Postcard from Arizona

Posted on Wednesday, 5 October 2011 by bruce10b

5 October 2011

‘The Eagle has landed’, but not without falling on its ass. I’ll explain…

Lordsburg, NM
We did a one-niter at KOA in Lordsburg, NM. Lordsburg is an easy stop and far enough on the South side of town that I-10 traffic isn’t a problem. Weeeell… at least when you’re as tired as we were. There’s a Valero station 4 blocks away on the main drag that has diesel, so it was easy to get refueled. Lordsburg happens to be home to Kranberry’s family restaurant, so, if you’re food-deprived, you can have someone fill you with tasty food and fattening desserts for a nominal fee. Sadly the Admiral has us on a Weight Watchers program (thanks a lot, Dr. Oz!) and we abstained.

I fiddled with the power settings on the Banks controller all the way from Santa Fe to Socorro where I finally gave up. I settled on #3 (again!) and used that the rest of the way to Benson. To the uninitiated,10.6 mpg may sound awful (and it is!), but it’s actually a significant improvement – about 18% on this trip – compared to what we got prior to having the Banks Engineering mods installed.

Interesting Garmin incident along the way: our Garmin 465T is optimized for commercial trucks and is aware of highways that have restrictions (weight, height, whatever). For whatever reason Mrs. Garmin decided that NM-26, the shortcut to Deming on I-10 from Hatch on I-25 which bypasses Las Cruces, is a no-no. We (and any number of very large commercial trucks) didn’t agree, so we soldiered-on avoiding the extra 45 miles and heavy Las Cruces traffic… with Mrs. Garmin complaining the whole way.

Btw, we passed a huge solar farm between Hatch & Deming. I’m going to guess there were 32 panels in each array and each array was installed on its own 2-axis tracking mount (azimuth & elevation). There were maybe 24 mounts in the farm. Photos will have to wait for the next time we pass thru here (in a few days when we retrieve the car).

Benson, AZ
We arrived at SKP Saguaro at 1130 AM only to find the office closed. After grumping about how the staff had gone to lunch early, we finally realized “Oops! Today’s Sunday!” October is still on a shortened schedule as leaseholders and JARs (JAR = Just A Renter… that’s us) don’t start arriving till the end of October.

Since we have an annual rental site, we went ahead and parked in our space. The dogs were in the truck while we set up and I left the engine idling so we could keep the AC running and keep them cool. We were interrupted by the across-the-street neighbor saying ‘Hi!’, then a few do-overs in setup, but eventually (45 minutes later?) we got things variously disconnected and connected and are settled in our site.

Electricity is expensive everywhere. Here at the SKP park it’s $0.14/kW-hr, so (at current propane prices) it’s cheaper to use propane whenever we can. I spent a lot of time last year tramping back and forth to Barnett’s propane in Benson refilling our 7-gal tanks. This year we want to get a larger tank that is refilled monthly. That way we can use propane not only for the furnace but also for the fridge and the water heater. Off we went to Barnett’s Sierra Vista office to sign the necessary paperwork for a 125-gal tank ($40/yr for the tank rental + cost of propane). About 2 miles into the 30+ mile trip I noticed what I thought might be a misfire in the diesel. And this is why I said the Eagle may have landed but it has fallen on its ass.

Truck-whine
The misfire feels a lot like what we experienced in Florida when an injector crapped out after the truck had idled for a very long time. On that earlier experience it was a simple case of shutting off the engine then restarting it (that failure turned out to be an intermittent electrical problem inside the injector). Not so lucky this time. The further we drove the worse the misfire got. Shutting down and restarting changed nothing The truck idles smoothly, but at any throttle setting above idle it is a distinct problem until it gets to full throttle where it seems to be smoother. I tried driving at higher speed for awhile, but with all the police watching for speeders during commute traffic it was hopeless. So now we need a local mechanic who can run diagnostics and do necessary repairs.

I asked at the office and got a couple suggestions for a mechanic to help us, then I also asked a neighbor about local mechanics. When he got home, Lorel asked her hubbie Gene what he thought and he immediately suggested our problem might be the air cleaner. It didn’t cost anything, so I used our compressor to blow out the filter. I must admit that, at least before the engine gets all the way to operating temperature (that would be over 194 deg F), there seems to be no misfire. I’ll drive on the Interstate to be sure cuz my gut tells me it can’t possibly be this simple:

  • the filter wasn’t super dirty.
  • I’ve never spent $0 to repair this truck! 

The jury is still out and the truck is in the penalty box, but maybe I’m wrong (and I sincerely hope that’s the case!).

And the newest rule for the Dog House on Wheels is that we won’t let the truck idle for long periods just in case that caused a problem for the injectors.

Btw, I found a tiny stone (1/8″-1/4″) caught in the folds of the filter. Had a filter not been there, we would be buying a new turbo charger and probably having the engine rebuilt. Yikes!

Ham Radio Stuff
Some more photos of the radio installation (odd how the red numerals of the antenna controller refuse to be in focus even though the case is… ???).

17m counterpoise antennas… 3 pair to go!
Scorpion SA-680 on its mast attached to the ladder
World’s ugliest swing arm… yuck!
The Office
MFJ-1924 screwdriver antenna controller
Heil ClearSpeech powered speaker
Slide-penetrations for RF cable and antenna control

That Heil ClearSpeech speaker is really nice. It has a small amp as well as DSP filtering. Sadly it’s an orphan as it’s no longer being built.

The MFJ-1924 screwdriver antenna controller looks pretty fancy, but the reality is that it’s just a turns-counter with 10 memories. There’s no automatic tuning going on. You must have an SWR meter somewhere to detect null. The Elecraft K3 has that ability, so it’s useful as there’s really no way to repeat antenna position without something that counts turns. There is a controller called a TurboTuner (I think!) which does find null and stops screwdriver movement, but Ron Douglass, creator of the Scorpion antennas, tells me the design doesn’t work well with his drive-motor.

I’ll be tuning the counterpoise antennas over the next few days, so even though the parts are all in place it still isn’t a working ham station.

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Postcard from New Mexico- 7 *

Posted on Thursday, 29 September 2011 by bruce10b
29 September 2011, Santa Fe

We’re close to heading for our winter hangout. We’ll be staying at the SKP Saguaro Co-op a little South of Benson, AZ. Barring a calamity we should be on our way 1 October with a one-niter somewhere. We’ve been keeping ourselves busy fixing problems and creating more, but I think we’ll be ready by Saturday.

Along with maintenance chores I’ve gotten busy installing our ham radio station. That’s occupied nearly all my available time for a couple weeks now…

Radio Station
Installation of the radio station happened really quickly. So far I’ve:

  • installed a removable mast (1-1/4″ thin wall conduit from Home Depot) supported by a FlagPoleBuddy.com mount (need something better),
  • installed the new Scorpion SA-680 screwdriver antenna,
  • routed cables and installed support items,
  • drilled holes in the side of the entertainment slide (*that* was a nerve wracking!),
  • mounted weather covers over the holes to feed the wiring inside and keep weather & bugs out,
  • installed an MFJ-1924 screwdriver-antenna controller (with memory… pretty cool!),
  • installed a monstrosity of a swing arm (RAM-Mount… *ugly*) to mount the radio when stopped,
  • installed my old Daiwa 505SS power supply,
  • installed my old West Mountain Radio RIGrunner 4010S power strip to distribute 12VDC power,
  • installed my old Heil ClearSpeech comm speaker (out of production),
  • wired everything, and
  • checked it out.
Scorpion SA-680 with just the 17m counterpoise

Installation of the hardware is (pretty much) complete and I’m reasonably happy except for the ugly swing arm and the support for the antenna mast. But the work is by no means finished. I still have to tune the length of each of the counterpoise antennas… a long and tedious job. There are 8 antenna arranged in opposing pairs covering 4-bands: 80m, 40m, 20m and 17m. No way to get the tuning done before leaving on 1 Oct, so that job will have to wait till we get to Benson.

I did take time to download and install the latest firmware for the Elecraft K3.. our radio was way behind. The K3 is a software defined radio and the designer (Wayne Burdick/N6KR) is forever improving its operation. Wayne seems to work a 26-hr day!

Getting the antenna set up is a big deal, so it’ll only happen when I know we’re going to be somewhere for awhile. The antenna weighs just under 20 lbs, but there’s also the metal mast, an RF choke. All together there’s probably 30#-35#. Not too heavy until you stand it up and lift it onto the base of the FlagPoleBuddy mount. Any breath of air and it’s pretty much out of control. Then after the mast + antenna are up I can add the counterpoise antennas.

Pre-departure Maintenance
Sitting or moving, there’s always something that needs attention. In this case it was the wheel bearings. Fortunately our Montana is fitted Zerk fittings on the axles. Lubing the bearings can be done with a grease gun filled with wheel bearing grease. The bearings are supposed to get attention every 5,000 miles and this seemed like a good time to get it done.

The debacle with the tires back in June/July, which left us with broken landing gear, taught me that I need to have the Montana connected to the truck, move the landing gear clear of the ground, jack the frame first, then lift the wheel off the ground with a jack under the single axle. That’s what I did and it worked great. But the fussing around in order to get the bottle jacks positioned and everything blocked is a giant PITA. All together it took about 3 hours: 20 minutes lubing the bearing plus 2hr 40min screwing around with jacks. Humbug! The next rig will have leveling jacks!

Now the bearings are serviced plus I reinstalled the trim piece I’d left off one wheel during the tire change. Still have to drain the water from the fresh water tank, stow the antenna and take several hundred pounds of crap to the house. We leave Saturday morning… a week late thanks to the late delivery of prescriptions from MedCo (the company I love to hate!).

Trip Planning
Haven’t had time to decide where to stay on the trip South. There’s only one stop before Benson… Las Cruces? Lordsburg? Deming? Dunno yet. This is unlike me… I tend to over-plan and to make reservations too far ahead. But we’ve been too busy to do the usual.

This evening, however, I updated the GPS we use for RV travel (we have lifetime maps for all our Garmin GPSs). Took about 4 hrs and the file was 1.5 GB. Yikes! But the deed is done and I’m hoping they’ve fixed a few things in our nüvi 465T. The 465 is designed for use with commercial trucks and RVs and is height-restriction aware. So far so good, and hopefully it will continue to keep us out of trouble.

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Postcard from New Mexico- 6

Posted on Monday, 12 September 2011 by bruce10b

Santa Fe

I just added one more big chore to do before we leave. I’m way overdue to install our ham radio on the Montana (Celia is K5CMB and I’m NM5B). I may not finish everything before we leave for Benson, but I’ve got the radio sitting beside me and have have kluged the power line so I could at least see if it still operates after sitting for 2 years. Indeed it does and I’ve since downloaded 2 major revisions to the firmware.

Elecraft K3 hf transceiver (100 W)

Our radio is an Elecraft K3 100W hf (160m-6m) transceiver with all the early bells & whistles including the sub-receiver. Ours is #00136… part of the very early batch. Since we left to go play “RVers”, Wayne/N6KR (he’s a co-founder & head of technology) at Elecraft has added some really cool stuff like a panadapter and a 500W linear amp to name just 2.

The only thing we really need at the moment is an antenna. Several years ago I bought an Outbacker (mfd in Australia, but cut to US bands) portable/mobile antenna. We used this bullet-proof portable antenna in Santa Fe till I could install the larger 1/4 wave tunable-vertical from SteppIR Antennas. I used the SteppIR for several years on 40m-6m but always wished it covered the 80m band as well. When SteppIR came out with their Mk III vertical which could cover 80m-6m (basically added an optional loading coil), I switched to that newer model.

Our Outreach 500 and Outpost tripod

SteppIR verticals are great antennas but they’re pretty big (33′) and inappropriate for our use on an RV as they don’t disassemble easily for thransport when we’re moving the rig. However, our old Outbacker antenna (Outreach 500 model) stows easily in 2-pieces in its 4′ bag. When I bought the Outbacker in 2003, I also bought an Outpost tripod (made by Alpha Delta) which was designed for Outbacker antennas and works quite well (useable on other mobile or portable antennas too). In the photo, the 2 pieces of the antenna (black) are each about 4′, though the assembled length of the Outreach is about 11′ 5″ with the stinger extended.

Outpost with Outreach antenna

The odd looking aluminum contraption in the photo is the Outpost tripod which ends up unfolding a la a child’s “transformer”. Not exactly human-engineered when it comes to deployment, but once everything is properly extended and a couple spikes are driven through the holes in the 3′ long feet, it’s a very stable platform that usually negates the need for added radials.

So that’s what will get us started. But the rules in most RV parks require any ham gear be attached to the RV and the Outbacker/Outpost don’t meet that criteria. So our long term solution will be to use a mobile antenna (a screwdriver design) mounted on the rear of the Montana. I have a Scorpion SA-680 coming from Ron Douglass/NI7J. I ordered his Home Package version which includes n adapter plus a set of 8 radials in matching pairs for 40m, 20m, 17m and 10m. If that works as I expect, I’ll replace the 8-port adapter with a 16 port and add 4 more bands (80m, 60m, 15m and 12m).

Anyway, that’s the plan. The biggest issue is committing to putting a hole in the Montana!

A Couple Repairs

No matter whether you’re traveling or parked, things on an RV break. This time 2 things happened at the same time: the water valve on the Thetford toilet started leaking, and the drive belt on the Splendide dryer both broke. Again. Splendide got the belt here in 2 days, but Thetford sent the replacement valve to a place only they know about.

Repairs on our rig are generally Blue jobs (along with vacuuming and washing dishes), but I’d never have been able to get it done without help from the Pink team. The dryer weighs less than Splendide says it does (it’s less than the 67# Splendide states), but it’s impossible to reconnect the dryer exhaust hose while holding the dryer. Lots of expletives, but now the dryer is repaired: an hour to replace the belt, then 2 hours of frustration getting the dryer back in place atop the washer.

If the water valve ever gets here we’ll have a properly working toilet again. I think it would have been better to have bought the Thetford parts from PPL or someplace similar.

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Postcard from New Mexico- 5

Posted on Sunday, 11 September 2011 by bruce10b

Santa Fe

Must be getting close to time to head for Arizona cuz my beloved asked today if I’d checked the pressure in all the tires. Sheesh! I buy a new compressor and right away the Admiral thinks I ought to use it.

There’s a reason for her concern since the new trailer tires are under-inflated at the moment. Discount Tire has a large industrial compressor which, as it turns out, is set at 80 psi max. Probably a shop safety issue so no one accidentally over-inflates a new tire enough to damage the tire or hurt someone. That’s all well-and-good, but our new Load Range G tires need 115 psi for our load. In cases where 80 psi isn’t enough, the shop has a small portable compressor that dribbles enough air to get tires to 100 psi. And that’s still short of the 115 psi we need. Our old low-profile, lightweight ‘pancake’ compressor has an non-adjustable cut-off switch on the compressor that trips at 100 psi. And it has no regulator, so it’s really the wrong thing to use.

Out with the BLUE, in with the RED

So I went to Home Depot where I found a compressor (Husky… the store brand) with adjustable output regulator. It pumps the tank to 155 psi, and the regulator allows setting any pressure up to the maximum tank pressure. Best news is that it has a substantially higher flow rate (3x-5x more) than the old $70US Campbell-Hausfield. Not bad for about $130US. Home Depot was out of stock, but a couple days later I brought home the new (and sadly 15# heavier) compressor, did the 20 minute break-in, tested it at full pressure… and put it away. It took several days and a rush-delivery internet order to get the pieces you see here which can all handle the higher pressure the tires require.

The old yellow Slinky went away with the old compressor

Once I had the new old fashioned rubber air hose, an air chuck with a lock, a proper tie gauge, and a proper angled double-chuck (for the duals), I connected to the new compressor and checked the air pressure. Shoulda’ known… the Discount Tire tech inflated the tires to 80 psi and didn’t use their backup compressor to get to 100 psi. Nice guys at DT, but everything they do has to be double-checked. Aarrgh!!

Garcia Tires

Now that all the drama is over I learned I probably could have had the tires changed right here in the park. Last week I heard a large compressor pumping away. When I walked the dogs I discovered Garcia Tire of Santa Fe had a mobile service truck busy at the park. They were mounting new tires on a Cougar 5th wheel right at the trailer-owners camp site. I’ve never dealt with Garcia Tires and I’m sure there’s a surcharge to do it, but it’s pretty cool to get new shoes on the rig without driving into town! A couple days later their service truck was back and the driver was repairing a tire on a big motorhome.

Spring At Last

The park has a very nice patio which turns into a camp site
during Balloon Fiesta!)

It’s 6 months late, but it’s finally spring in Santa Fe. Every living plant has turned green and has (or was) flowering. Just in time for us to bail out for SE Arizona. What a change from the persistent hot days we’ve had this summer. We did have the incessant spring winds. And initially they masked the heat which was to become the theme for summer 2011. We didn’t like it, but what Santa Fe had was trivial compared to Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, et al. We’re glad to see the end of this chapter and look forward to what comes next.

LOTS of sunflowers in New Mexico
Even this metal tree seems alive!
Shadows on the patio

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Postcard from New Mexico- 4

Posted on Friday, 12 August 2011 by bruce10b

Santa Fe

After a month and a half of whining, the news is good this time. It took 6 weeks but the new landing gear arrived from Lippert Components Inc. (they manufacture the chassis for Keystone/Montana) and the legs are installed… took about 3 hours of labor.

And this time the locking pin extends thru both sides of each leg. No weird angles; no forcing the pin thru.

I was able to also have them replace the after-market connector in the bed of the truck. The optional Ford integrated trailer-brake controller had frequently given us a TRAILER NOT CONNECTED message since late March of last year. In hind sight, it was caused by an intermittent ground connection where the after-market plug connects to Ford’s factory-installed wiring harness. Besides causing intermittent failure of the trailer running & brake lights, it also caused the trailer brakes to be intermittent. Yikes! Our work-around had been to use the Ford-provided plug next to the receiver hitch which, unfortunately, significantly limited the angle between the trailer and the truck when parking. [ Like the integrated trailer-brake controller, the hitch is part of Ford’s optional tow package. ]

Back at Santa Fe Skies, I was surprised that parking was less of a problem this time. In part because it was the 2nd time getting into the same space, but mostly it’s that the opening to the site is really wide. I was able to maneuver endlessly till I walked the rig close to the patio. If we aren’t real close, the sewer hose ends up going over a slope which causes the hose-support (the ‘caterpillar’) to fall over about once per week… usually about the time I have to drain the black tank. Now the tank seems to drain properly and the hose stays put.

Best news of all is that we have the last 2 Goodyear G614 RST tires installed. The rig is pretty much good to go at this point since I was able to lube the spring shackles while the wheels were off. I told the manager at Discount Tire that they had seen way too much of us over the last year. First it was the truck tires which took several visits… not least of which was because I had no “key” for the spare tire. Then I found  one of the new tires going flat which turned out to be a loose Schrader valve. We had them repair a tire on the Highlander which went flat after I put that car on the trailer to bring it to Santa Fe. And lastly was the debacle of one-at-a-time tire-replacement for the Montana. I must have been in an out of the store a dozen times.

Even though the truck & Montana are ready to go, we’ve decided to delay the trip to Maine. We’ve watched the endless mid-west heat on the weather reports which have us very concerned. The hot spell has gone on so long we chickened out. At this point we think our best bet is to stay in Santa Fe till the middle of September and then head to Benson, AZ for the winter. Then next year (2012) we’ll leave Benson about the first of April and head to Santa Fe for annual checkups before leaving for Maine in the middle of May. That schedule will leave plenty of time to return by way of some of the Canadian Maritimes (New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Is.) if we want. Probably have to skip Newfoundland and Labrador this time, but we can see Quebec and SE Ontario. The Maritimes were our easterly destination in 2010 when the house called us back.

Jacking the Montana

I thought I should touch on what I learned from this. When I first had the landing gear failure, I talked to several friends about what I thought had caused the problem. I’d hoped someone could offer a method of avoiding a repeat incident. I think it was Dan Weigman who said he always has the front of his rig supported by his truck when jacking anytime he removes a tire. Plus he jacks the rig only part way via the frame, then he puts another jack under the axle to get the tire clear of the ground. Jacking a fifth wheel this way limits how far the frame has to rise on one side, puts a minimal load on the axle (way less than it sees underway), and keeps all load off the landing gear. So I tried this approach for the last 2 tires and think this just became SOP for tire changes on the dog house.

The only issue is that you need enough blocking. A bottle jack just doesn’t have the extension range to lift either the tire or (once the frame is up) the axle. I have 5 dozen 2″x8″x18″ scraps plus 2- 2″x6″x6′ boards (used for leveling) and it wasn’t enough. So before we leave for winter pasture I’ll need to add more blocking. And I’ll need to replace the plastic “milk crate” (one of those cheap knock-offs from Crates&Barrels) which dies from UV in a matter of months.

Skip this paragraph if you don’t want to hear me whine: our Montana (3400RL) has a corrugated plastic cover over the bottom. It keeps out dirt and debris and some of the winter cold so it’s much appreciated. What I don’t appreciate is that the frame doesn’t have defined jacking-points which, if they were there, would be covered by that same corrugated plastic. As a result, I can’t really be sure where I’m putting the jack relative to the frame. In fact, at one point I punched a hole in the plastic cover because there was no frame underneath the ram of the bottle jack. So a person has to be careful about where the bottle jacks are placed when jacking the frame. It would have been so easy for Lippert (they built the chassis which Keystone builds upon to create a Montana) to have welded pads under the frame to retain the end of the bottle jack ram. Also, jacking the axle to get the tire clear (200# tops) is a little scarey as the underneath surface of the axle is curved and not appropriate for jacking (the springs are mounted to the top of the axles). I use a block of wood which does little more than add friction, but it would be even scarier without it. End of whine.

Full-timer’s Blog

One last thing: RVing friends Becky and Dave are full-timers we met in Sioux Falls, SD last July and we’ve stayed in touch for over a year now. A couple weeks ago Becky started a blog here so she wouldn’t have to e-Mail all their photos to family & friends. Here’s a couple photos of Celia reading her blog.

Here’s Celia before reading Becky’s blog:

Here’s Celia after reading Becky’s blog:

Clearly reading Becky’s blog is good for your state of mind. Looks like it’s “Admiral Approved”!

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