docj

I'm sure they were old ones. All they need is Google Maps and a wifi to connect to. I'm sure that older smartphones are a dime a dozen.

More than once location services and Google traffic notifications have allowed us to bypass serious traffic jams. I don't mind being tracked if it helps me and others avoid traffic jams. FWIW I did see an amusing video segment about how a guy caused a "traffic jam" by putting >50 phones in a wheelbarrow and walking slowly down a road. Google interpreted that as meaning that >50 cars were moving slowly down that road and, therefore, showed the road as "red."🤣

Here's what I copied from one of the websites that forms MT LLCs. Note that it speaks to MSRP values, not current. That sounds odd. An $800 – $825 luxury tax is charged by the state on vehicles with an original MSRP at or above $150,000 and RVs with an original MSRP at or above $300,000.

So if someone saved >$40k by registering it (when new) in MT rather than TX, he could afford to pay the $800 luxury tax each year and would still be way ahead! IMHO MT enacted this change simply because someone figured out that they could raise some additional revenue without having much of an affect on the number of RVs, planes and boats registered to MT LLC's.

With all due respect this isn't the flu nor can you extrapolate from flu data. With seasonal flu much of the population has at least some immunity regardless of whether or not they get the annual shot. This is because all of us have been exposed to variants of the disease every year. The flu is known to have a fatality rate of ~0.1% This disease is brand new; no one has any immunity. Therefore, the number of infections will be larger. Furthermore, the fatality rate appears at the moment to be on the order of 1% roughly 10 times worse than the flu. The problem, however, isn't whether the fatality rate is 5-10 times that of the flu. The real problem is that hospitals aren't sized to have the extra capacity needed for so many suddenly sick patients. Whether or not you realize it, the number of hospital beds in a region is sized to the expected number of sick people that can be expected to need them. When you suddenly have a large group of unexpected patients needing hospitalization, and probably intensive care, this can easily swamp the health care system. That's what's happening in Italy right now.

The "one device at a time restriction" is easily circumvented by using a router as the "one device". As for the 5Mbps limitation, most people are finding that it's quite adequate for watching a video with at least 720p resolution.

With all due respect, if a manufacturer establishes a warranty period, why should they extend warranty coverage beyond that policy? I fully understand your frustration, but a business can't simply disregard its stated warranty for individual customers and still remain in business. If it decides to cover you at 15-months, why shouldn't it cover others at 18-months? What about 24-months?

We bought a latex mattress from Mattress Insider about ~2 months ago and we are extremely pleased. The company was easy to deal with and the mattress arrived in roughly a week. As for comfort, we are using it with a 3" latex topper that we already owned. We love the combination of topper and mattress but I'm not sure if I might not think the mattress would be too firm if we used it without a topper. No way to know because I'm not going to try.

Depending on where in the metro area you need to get to, we've been quite satisfied with this park when visiting our son. It's a county facility. Nothing fancy but the sites are decently sized, the place is level and the price is fair. It does fill up so reservations are necessary. St. Peters' 370 Lakeside Park 1000 Lakeside Park DrSaint Peters, MO 63376

I'll answer that question relative to WiFiRanger routers, since that's what I own and know best. My assumption is that the other brands of routers work roughly in the same manner. I'm using my router to Load Balance my Verizon and AT&T hotspots. The router doesn't have a SIM of its own, nor does it have a slot for one. In this case one hotspot is tethered via USB and the other is connected by Ethernet. I could also have connected the hotspot to the router using WIFi. All that having been said, a number of the new WiFiRanger Converge family of routers, both rooftop and indoor, have SIM slots and built-in cellular modems. Those routers can be operated with or without those SIM slots being used. I hope this answers your question.

There are a number of "higher end" routers that can perform a function known as load balancing. My WiFiRanger is one of those, although some routers by Pepwave and Cradlepoint, I think, have this same feature. With Load Balancing, two or more internet connections are made simultaneously and the data usage is spread over them. In practice this means that the router can switch back and forth between the connections so that the net effect is more bandwidth. Think of it as two "pipes" each carrying part of the data load; the total capacity is increased. It's not "connection bonding" where the speed of the overall connection is increased, but it's then next best thing. Furthermore, on my Ranger, I can use Load Balancing while, at the same time, imposing "slowest usable speed" restrictions on the connections so that the router only uses a connection if its speed is greater than the set point' For example, tonight i was balancing a cellular hotspot which was obviously being network managed so its speed kept jumping all over the place. I used it in conjunction with a park WiFi which was very good most of the time. By imposing slow speed limits on the cellular connection I prevented the router from using it when its speed had slowed below the level needed for video. As a result I was able to watch a steady video stream with resolution that appeared to vary between 720p and 1080p. Joel (AKA docj)

I respectfully disagree. I have an unlimited AT&T SIM from OTR Mobile and a grandfathered, prepaid unlimited Verizon SIM. Sure the Verizon plan is no longer available for new customers, but I'd use Visible by Verizon as its replacement. I use my router in Load Balance mode so that I'm essentially insulated from network management slowdowns. Neither of these plans has a hard data cap at which they are throttled.

If you are willing to limit yourself to what's available OTA then that's great. My wife and I watch very little that would be available OTA. To each his own.

HD quality streaming is ~2GB/hr. 60GB doesn't last very long at those rates. Even at 1GB/hr 60GB for an entire month (including all other data uses) doesn't last all that long. I think we're using at least 200 GB/mo these days.

But there are other alternatives. For example the AT&T SIM I have through OTR Mobile is completely unlimited with no "cap". So is the prepaid unlimited Verizon Jetpack I have. Although that plan is no longer available, one can get a roughly equivalent one through Visibly by Verizon.

If you go to streaming video as many of us have, then 60GB/mo is nowhere near enough for most people. Depending on which streaming service we are watching our usage varies from 1-2 GB/hr. Our internet usage without streaming video was already ~10 GB/mo

Visible by Verizon is a totally separate entity but it uses Verizon towers and it is truly unlimited at $40/mo. There are some limitations and you have to use an "approved" phone, but lots of people are pleased with it according to posts on other RV forums. Visible by Verizon

We've been using Your Best Address for the past two years since our previous service, MyDakotaAddress, went out of business rather suddenly. The folks at YBA were great in helping us through that mess and their service has continued to be excellent since then. I especially like the "Virtual Mail Service" which allows me to view my (rather few) pieces of mail and decide how to disposition them all without having to speak to anyone. My requests for scanning, forwarding and disposal have always been handled promptly. Joel (AKA docj)

I can attest to the fact that noises that sound like they are coming from that valve may actually becoming from other parts of the parking brake "system". Because of a problem that I don't need to bore everyone here with, I had multiple opportunities to have my airbrake valve make noises like it was leaking, when, in fact, the problem was a leak at the air actuator that applies and releases the brake! The OP's problem most likely has nothing to do with mine, but I simply wanted to caution not to assume that the valve was the source of the problem. I, too, replaced my brake valve to no avail.

The tires I have on my MH are 22.5 truck tires--Hankooks. They replaced Michelin truck tires which I rode on for 7 years. I'm not sure who even makes a "motorhome tire".

With all due respect, with few exceptions, almost all North American on-highway truck tires are rated for 75 mph. In contrast, most trailer tires are speed rated at 65mph.

I don't know why you consider this FlexSteel's problem. It sold Thor furniture that met its price specifications and lasted through the warranty period. That's the extent of their obligation. If Thor drove subcontractors to use substandard materials to meet cost objectives why is that the subcontractor's fault?

With all due respect, that's why we have never gone with an organized tour. We've done >65,000 miles around North America over the past 9 years all on our own!

This was the third summer we've been on PEI. We happen to enjoy the area east of Charlottetown where there are far fewer tourists. We hang out at an RV park called Seal Cove which is on the River near Murray Harbour North. Most of the people at the park are locals who leave their RVs there as weekend "cabins." The town of Montague is ~12 miles north and has grocery stores, etc. It's about an hour's drive from Charlottetown so it's not such a bad drive if we need to do more "serious" shopping. IMO with the exception of Charlottetown, it's difficult to think of PEI as being much other than agrarian and pretty rural. By rural I mean "not urban." To me, miles of rolling farmland is rural.

As you noted this is a very common problem. RV manufacturers establish "price points" that they wish to pay for subsystems purchased from other vendors. Vendors such as FlexSteel have to meet those price points in order to stay competitive. That means cheapening either the upholstery material or the furniture frame or both. Three years ago we purchased brand new deluxe FlexSteel captains chairs from Bradd and Hall of Elkhart. The ~15 year old chairs we replaced were still in reasonably good condition and weren't peeling. Our new ones were upholstered in Ultraleather which retails for $60-70/yard. Unfortunately, there are lots of lower cost and lower quality imitations of Ultraleather and, in addition, there are a lot of poor quality "bonded leather" fabrics out there.