, and installed new hardware (tracks) for the pair of bi-fold doors on the kitchen pantry. It doesn’t sound like much, but it takes all day. I snagged some replacement toilet flappers from Lowe’s, a nice shelving unit for the bedroom from Staples, and a large quantity of ICE Sparkling Water from Walmart. (It’s not my favorite place to shop, but Meijer’s doesn’t carry this product.)

Mid-afternoon there was a knock at the door. It was a representative from a company that is subcontracting with Consumer’s Energy to possibly run a natural gas main down our street. I walked our property with the guy and explained the rather complicated situation that has led to us having two propane tanks and what they implications of that were for us switching to natural gas. I went ahead and signed up after making sure we could back out if we decided this really wasn’t what we wanted to do. As of now, however, we are definitely interested in switching to natural gas. Consumer’s Energy estimates the equivalent cost for a gallon of propane, which is currently $2.00 + or – $0.40, at $0.77. At that ratio, our infrastructure payback would be about 3 years. There is also the added benefit of having a constant supply of fuel without a truck having to come and fill a tank. Value? Priceless.

In the late afternoon I had a nice chat with Joe from EZ*Connector. EZ*Connector is a small company in California that has designed, and manufactures, a keyed, magnetically retained, sealed electrical connector. It comes in 7 and 14 pin configurations for non-military use and is an ideal solution to the problem of connecting a tow vehicle (bus) to a towed vehicle (car). Our current setup requires two separate electrical cables with mechanical or friction latches. The EZ*Connector will provide a much easier and yet superior connection. They are just now bringing a new 14 conductor cable to market and suggested I wait until early November to order.

Linda called to say she would be home around 7 PM. I put water on to boil to make angel hair pasta with red sauce, and she picked up a salad on the way home. She made the sauce last week, and it was fabulous. (I am not normally a fan of marinara sauce, but this sauce has me rethinking that position.) A glass of 2009 Egri Merlot to wash it down, and fresh plums for dessert made a fine conclusion to a long day.

2013_09_18 (Wed) Under A Harvest Moon

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I was up early this morning to check e-mail and work on my backlog of blog posts. The WiFi at the Elkhart County 4-H Fairgrounds is excellent; our WiFi Ranger is picking up nine open fairground signals, with five of them quite strong. Even so, WiFi always works better when fewer devices are trying to use it.

A 1948 Spartan and aour1990 Prevost.

Linda was up in time to go to the registration building at 8:00 AM with the intent of reserving one of the pavilions adjacent to where the GLCC chapter is parked. Alas, they were both taken. She and Vicky scouted out the ones that were still available, selected one, and reserved it for our Thursday evening pizza social and business meeting. We will be meeting at the Elkhart Noon Optimists building, 603 Locust St, by the big blue Fish Fry sign. While they were taking care of this I brewed a pot of coffee using two parts Ethiopian Yirga Cheffe to one part Columbian decaf, a very nice blend that cuts down a little on the amount of caffeine. When Linda returned we had a light breakfast of her very yummy homemade granola and fresh orange slices.

Don and Sandy Moyer’s restored 1948 Spartan bus conversion.

Mid-morning Linda, Fonda, and Vicky drove to the Shipshewana flea market, which is only open on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. I took that as an opportunity to wander the fairgrounds and photograph the arrival and parking activities. Today was the official beginning of the 2013 GLAMARAMA and motorhomes arrived all through the day. The arrival and parking process appeared to go quite smoothly, which makes for a good start to a large RV rally. The all-volunteer parking crew put in long hours, but were patient and cheerful throughout.

Elkhart County 4-H Fairgrounds.

While I was wandering around I found Ron and Meredith Walker’s Prevost XL-45. They just joined our GLCC chapter this past summer, but are not camped with us at this rally. Ron is the conductor of the Frustrated Maestros, who are doing several scheduled performances during the rally, so the FM chapter is their primary focus while they are here.

A motorhome approaching the fairgrounds entrance from the east on IN-34 / Monroe St.

They were home but rather busy. A muralist was air-brushing a mural on their rear cap and their front entrance door was partially disassembled. Meredith had me check out the mural and then Ron filled me in on the door situation. The main door handle had failed that morning while he was outside talking to someone, as a result of which he was locked out and she was locked in. They managed to find a technician who was able/willing to climb in a bedroom window and disassemble the door enough to get it open. I looked at the mechanism to see if there was anything I could do to fix it. There wasn’t, of course, but I told them I knew someone who might be willing/able to help.

Welcome to GLAMARAMA at the Gate 5 entrance.

I returned to the GLCC camp to see if Butch would be willing to lend some assistance to fellow GLCC members. He was, of course; RVers tend to be helpful to other RVers when they can, but converted bus owners really tend to look out for one another. We went back over to the Walker’s coach and Butch determined that a weld had failed. While he couldn’t fix the latch on the spot we realized that the whole mechanism could be unbolted and moved out of the way so it couldn’t engage the latch pin on the door frame. Ron did the work, and that temporarily removed the lockout problem until they could get a new latch assembly from Prevost. In the meantime they could lock/unlock the door from inside or outside using only the deadbolt.

The staging area where towed vehicles get unhooked.

When the ladies got back from Shipshewana we pulled our camp chairs into a circle by Butch and Fonda’s MC-9 and spent a relaxing afternoon visiting with our fellow GLCCers. While we were sitting there, Frank and Sandy Griswold arrived in their Prevost H3-45 Vantare conversion along with Dean and Cindy Chipman in their Holiday Rambler Endeavor motorhome. A bit later Scott and Tammy Bruner arrived in their MCI MC-12 conversion. This completed our set of nine GLCC rigs that would be camping together for the duration of the rally. Our chapter had originally requested 8 spots, but the parking crew did a great job of getting nine coaches parked.

The holding area where RVs are queued for entry and escorted to their sites.

During the afternoon conversation someone asked how long we had owned our coach. That’s when we realized it was our 4th anniversary; we purchased our Prevost H3-40 on September 18, 2009. We met the owner at a restaurant in western Pennsylvania, gave him a certified check and got the title. The coach was at Creative Mobile Interiors (CMI) just south of Columbus, Ohio where it had been sitting for about two years. The owner had taken it there for service and then decided to sell it instead of fix it. CMI allowed him to leave it there while they advertised it on their website and tried to find a buyer. I described some of this story in the cover/centerfold article of the February 2013 issue of Bus Conversions Magazine.

A caravan being assembled for entry. They will be parked together.

We eventually broke for dinner and a little quiet time before heading over to the opening ceremonies. Linda made a simple green salad and a bow-tie pasta dish with olive oil, garlic, onions, mushrooms, and sun-dried tomatoes. The Arcturos Late Harvest Riesling from Black Star Farms in Michigan’s Leelanau peninsula was the perfect accompaniment. Their late harvest Riesling and pear wines are two of our all-time favorites.

A different kind of motorhome, called a Class D, with a fancy paint job.

A group of us from GLCC walked over to the evening activities building around 7:00 PM and were greeted with handshakes and hugs by Jon and Sondra Walker, Charlie Addcock, and Jane Roush. That may not sound like a big deal, but it was. Hugs are an Escapees RV Club tradition, not something we had ever seen before at an FMCA rally. When Charlie and Jon were elected to national office they promised a new tone and new direction for FMCA, and it appears they are putting themselves behind that in a very personal way.

The Frustrated Maestros performed from 6:45 to 7:30 PM. The opening ceremonies began at 7:30 PM with Dane Bailey, The Singing Auctioneer, as the master of ceremonies, a role he will be performing for the duration of the rally. We had the usual opening consisting of an invocation, Canadian national Anthem, and U.S. national anthem, the posting of the colors by the local VFW color guard, and the chapter parade. There were 12 chapters officially in attendance. Notably by their absence were the Michigan Knights of the Highway, who formerly ran the GLASS rally. Dane then introduced Jon Walker, the FMCA Senior National Vice-President, who welcomed everyone. Jon was the GLAMA president and FMCA area vice-president until this past July when he was elected to the senior national vice-president office. He and Sondra are well-liked and well-respected within the Great Lakes area, and remained as the co-rally hosts for this event along with Jane Roush. (Jon and Sondra are also members of our GLCC chapter and Jon was our National Director for a while.) Jon announced that we had 469 coaches in attendance, although Vicky told us that one more had arrived. (Pat and Vicky were the official coach counters.)

FMCA National President Charlie Adcock was introduced next and said a few words. Charlie is a very enthusiastic, upbeat guy, as is Jon. Charlie administered the oath of office to Jane Roush, who was elected as the GLAMA president when Jon resigned to take his new national office. Charlie acknowledged the long list of VIP attendees, which certainly helped the rally coach count. The rally was budgeted for a break-even point of 400 coaches, so everyone involved in the planning and execution was very pleased with the turnout. I suspect that many of the VIPs were here as a show of support for this first ever attempt by GLAMA to organize its own rally.

With the opening ceremonies concluded Sgt. Daniel Clark, The Singing Trooper, was introduced. Dan is a former U. S. Marine and retired Massachusetts State Trooper, but has been singing since he was a child. He was clearly a trained opera singer and mentioned that he spent time at Tanglewood. He did a very tightly constructed and energetic show of patriotic and sentimental American favorites, ending with a medley of U. S. armed services theme songs, including the one for the U. S. Merchant Marines. The evening’s activities concluded, we had a leisurely walk back to our coach under a harvest moon.

And that is part of why we go RVing.

2013_06_18 (Tue) Early Arrival

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Upon our arrival at the CAM-PLEX in Gillette, Wyoming yesterday we quickly discovered that we did not have a usable WiFi signal so Linda Googled coffee shops and we found one with free WiFi. This morning we headed off early to City Brew for some coffee, bagels, and Internet connectivity. Alas, no bagels, so I had Raspberry strudel sticks (which were probably not vegan). We couldn’t connect to City Brew’s WiFi, but the adjacent Qdoba restaurant had a strong signal and no customers as they were not open yet. We mentioned that we were not able to connect and when City Brew reset their wireless router it worked fine. Linda caught up on our banking and entered receipts into Quicken while I updated Passwords Plus. I then tried to log in to our website (The Phase Place = www.omnibus-mi.us), which is a WordPress installation running on iPage servers, and discovered that I had not specifically recorded the username and password in Passwords Plus. I also realized that I had probably not updated the contact e-mail address with iPage since bfay@twmi.rr.com was shut down in May. Soooo…. I logged in to the iPage control panel and opened a new support ticket to get these issue resolved.

Our neighborhood – Boxelder, Lot 2, 7th St.

With our online business taken care of for the moment, we headed down the street to the HealthStyles Market to get some Daiya cheese for our dinner “cheeseburgers”. We received a 20% off coupon in our FMCA welcome bag, but didn’t have it with us, so we deferred other shopping for later in the week. What a nice surprise to find an organic market, with some of the vegan products we like, here in the heart of cattle country. The FMCA materials don’t even list grocery stores; instead they list “meat markets”. Yikes!

Because we both have personal and business need for Internet access, we stopped at the local Cellular Plus (Verizon retailer) outlet and purchased a Novatel Jetpack MiFi 5510L 4G/LTE Mobile WiFi hotspot device and added it to our existing Verizon “share everything” plan. This device creates a secure (private) relatively short-range WiFi network which will allow us to connect any/all of our WiFi capable devices together and to the Internet via our Verizon data service, as long as we have a usable Verizon signal. It’s a 4G/LTE device that is backwards compatible to 3G/EVDO, and supports IPv6 addressing in addition to IPv4. Many of its functions are accessible throughout the small device screen and buttons, but the full functionality is easily accessed through a web interface via a connected device.

By the time we returned to the coach it was lunchtime. After a light lunch we decided to deploy the large patio awning. We apparently failed to put the manual for the new Zip Dee Awnings on board, but still had the manual for the old ones. Design changes have been minor in the last 20+ years, and I was familiar with the changes, so though we could figure it out. We weren’t able to open it very far due to the close spacing of RVs in the campground and the fact that our neighbors had slide-outs (as most of the RVs here do). The manual indicated that partial deployment was possible and acceptable, but we could not get the rafter (upper) arms to latch onto the roller tube. Our new Zip Dee awnings are very nice, with a translucent fabric that allows some light through so the interior doesn’t get too dark. They are manual awnings, however, and deploying/retracting the patio awning requires a step ladder because our coach is so tall and the latches are out of reach.

We left the patio awning in what we felt was a secure position and walked over to the CAM-PLEX offices to take care of our camping arrangements for the 4 nights between the two rallies. On the way we stopped and visited with the owners of four vintage Flxible bus conversions that were on display in front of the Wyoming Center. Three of the owners were Great Lakes Converted Coaches members, and the 4th one was the son of a member. Bruce brought sample copies of the February 2013 issue of Bus Conversion Magazine, and said he would bring some over for the owners.

The folks at the CAM-PLEX office were very helpful and gave us our parking placard for the Windmill RV Park. This park is smaller than Boxelder. Most of the sites are 30 A electric, but some are 50 A FU. We were told we could move there on Sunday morning the 23rd at 10 AM as specific sites were first come, first served.

By the time we got back to our coach a predicted storm was building to the west and moving our way. With 50+ MPH wind gusts expected, we decided to retract all of our awnings and close up the windows and roof vents. Thick clouds, a cool air mass, and strong winds kept temperatures inside very comfortable. I went for stroll around the campground to take photographs of the clouds. I then came inside and preceded to nap through storm!

After dinner we finally turned on our new MiFi device and connected our phones, tablets, and computers. We spent quite a while trying to set up the computers on the network so they could see each other and share files, and appeared to have it working, only to have it not work and not be able to get back to where they did. It was not essential that we be able to do this, so we let it go for now. Since we now had functioning Internet access I checked the iPage support ticket and found that they had responded. I followed their directions and once again have administrative access to my WordPress installation and have updated my contact e-mails for iPage.