Day 50, 51, 52 - Eustis, FL - TT

Tuesday (50) - It dropped down to 48°F last night. There is a large cold front moving into the eastern states over the next several days according to the weather guessers. Since Bridget is out of town, I went ahead and signed up for a couple of ham tests today. I didn't participate while we were in Old Town as there wasn't enough bandwidth. I did one session while we were in the Disney RV park as they had pretty phenomenal WiFi. AT&T seems to be working fine as long as I use the 5GHz WiFi. There must be a lot of interference on 2.4GHz.

I've been working on the refrigerator again. It hasn't been working on propane. I thought it might be the igniter element as they develop cracks. So I picked one up on Amazon. Of course, it wasn't a trivial swap. the new one is slightly different from the old one. It isn't the igniter element. I would really like to replace this absorption refrigerator with a compressor version. But that introduces other issues making it a non-trivial conversion. It made for a frustrating afternoon. 

Wednesday (51) - I looked up the manual for a Dometic absorption refrigerator and it said to adjust the igniter element 3/16” from the top of the burner. If it’s too close it won’t spark as the igniter will “think” the burner is lit and if it’s too far, the voltage isn’t high enough to bridge the gap. So I installed the new element and adjusted it. BTW, adjustment is by bending sheet metal. It now works! That’s a load off my mind. 

On the way to the Orlando airport, I stopped at HRO aka Ham Radio Outlet. This gave me an opportunity to twiddle the knobs on a couple of HF radios. Something I hadn’t been able to do in Alaska. 

Thursday (52) - Saw this little guy at a small pond within the campground right adjacent to a designated dog walk area. Must be there to take care of strays. It's about 70°F now and I'm waiting for the morning (AKST) test session to start.

Later this afternoon, I need to return to the dentist in Gainesville to finish the tooth repair. It's almost two hours away according to Google Maps. This brings up the biggest negative I have about Florida. To get anywhere, you are either on small roads or paying tolls. So it takes a long time to get anywhere. The small roads aren't the problem. There is no direct path anywhere. From the Orlando airport to here, you probably turn from one road to the next maybe 30 times. I'm glad that the Jeep has Carplay so I can use Google Maps or Waze on the dashboard screen.