CBs

We carry a CB to listen to road info from the truckers (and learn new words) and also to communicate with fellow RVers as we travel together.   The most important part of any radio system is the antenna.  Put your CB antenna as high as you can get it without hitting things.  I believe that 13 feet 6  inches is the limit by law.  Put it on the left side of the rig if you side mount it.  That will keep it from hitting tree limbs that tend to be closer to the road on the curb side of the street.  You can mount an antenna on a fiberglass rig very easily if you are careful to put the mount where the mounting screws go through part of the metal structure of the rig.  Mine goes into one of the frame members right above the drivers window.

Our CB is a WalMart special.  We paid $35 for it.  CBs are allowed to transmit with 4 watts of power.  Whether you pay $500 or $35, you still get 4 watts on AM.  You would be much better to spend money on a good antenna and just get a generic CB.  Some have weather channels built in and if you do not have those frequencies, you might consider getting a CB with the weather channels.  We have them built into our regular AM/FM dash radio and also carry a weather alert radio from Radio Shack, so it was not an issue with us.

Make sure the antenna is resonant.  If you don't know how to do this, look around in the next campground you are in.  There will surely be a Ham radio operator there who will have either an antenna analyzer or an SWR bridge.  I carry both and am always glad to assist with this task.

We use the Ositech Trump Pilot cell modem.  It sells for a bit less than the 3Comm and comes with the cable to connect to your cell phone.  The cable for the 3Comm can sell for as much as $100.  While cell phone surfing is really not practical, it certainly works just fine for collecting and sending e-mail.  The fastest connection we have every had was 9.6 kbps, but when you are dealing with text messaging, that is fast enough.

Our cell phone is a Nokia 6161 and our provider is Cingular (ex BellSouth Mobility and SBC mobile service)  Cingular is the second largest wireless provider in the U.S. just behind Verizon.  AT&T is third with Sprint a distant fourth.  We use the 600 minute'/$89 a month plan with no roaming and no long distance.  Most providers have similar plans and the only one I do not recommend for fulltimers is Sprint.  The reason is, Sprint has a far smaller coverage area than the others.  If you are outside of Sprint's digital coverage area, you might find yourself roaming and paying long distance.  That can get expensive.  Of course, if you spend all of your RV time in major metropolitan areas, Sprint has some excellent rate plans.

UPDATE-  We now use the Cingular 300 minute plan at $50 per month, no roaming, no long distance.  We use our satellite dish for internet, so no longer need all those cell minutes.  We also have 3500 nights and weekend free minutes.

These modifications work on my coach and were done by me.  IF you choose to do some of them, make sure they will work with your rig and you know what you are doing.  You can be killed if you don't know what you are doing.  You could lose your rig if you wire something incorrectly.
When in doubt, get an electrician.

I have done several mods to the electrical system in the motorhome that might interest some.  I have added a Hughes Autoformer, installed four solar panels, the solar regulator, four additional 6 volt batteries, rewired the coach so that all circuits except the air conditioners will run off the inverter and upgraded my inverter from 1,000 watts to 2,000 watts.

The Autoformer comes with a clamp to bolt it to your power pedestal in an RV Park.  Since the retail price of this device is close to $400, I choose not to have it outside the coach.  Instead, I took mine apart, wired the coach cable to the autoformer and then wired the autoformer to the coach.  Now my device is inside the electrical connection  bay on the motorhome.  Others have wired a plug onto the end of the coach umbilical and then simply plugged the autoformer into that.  I may change to this method shortly as I think it has a lot of merit.  If the autoformer fails for some reason, one can simply unplug it and plug the coach in directly.

I have four solar panels on the roof providing 250 watts of power, or more importantly to me, about 14 amps of charging power in full sunlight.  Full sunlight  occurs approximately between 10 am and 2 pm.  The panels are simply screwed directly to the roof of the motorhome.  In my case, the roof is rubber with a luane plywood substrate.  I just put wall anchors in the roof and screwed the mounting brackets directly to it.  Were I doing it again, I would take the time to find the aluminum cross members of the roof structure and screw the panels into them. However, in a year, mine have not worked loose attached just to the roof.  The power lead from the panels crosses the roof and was fished down the refrigerator vent to come out under the refrigerator.  Then the wire was fished up the wall and terminated in the regulator I installed on this wall.   Then I fished the wire back down under the coach and across to the battery bay.  In the bay, the wire terminates on the common +12v lead along with the cable connections from the three banks of six volt batteries.  Each bank consists of two six volt batteries inseries, positive to negative etc. thus providing 12 volts at the the output.   I have the negative cable attached to the last set of batteries and the positive cable connected to the positive post on the first set of batteries.  This allows the current to flow equally across the entire battery system and prevents one set of batteries from boiling out due to overcharging.  The ends of these cables terminate on a shunt on the negative side and a common connection on the positive side.   This is also where my solar panel lead are terminated.  I also changed the battery cables out to #1 size to handle the increased current load.  Remember that a 10 amp load at 120 volts ac is 100 amps at 12 volts dc.  The current load is the same across all six batteries.  This means if you have those tiny #6 battery cables across one or more of the batteries, you will make them a fusible link instead of a battery cable!

   The inverter is controlled by a control panel located in the rig that I installed just under the solar regulator.  This controller is a multifunction device that can even remote start the Onan Quiet Diesel generator if the voltage falls below a level predetermined by me.  That way, if a series of cloudy days or even "gasp" snow cover the panels, the genset will take up the slack and recharge the batteries. 

Coach rewire
One of the downsides of the wiring in our coach was the way it was wired at the factory.  They put both the front and back TV sets on a circuit off the inverter and included one appliance plug.  This plug is under our table and is the most difficult one to access.  I have rewired the coach to include all circuits except the air conditioners with the inverter output.  The following describes how this was accomplished: (with the able assistance of Ed Kennedy via e-mail from Colorado)

1: I dismantled the circuit breaker panel under the refrigerator and cut it the main bus bar into two pieces.  I made a gap at least a half inch wide in the bus bar.  This allows me to feed the AC input from the shore power to the two air conditioner units and then feed a 30 amp circuit to the inverter.  On the top half of this bar I have a 30 amp breaker for the main shore power feed, two 20 amp breakers, one each for the two air conditioner units and the 30 amp breaker that feeds shore power back to the inverter.  I pulled a #10 gauge piece of romex wire from the panel to the inverter to carry the current needed to supply the rest of the coach with power.
2: On the bottom of the bus panel, I have the three 20 amp and one 15 amp circuit that supply the rest of the coach with electricity.  These are fed from a #12 gauge wire that comes from one of the two outputs of the inverter.  The other output (both are 20 amp) goes to the original circuit that was on the inverter from the factory.  If you think about this configuration, you will see that all of the circuits except the air conditioners are now controlled by the two 20 amp circuits coming from the inverter.
The effect of cutting the bus bar in two is to create two separate panels in my electrical breaker box.  The main panel is the top half and the bottom is now a sub panel.  Even the refrigerator will run off the inverter and the coach alternator  recharges the batteries while we are driving down the road.  We can shut the LP off at the tank and still keep the refer running as we drive..
 

Our generator is an Onan 7.5kw Quiet Diesel. It produces more power than we can use and is extremely quiet.  It sips diesel fuel from the main RV tank at a little less than 3/4 of a gallon per hour.   I have replaced the oil drain plug with a longer brass fitting to ease the changing of oil in this unit.  The way the Quiet Diesel is manufactured, it is difficult to remove the drain plug, so the new drain makes this task much easier.  We run the genset at least two hours each month in order to keep it in good running order.

Our GPS is a Delorme Earthmate.  We have it mounted on top of the tv in the over the dash cabinet on our motorhome.  We have never lost the GPS signal except when in a tunnel.  We keep our laptop running on the dash of the RV and feed the GPS to it anytime we are moving.  Now there is simply no excuse for getting lost.  North of the Canadian border, we used AAA Map N Go and south of Canada we use Street Atlas for software.  In January of 2001, I added a USB to serial adapter to this configuration.  The USB port provides both power and a path for date from the GPS receiver.  This frees up my serial port and keyboard/mouse port for other uses.

The last piece of our on the road communications link is our Pocketmail. We use this when no landlline is available, the cell phone doesn't work and we want to get or send e-mail.  Pocketmail devices are beginning to proliferate.  Sharp has the TM 20 (our unit).  Sony makes one and now this service is available with a Palm Pilot and some accessories made for that purpose.  The service cost a little less than $100 for an entire year and gives you unlimited access.  The downside of Pocketmail is that you cannot receive or send attachments or pictures and the text is limited to 4,000 characters.  This is plenty for most text messaging.

While I admit to being a techno junkie, I just cannot see spending the money on an automatic dish.  I can find the satellite within 60 seconds by using the on screen info and my Wineguard Digital Magic.  This device tells you the elevation of your dish, eliminating one of the variables that cause problems in locating satellites.  I carry a spare dish and tripod for those rare times when my rooftop dish cannot see the satellite due to trees etc.  I feed this dish  into the cable connection in my utility bay.  Folks will tell you that you cannot do this.  Hogwash.  It is a very short run from that connection to your video connectors in the coach.  The loss in this short run of cable is negligible.  I use an A/B switch to go from the satellite feed to the regular cable feed.  This is necessary because the satellite receiver puts a 12v signal on your line to drive the LNB in the dish.  Cable feeds don't like this and the dish won't work unless it is there.  The A/B switch places this signal on the line when in the satellite position and removes it when in the cable position.

We use Pegasus out of Livingston, TX for our satellite provider.  They resell Direct TV.  We are waiting on the announced availability of two way internet access via this service in the first quarter of 2001.
 

UPDATE-  I attended a seminar on the subject of 2 way internet access via satellite at the 2001 South East Area FMCA Rally in Brooksville, Florida on February 8, 2001.  The representatives of Direct and Dish tell me that this access is still a long way into the future.  The FCC requires that this service be installed by a licensed technician, since each dish not only receives signals, but also transmits.  If one moves one of these t   wo way dishes, one is supposed to get another licensed tech to reinstall it.  I think the service will come someday, but probably not in 2001.

Update  10/05/2001

I have now set up a two way satellite system for internet access.  Since we intend to spend most of the winter at our leased lot (2001/2002) in New Mexico, this becomes a bit more practical.  We will have the system installed there and just leave it up throughout the winter.  Connect speeds are pretty good, about 400kbps or more download and around 100kbps upload.  While this system is just not practical for folks moving around, it would be great for those who nest in a spot for the winter or summer.  The requirement at this time is for the dish to be either mounted on a pole or a building.  Either of these options is almost always available for a person living in a destination resort where the lot is leased or purchased.
 
 

We use  the blue Camco connectors.  I carry two sewer hoses in order to reach those far away sewer connections.  When traveling I connect my spare hose to itself.  In other words, I have a slip connector for tying two hoses together. I simply plug each end of this hose into the connector, forming a continuos loop , thus keeping the spare hose from leaking into our storage compartment.

For the main hose, I use the same connectors and have their 4 way fitting for the sewer drain.  In those parks that have no threaded drain, I use  a rubber donut.  The threaded connector has 4 different size threads that fit any threaded connector you will run across.  When traveling, I put an end cap on each end of this hose and that keeps it from leaking into the compartment.  ]

For handling the sewer chores, I have a box of disposable gloves that you can pick up at the drugstore.  I handle the sewer hose last when connecting and when disconnecting.  I never put the sewer hose over the hose bib.  I have seen too many people do this.  You are simply putting dangerous germs on the water connection for the next person who uses it.  Also, never wash you hose out on the ground.  If you feel the need to flush your sewer hose, dump the black water, then dump the gray water.  This usually cleans the hose out.  If you insist on running fresh water through the hose, leave it connected to the sewer drain and wash the hose out.  Then disconnect from the sewer.  That keeps sewer junk from running all over the ground where you, the next camper, some dog or kid or a water hose might soon be occupying.

We have four solar panels on the roof that I installed over the last year.  This gives us plenty of charging power for the six 6 volt batteries we also carry to power our 12v applications and drive our inverter.  I have installed a 2,000 watt Trace inverter, replacing the 1,000 watt Heart that came with our rig.  This allows us to power almost everything in the rig with the inverter.  In fact, I have modified the coach wiring so that everything except the air conditioners will run off the inverter.  For detailed information on how I did this, see the Electrical Modifications section of this page.