alflorida

I would recommend Big Bend in January instead of late March. Not sure you can change your plans for AZ though. Late March in BB is starting to get warm. You could have nice days with highs around 80-84 degrees or it could be close to 100* January is usually nice, but not always. Most days along the Rio Grande (Rio Grande Village (RGV) CG) are bright and sunny with highs in the 60's & low 70's and lows near freezing. There are lots of snowbirds in the park so make reservations. If a winter storm comes though you may get a little rain and high temps in the 30's. After the storm comes through and you have a clear night with no wind, I may drop below freezing for a few hours. At RGV you almost never see a day time high below freezing. Temps in the 60's or even 50's with little wind and bright sun makes for great sightseeing by auto, short or long hikes as well.

Boondocking for extended periods is all about charging your batteries, not about the inexpensive golf cart batteries or the expensive Trojan/Lifeline batteries. My money goes to the Costco or Sam's Club batteries at about $80 each. You also need to be willing to check the water level in the batteries every month. Or buy expensive AGM batteries. 160 watts of solar is fine for keeping your 220 amp hours of batteries charged IF you only run your lights, a furnace in temps above about 50 degrees. No microwave, toaster, coffee maker, satellite TV receiver and TV use. You will not get much life out of any of the batteries, including the expensive ones, if you don't get them charged to 100% at least once a week. Every 4 days or more is better. Additionally for longer life you should only discharge your batteries 25% (75% full). Trojan life cycle chart lists about 3000 cycles if you only discharge 25%, about 1500 cycles if discharged 50% and only about 750 cycles if discharged 75-80%. Additionally discharging to 50% requires longer charging times. What some people do is in the morning, run the generator for about an hour to get a good bulk charge in the battery and then let solar take over to get the batteries as well charged as you can. You also need a battery monitor to measure how many amp hours you have used and how many amp hours have gone back in your batteries when charging. A Trimetric monitor is an excellent choice.

Thanks. I doubt I'll call. I did just mark one of them as Spam in Gmail. I also use Mozilla Thunderbird to read all my emails and I can use email filters to dump them into the trash.

You mean you wanted an answer to your question, not comments about RV Parks outside Yosemite and about the crowds. Sorry, I don't know if you can maneuver a 40 footer in the CG roads. I also don't recall reading in other forums about someone taking a 40 footer in the campground.

No opinion about Armstrong/lifeline batteries. Just a comment about the Golf Cart batteries for under $100 from Sam's Club/Costco. The do require monthly or every other month check of the water level and refilling with distilled water when they get low. AGM are sealed and don't require maintenance just more money from your wallet or credit card. You mention driving the RV every month or so while in storage. Do you know for sure if the engine charges the house batteries or not? Not all RV's have the set up to charge the house batteries from the engine. The house batteries need to be recharged every couple of months for long life.

This is a problem where it is best to have someone with volt meter and some experience to do some hands on troubleshooting. It seems like there are a number of things going on which makes troubleshooting via the forum difficult. Editing, correcting some misinformation/terminology in my original reply. If you have a voltmeter you would want start with measuring the voltage at the house batteries and the chassis batteries to see if they are fully charged. I am assuming your inverter is also used to charge and keep your house batteries charged. So you will want to check the voltage with the RV plugged into shore power that the charging circuit is providing the proper voltage to charge the batteries and supplying the 12VDC power to the 12V things like the Norcold refrigerator control circuit board, the 12V lights, etc. Then you want to unplug from shore power and see what the battery voltage is. It will also be helpful to know, as you do your testing, if the inverter/charger is used to keep the chassis (engine) batteries charged while the RV is not being driven.

Are you having a problem with the batteries? If not just keep what you have. As long as you don't spend nights dry camping and wanting to use the inverter to run things like the microwave, coffee pot, toaster, etc you could just get two 6VDC golf cart batteries at Costco or Sam's Club, wire them in series for 12VDC. The pair of golf cart batteries will work just fine when you move from one RV Park to another. Of course if you are ever in an RV Park and the area loses electrical power for many hours or days, it is sure handy to have the full complement of batteries and the inverter to not have to run the generator all the time.

We have used the Winegard Traveler with Dish Network setup since 2011 on 2 different RV's. Installed on original RV and move it to the new RV myself. Not overly complicated, but getting the dish up on the roof is not easy, bulky and a bit heavy. The Dish Traveler is about $400 to $600 less than the Direct TV. We had/have Dish at our sticks & bricks and just pick up the receiver (DVR) and move it to the RV when we travel. I see the Dish Traveler advertised on Amazon for around $1100 or less every once in a while. One thing about Dish Network is we can change local channels from one area of the country to the other area with a quick "chat" session with MYDish.com. Note you don't have to change local channels every time you move. Just when you move out of the spot beam. In the west the spot beams cover about the entire state. Denver covers Colorado, Portland covers Oregon, most of Washington and part of northern CA. We spend a lot of time out in the boonies far away from over the air signals. Just pop up the dish and we have the locals as long as we have a view of the satellite.

I keep getting these blankety blank email ads from FMCA advertising some RV Park. How do I stop it. I didn't ask for them and I don't want them. Yes there is a thing at the bottom that looks like I will have to register at another place to op-out of the emails, " Manage your preferences | Opt out using TrueRemove™ " I shouldn't have to go some additional place to unsubscribe from an email.

I believe the issue of using the phone as a hot spot and voice at the same time is a smart phone issue not the carrier. We have a Samsung 6 & 7 used with Verizon and both work find on voice while being used as a hot spot. I did not check to see if the data speed slowed down when we had a voice conversation or not.

I posted a link to this topic on a couple of other forums I frequent.

We bought and I installed the Sk-1000 in May 2012. In 2014 I moved it to a different RV. We have about 50,000-55,000 miles of bouncing roads including probably a total of 1000-1500 miles on gravel roads. This includes our 4 1/2 month trip to Alaska last year where we had a 450 mile round trip on the Alaska Pipeline Haul road (Dawson Hwy) almost all gravel with pot holes. We also travel 6-10 months of the year. When we travel we usually move every 2 days to a week. We rarely stay for 2 weeks w/o moving. This means we are putting the dish up and down many, many times every year. No problems with the Winegard.

Some questions to help understand what your plans are: -- How much time is planned for this route? -- Are you planning a trip to Olympic Peninsula and then follow the coast on US-101, allowing 2-3 weeks for the coast trip? -- Or are you just going to visit Seattle and then head to the Grand Canyon. It is had to give good advice without more details.

The point I am trying to make is there is lots to see between any two destinations. If you have the time, talk your time when traveling and LEARN something about this great country (Canada also) instead of just driving directly from/to the same destination every year. But to each their own. Some folks are not interested in what there is to see and do between their two destinations.

Not sure if you are being facetious or not about the "rule of 2's". But it is for retired folks not to rush through the magnificent country. Instead of the mad rush of 8 hours of travel every day for 10 straight days, from AK to the Houston, Texas area. Slow down and enjoy the trip. Take a month to make the trip. Drive 200 miles in a day, get off the road by 2pm and spend at least 2 days before traveling. Even if you are going to wind up at the same location every year, you take a different route each year and each direction. That is not for some folks. If they have no interest in what is between their two destinations, then the straight through trip works for them. As stated, there are no "rules", just do what you like.

The Alcan Hwy from Dawson Creek, to Alaska is almost all 2 lane road. It is a very good highway. Most of it has paved shoulders from 4' to 10' wide. However, most of the speed limit is 90-100 KMH (55-60mph) or less. There are lots and lots of hills. Nothing really bad just going up and down. A few of the grades are 7% to even 10%, but not for long distances. Lots of beautiful scenery. If you just want to drive with a purpose of just getting there, you could probably average 45 mph for a days travel. That is assuming you only stop for 10-15 minutes for lunch, gas stops as quick as you can, bathroom breaks 5-6 minutes, don't stop at scenic view points, etc. That means when you drive you push, push, drive, drive,drive. Not much fun but it will get you there. For a more enjoyable trip, plan on at least 2 weeks, 4 weeks is even better, to go from the lower 48 border to Alaska border. Plan on a 4-6 hours per day drive and relax. Follow the "Rule of 2's". Drive no more than 200 miles in a days travel, off the road by 2pm and stay 2 nights before moving again.

How are you planning on recharging your house batteries? Trying to charge your batteries with the standard converters (120V to 13.5V) may take 12-24 hours to fully recharge the batteries. That is really long time to run your generator. You need to install a 3 stage converter to do an efficient job of recharging your batteries.

For the phone charger, just buy a USB charger which plugs into the 12V outlet. No need for the inverter here. For the computer, are you talking about a laptop or a computer tower? For a laptop buy a $30 150 watt inverter and plug it into the 12v outlet. An inverter larger than 150watts draws to much current for the standard cigarette lighter 12v outlet and will need to be attached directly to the battery. All the laptops we have had over the years, including the 2 Dell's we bought in 2016, work fine on the modified sine wave inverters.

WOW! It looks like we have two separate and distinct threads going here. One about a diesel pusher with more sophisticated battery system and the one started by the OP with a gas powered motorhome. As you read through the posts keep in mind which topic and thread the posts are addressing.

Smitty777 gave some good advice/suggestions. I would like to add some additional info and considerations for you to think about. -- For larger batteries I would upgrade to 6V golf cart batteries that you can buy at Costco or Sam's Club for about $80-$100 each. They should fit in the space under your stairs. They fit just fine in my 2006 Sightseer. The dimensions of this type of battery are 10.5L x 7.2W x 11.5H. You will have to do some minor rewiring of the batteries to wire the batteries in series. -- VERY IMPORTANT: You need to have some way to quickly recharge your batteries. The standard converter your RV came with, works fine to charge your batteries when connected to shore power, because of the 12 to 24 hours it takes to fully charge the batteries with the converter. You don't want to be running your generator that long to recharge the batteries. You either need to replace the converter with a newer 3 stage converter, or have a 1000-2000 watt inverter/charger installed. The 3 stage charging system will usually get your battery to 85-95% charged in about 1.5 to 2 hours versus the 12-24 for the standard converter -- Quote: "What kind of CCA/CA, AH and RC ratings should I be looking for?" You want a true deep cycle battery. Any battery labeled with CCA or RA is NOT a true deep cycle battery. It is a combination starting and deep cycle battery. Not nearly as robust as a true deep cycle battery. -- What kind of inverter do you have? If the Adventurer is like my 2006 Sightseer there is a small 300 watt inverter to run the TV and entertainment center. However you won't be able to run a vacuum cleaner off of it. -- You will not be able to run your air conditioner or heat pump from your batteries. You will be able to run the propane furnace unless the temps drop down to near freezing and you want to keep the inside temp up around 65-68 degrees. The furnace blower will run much to long overnight and use to much power from the battery. -- If you plan to do more than 2-3 days of dry camping before hooking up to shore power you must install a battery monitor like a Trimetric. Without the monitor you don't know how much capacity you have taken out of the battery, nor do you know how close to 100% charged your battery is. Both are extremely important to get long life out of any battery. For long battery life you don't want to discharge the battery to more than 75% FULL (that is use 25% of capacity). If you use 50% or more of the capacity of the batteries you will reduce the number of discharge/recharge cycles from around 2000 to around 500 cycles. -- There has been mention of AGM & Gel batteries. While they are very good batteries and have some advantages, they are 2-3 times as expensive as the golf cart batteries. If you are going to spend that type of money, you want to be sure to totally educate yourself on how to properly monitor the discharge and recharge the batteries. For that type of money you want to be extra sure you get the longest life possible out of the batteries.

Test Post

Please ignore this posting/topic. I searched a little deeper in the FMCA website and got my answer, I can notify FMCA to hold mail until notified. I'm sorry if this has been asked and answered before. I searched for "mail forwarding" and got zero hits. I am looking to start using FMCA mail forwarding and saw the following statement: "The first letter of your last name determines your mailing day. FMCA's Mail Forwarding Department must have your forwarding address, or notification to hold your mail, no later than the last working day prior to the day your mail is scheduled to be forwarded". Does this mean if I don't notify FMCA EVERY week, they will automatically forward last weeks mail to the last "general delivery" address I had mail sent to, even though we have moved on? We travel a lot and seldom spend more than a few days in any one location. Other mail services we have used allow us to call or email when and where we want the accumulated mail sent to. They don't send mail again unless we call or email.