wayne77590

Huff, The Cummins Service Center in San Antonio is 4.5 miles from the Fort Sam Houston RV Park. The are located at: 6226 I-35, San Antonio, TX 78218 Phone: (210) 655-5420 If you are interested.

With the power outage app a second android device is needed. With light bulbs, well, 99.9% of the MH's operate the lights via DC power so if the AC goes out the light is still going to be bright. A portable 110vac Lamp could be plugged into an 110vac socket. That is going to depend on what circuit breakers trip and is it a circuit breaker in the MH, or the pedestal. The air conditioning circuit usually has its own circuit breaker so a test would have to be done to see if any other plug receptacles are connected to it. If it is the campground pedestal then the microwave clock is typically AC voltage and either goes to ":" or blinks if the AC goes out. The more circuit breakers trip the weaker they become. It may be time to replace the breakers. Another consideration is how tight are the wires on the circuit breakers. Loose wires will cause the current to rise and the breaker to trip. It would be much better to get the AC system running correctly and not tripping breakers. Of course, if a 6 hour sight-seeing trip is in order then "ruff-ruff" doggy sitting could be utilized.

Let me know as the only gate to go in is off of the National Cemetery area for very easy access. Coming in from the East I-10 to Loop 410/I-35N, exit Rittiman Road, Turn left on Rittiman. Stay in left hand lane and turn left at Harry Wurzbach Rd. Stay in left lane. Turn left on Winans Rd. just before the cemetery (Stop light at Winans. Winans road is a B#@!%. Go slow and avoid the right hand side of the road. Stop if necessary if other cars come. The right and side of Winans is terrible but the road is only about 500 yards or so long. At the Stop sign turn right on Nursery Rd. and the gate will be ahead. Nursery Rd will make a left and go by the elementary school. Next left will take you to the campground. Do not try to use GPS as it will want to take you to the Petroleum Rd. gate which is closed and locked. There is no boondocking at Fort Sam. There is at Lackland but trust me. Fort Sam RV Park is superior for spacing and access to everything. Happy trails.

Jaime, my personal opinion is that Lacland is 2 or 3 on a scale to 5 and Fort Sam is a 5 in comparison.

Fort Sam Houston, ARMY, has a very nice RV park. You will have to use the phone to make reservations. Navy Gateways only does naval facilities campgrounds. Don't limit yourself or you will miss some very good campgrounds. If you stop in the Houston area give a holler as we are only 40 miles South of Houston. Enjoy your trip. Happy to see you traveling again.

You are correct on those two places not accepting reservations. However there are 10 FamCamps in Arizona and 5 of them take reservations. Some with reservations at FamCamps are Boondocking but not many. AZ has one area at Ft. Huachuca that is boondocking and requires reservations, as an example. Anyone interested can look up the military campgrounds at Military Campgrounds

Branson by itself is an interesting place and if you are an Escapee member you can stay 1/2 mile from "The Landing" for cheap $$. Take the route through Memphis, stay at the Tom Sawyer RV park, visit Elvis Museum (Kids will say, "Who's Elvis.") The RV Park is right on the Mighty Mississippi River.

There were very few military bases on the West Coast that did not take reservations. Many of the AFB and Army bases have converted over to reservations systems. Some of them have to be reserved on-line or through an 800 number that connects many of the bases. There are 19 military RV parks in Florida. Sixteen of those require reservations for RV's and 1 for quarters reservations. So 17 out of 19 military campgrounds in Florida take reservations either by pone or on-line through the internet. Yes NASKW, formerly known as Sigsbee, takes reservations with no hook-ups the rotate you in and out. I have heard that it is a pain in the butt to get into in the Winter time. I personally believe that there should be short stay limits at all the military campgrounds, like 14 days in, 14 days out and a max number of times that can be done. But that is just my personal opinion. Some of the West Coast bases have instituted short terms like that.

Puff, Other than Key West, have you had any other reservation problems at the military sites? Are they all filled up? Thanks.

As said. A friend had a brand new MH and it would not pump water. Another member reached in and tightened the lines by hand it it started working fine. Being an '01 it probably needs a rebuild. Good luck and let us know what you find.

As a funny, many years ago working military circuits we had what we called the Angry 9 (AN-GRA9). It was run either by engine mounted dynamotor or hand crank dynamotor. For field use we used the hand crank. There was a neon light on the radio that would glow when the radio was ready to operate. On one exercise the operators tried and tried and tried to load that antenna watching for the glow of the light. Didn't happen. So as one of them was lazily cranking the dynamotor at about 5 revs per minute, not enough supposedly to do anything, the operator started taping out a cuss word on the sending key and did it for many repeats. It was a few days later that the FCC tracked the users down and all heck was paid through the command. Seems the neon light was burned out. Like I said, 1 watt and a wet string can get you around the world if conditions are right. Remind me some day sitting around the camp fire to tell you about evaluating single site DF equipment (back in the 70's) at Syracuse University Research Center. We used an ionosonde in determining the height of the ionosphere for calculations. Quite interesting watching the ionosphere change and definitely gave a different perspective on communications.

I'm referring to HIS answering you. Did he pick up the telephone on the first ring? :-)

Hmmm! Was the person in Nicargua talking on the telephone wire or ham radio. I'm inactive right now but someday soon. p.s., look up K04A in your area. He has a 5'er and is very active. Tell him I said HI. He lives somewhere off of 222 just inside Maryland.

Bennie, you're an angel. I'd blame the wife in any case.

Take a look under and see if there are any teeth missing on the gear roller or if anything accidentally got thrown up there off the road and just lodged when you extended. As stated, remove the linkage and tie it up. Just don't forget it's tied up the next time you go out the door. Oh, and yes check the fuses.

Remco industries makes driveshaft disconnects and transmission pumps for many models of automobiles. Search for their name and give them a call. It may be possible to tow your car with their products.

Maiden voyage evacuating for Hurricane Ike. Knew the campground. Went to the turn-about and as I was making the turn there was a pickup truck parked and blocking my turn. Backed up to get a different attitude and when I went forward again I hit the steel 6" pipe encased in cement in the ground. Fortunately the ground was wet and they whole pipe tipped over with the pressure of the coach. The damage was to the lower part of the compartment door. Had a yellow streak of paint and a big dent. DW said, "Leave it that way as a reminder!" Hmmm! Reminder of what - oh, carelessness, non-observant, and her list went on. Checked with dealer and replacement door would have cost $2500 plus labor. Left it that way for 6 years then had it fixed for $1200 - labor only. By the way, it only hurts the ego the first time. Don't ask me how I know.

I have had good luck with through the glass on VHF. Never tried it on UHF. Keon, one consideration on a through the glass antenna is if the glass is double pane. The air gap does not give a good induction for the antenna and you can loose a lot of gain. Ha ha. Reminds me of a situation when I was installing two mobile communications equipment back in the '80's. Think Mercedes type car. User wanted a lip mount on the back hatch. Tolerance was to tight. I said that any hole that we drilled could be patched by any collision repair place when he decided to sell. He said okay. As he was standing there I got the drill and 3/4 inch hole saw, looked at him and said, "You want to watch!" At which point he hastily turned and ran out of the shop area. As you were talking about disaster areas, again I say it is all "antenna theory." I once did not have an antenna. What to do, what to do. Hmmm! RG-8 to the rescue. Took off enough of the outer insulation to create a quarter wave length of shield left. Folded the braided shield back down over the insulation leaving the phenolic insulator and center conductor exposed. Notched the end of the phenolic and tied a string around it. Hoisted up into a tree and voila - communications with an SWR of less than 2:1. A very long time ago, back in the early 70's, an engineer converted a tube CB final to a transistor final. When I asked how he was going to test it he stuck a coat hanger in the the antenna connector and transmitted a signal. Now I would not do that for a long period of time, but it worked. I have also set up a "V" shaped long wire system using 3 cut down trees and stringing the wire between then in the form of a "V." At the single pole take one leg down to the center conductor and the other to ground right next to it. With that situation I transmitted and received over 10,000 miles on HF and about 350 watts. It was during the VN war and we did it continuously every day. Then it was decided to put up a $10,000 log periodic which worked just as good. (Wasn't my money - long story made short.)

We have a Splendide Combo. Wrinkles everything. Takes forever. Only use it once in a while and like Charlie we like to go to a laundromat and get it done all at once. Used to have a Splendide stackable washer/dryer in the 5'er and we liked it. A friend converted the dryer to 240v. He said the hardware was there and all that was needed was the wiring. Dried clothes in half the time.

Keon, For VHF/UHF try a side mount between the front windshield and driver window. It is a small enough hole to route through the upper front cabinet. I'm assuming you have a cabinet. I have seen a lot of them mounted there, including CB antenna's. Being VHF you only need the upper half above the roof line for good radiation. Remember, it is only antenna "Theory." A wet string and 1 watt on a good day will get you around the world. KE5QG

This past year we encountered some roads that rattled our teeth. Well, we are driving down the road in a rolling earthquake.

Turn off the step. There is a constant draw on the step motor using a current limiting switch. The drain is over 2 amp and will drain down the battery. Get a full charge and when you leave the MH in storage turn off the step motor. My step switch is just inside the door and I can turn it off with a 12-15 inch piece of anything after closing the screen door and reaching inside.. My battery would go down to 11 volts in just a few days when the switch was left on and I have 110 power to the MH. The Trik-L-Charge could not keep up. Do you have a solar panel for charging?

The military FamCamp is on Patrick AFB

My manual says 15,000 miles or 1 year, which ever come first. The 1 year is the one I go by and have everything changed whether it needs it or not. Average cost for an M1 is about 600-800 and an M3 about $1500.

Picked my 50' hose up at Lowe's, made of rubber. The 50' gets me to any tire. My air access is under the front cowling.