Centralia, WA and Newport, OR

Sunday - I packed up the ham radio gear as tomorrow is a travel day. Otherwise, it was a quiet day,

Monday - A modest travel day to the Oregon coast. The gps routed us through Corvallis to Newport, OR. The weather app calls this location South Beach but it’s only a couple miles south of Newport. It is much cooler, which feels nice.

Tuesday - I drove back to Corvallis to pick up an Amazon package. One of the taillights on the RV has a bunch of dead leds. Plus, one of the led marker lights has burned out. Both are easy fixes. 

I set up the JPC-12 antenna to try Winlink on 40m. I was amazed how well it worked even with all of the trees.

Wednesday - After the morning test session, we went into the touristy part of Newport to look around and find some seafood for lunch. I had some local oysters. Can’t say that they were the best I’ve had but not bad. 

I replaced both taillights on the class C and the Amazon replacements were easily swapped in. No wiring sheet but it was pretty easy to guess the right colors. The rear marker lights are red and I had ordered amber. I’m not going to return them as they are identical to the installed marker lights. 

Day 28 - 29 - Mt Vernon, WA

Friday - We drove north to Mt Vernon this afternoon with Dave and Ginny to go to the Seder-Woolley PRCA Rodeo where their daughter was singing the national anthem. There was quite a bit of traffic after going through Seattle. 

I haven’t been to a rodeo in quite a while. There was a lot of pageantry and celebration of the semiquincentennial (I think that’s the correct term). It wasn’t a huge rodeo but did have all of the standard events. 

I only took s handful of pictures as we weren’t really close to the action. But, it was entertaining. 

Saturday - It was a quiet, uneventful drive back to Centralia. Unlike yesterday, there was light traffic through Everett, Seattle, Tacoma, and Olympia. I guess people are where they want to be for the Fourth of July.

We made a chicken paella for dinner. Dave is a master with plenty of experience. Chicken thighs, peppers, cauliflower, tomatoes, green beans, and lots of garlic. 

Day 25 - 27 - Corvallis, OR to Centralia, WA

Tuesday - Another cool-ish day with a high in the mid-60s (°F). We spent most of the day visiting with family before getting ready to head out tomorrow. 

Wednesday - We headed out around 10 after filling the propane tank and adding some air to the tires to compensate for the cooler temperatures. It was hectic, as always, going through Portland. Fortunately, it was a short-ish drive day to Centralia, WA. We will be here through the holiday weekend at a friend’s home.

Thursday - This morning, I searched for a lab to do a blood test and send the results back to the clinic in TX. There was one about ten miles south and it was quickly and easily taken care of. 

I set up the JPC-12 antenna to fetch my Winlink mail just to make sure my message was received within the time constraints. It was and I now have seven logged. The initial goal is one hundred. I also quickly checked for any FT8 traffic on 40m but there was none. 

I finally finished a minor RV project. The TPMS system needs a repeater to reach the sensors on the Jeep. I mounted the repeater above the status panel and a latching, lighted switch (blue light) on the panel. 

Day 18 - 24 - Corvallis, OR

Monday - Another relaxing day. We met my mom for lunch at the senior apartment dining hall, then went to my sister's home for the afternoon. 

Tuesday - I set up the JPC-12 antenna this afternoon and verified that Winlink email worked over 40m. It worked. I checked FT8 on 40m and no activity.

Wednesday - We had a delicious dinner at a Japanese restaurant in downtown Corvallis. It's been quite a while since I've had any good Japanese food. It seems to be a bit rare in TX. This is multiple types of sashimi served on a bed of sushi rice. Very delicious. We had dinner with my mom and a good friend of hers that she met at the gym. She will be helping out with the 100th birthday party on Friday.

This morning, I connected with Winlink RMS (Radio Mail Server) in Lubbock, TX, on 40m and sent my Winlink Wednesday email message. There were closer servers, but they were busy. Oklahoma City and Lubbock seemed to have less traffic.

Thursday - I fired up Winlink this morning and received my Winlink confirmation email. This time from a server in Las Vegas. I still think that this is kind of cool. 

Friday - This afternoon was the first of three birthday parties celebrating my mom's 100th year. This one was held at the retirement apartment building and was very well attended. My nephew and his wife made a fantastic charcuterie board for the 80+ guests.

Saturday - This afternoon was the second party with relatives and a few long-time friends. Food was Yum bowls with bulgogi beef, tofu, and teriyaki chicken as the protein. Delicious.

Sunday - A much smaller gathering of family and relatives, including a couple who couldn't make it yesterday. 

Monday - It was wonderful to see so many family members. It was almost like a reunion, except it included both sides of the family. 

A long test session this morning followed by setting up the JPC-12 antenna again on 40m. 

Day 15 - 17 Corvallis, OR

Friday - You couldn’t ask for nicer weather. Mid-70s with a light breeze. I played with the radio a bit this afternoon but propagation was poor on 40m. It was much better this morning. 

Propagation was pretty good in the evening. I connected to an RMS server in Lubbock, Boise, as well as several in Oregon. All on 40m.

Saturday - A morning test session to start the day with. We actually needed to run the furnace last night with a low temperature in the lower 50s (°F). Unfortunately, the forecast is for the upper 80s by the middle of next week. 

We met up with my family at a restaurant in town where we are getting food catered for one of the birthday parties for my mom. It was an Asian fusion plus gelato place. Kind of a weird combination, but the food was pretty tasty. I didn't get a chance to try out the gelato…

This afternoon, I continued to play around on 40m. Winlink worked fine with an RMS station about 300 miles NE of here, but only one FT8 contact. Very little activity.

Sunday - This morning, we met up with longtime friends for coffee and a beautiful walk along the Willamette River south of Corvallis. I had first met them in person back in July, 2010, when several of us bloggers met up in Bend, OR. That was quite a while back. Since then, we try to meet up sometime every time we are in the area. 

Day 14 - Corvallis, OR

Wednesday - We took Hwy-20 from Bend, through Sisters, and Sweet Home to Corvallis. It was a beautiful drive though a little stressful. A Tundra pickup came around a corner about 1½ ft over the center line going way too fast. I swerved onto the shoulder just missing them. Other than that, no issues. 

We set up in the fairgrounds RV park, and since it’s Wednesday, I set up the JPC-12 antenna to try and participate in “Winlink Wednesday” again. I also tried this morning from Sun River but was unsuccessful. This evening, no problem. I even used the RMS station in Harlingen, TX. Propagation was decent. I tried FT8 on 40m as well but didn’t make any contacts. 

We visited with my mom for a bit and made arrangements to come over tomorrow. 

Day 13 - Sun River, OR - TT

Tuesday - Another travel day to Sun River, OR. We are staying at the Thousand Trails campground just for one night. This is the first TT park we ever stayed at after storing the 5th wheel there for a couple of months. We are now seeing (and consuming) $5+ gas. Diesel is almost $6. I don’t think the price is slowing people down but may have reduced the number of RVs on the road. Most of the RV parks have been pretty empty. 

Hwy 20 through eastern OR is pretty nice. Some hills and mostly two lane. The truck speed limit is 60mph, though many are going faster than that. But we can go just above that and are rarely tailgated. 

We are in the “C” loop this time. We usually opt for other loops as the sites were longer. We needed that for the class A. Setup was trivial. A couple of blocks under the front tires and connect power. We still have plenty of water in the onboard tank. 

Our SoC was down to 55% this morning and driving plus solar added about 20% by the time we arrived. We ran the generator during our lunch stop as I wanted to run the microwave. With the absorption fridge on electric, the compressor freezer, plus StarLink, we are drawing about 550watts. We could turn everything off and run the microwave but it’s easier to just start the generator. I’m not philosophically opposed to generators, as some other RVers are.

Day 12 - Fruitland, ID - HH

Monday - A relatively short travel day to the Oregon border. We had stayed in Fruitland before with the fifth wheel at an RV park behind a gas station. That was quite a while ago. This time, we are at a Harvest Host just north of Fruitland which markets flavored popcorm. They provided free samples when we checked in.

We are running the generator as it's the middle of the afternoon and 88°F on its way up to the low 90s. 

Days 10, 11 - Wendell, ID

Saturday - My day started out a bit earlier than I thought. The early morning test session didn't have enough VEs. So I jumped onto Zoom at about 6:20 AM. Kind of early. It got down into the upper 40s (°F) last night. So the furnace ended up getting used in the early morning. Nice to know that the furnace still works…

After the test sessions, we went into Twin Falls to do some shopping. We had lunch at Black Bear Diner, the first one we’ve seen in a while, then onto Fred Meyer for some groceries. Another place we haven’t seen in a while. 

When we got back to the RV, the temperature was back up to 80°F. Quite the jump from this mornings 48°F. 

Sunday - Our first stop today was Minidoka Relocation Center, one of the internment camps for those of Japanese ancestry. This is a replica of the guard tower at the entrance to the camp. 

It housed up to 8,000 people in rapidly constructed barracks surrounded by barbed wire fences and guard towers. 

They had one of the barracks brought back on to the site as well as a dining hall/kitchen. Each barracks would house six families of up to six individuals. 

The brother/sister team did a great job on the tour as their grandparent and parents were incarcerated here. They shared personal stories of what life was like. 

A very well done National Monument. 

We then headed for Shoshone Falls, a state park east of Twin Falls. It was pretty crowded and the line to pay the $5 entry fee took about twenty minutes. It was low water so the falls were smaller than they could be. It has been referred to as the western Niagara Falls. I think they are taller but the volume of water is but a fraction. 

After lunch, we headed back to the RV. Tomorrow is another travel day to a Harvest Host on the Idaho-Oregon border. 

Days 8, 9 - Helper, UT, and Wendell, ID

Thursday - A modest drive day to Helper, UT, which is just a bit north of Price. In the past, I spent a lot of time in Price over several years as it was one of our field sites. The temperature claims to be mid-70s but it feels warmer since there isn’t a cloud to be seen. 

After a couple days of dry camping in 90°+ temperatures, it’s nice to have shore power again. Yes, the A/C will run on battery power but only for a limited time. We did run the generator to recharge the batteries while we ran the A/C during the hottest part of the day. This morning, the batteries were at 28%. By the time we arrived, they had only charged to 35%. That’s with the absorption refrigerator and the portable chest freezer running on AC power. The DC-DC charger plus solar are only able to barely keep up. Which is fine.

Friday - We are on the road again heading through SLC into southern Idaho. Traffic was hectic from Provo to Ogden but it was pretty chill after that. The picture is north of Ogden. We filled up at a Maverick and we had difficulty maneuvering in the confined gas station due to the horrible turning radius of the E-450 chassis. We had to disconnect the Jeep to get out of the station. 

We made it to Wendell, ID, around 4:30pm. The RV park is actually attached to an RV dealership and repair shop. We are here through the weekend. The roads were very rough today.

Day 7 - Monument Valley

Wednesday - Since it’s Wednesday, I started the day by sending a Winlink Wednesday email using HF radio as the transport. Much better performance here than back in Hondo. After breakfast, we headed for Monument Valley. On the way was Forest Gump Point. The location from the movie. Quite a few people were stopped to take their selfies. We stopped but no selfie.

We then continued on to Monument Valley. The entrance fee for the scenic drive was $45 ($15 for the car plus $10 for each person). Kind of pricey. The view from the visitors center was pretty phenomenal.

There were numerous turnouts for the named formations. It was a pretty rough road and there was a stop from a Corolla buried to the frame. The sign did say no cars allowed but, obviously, it was not enforced. An overlander type pulled them out of the sand backwards to a viewpoint. They had the road blocked for about 30 minutes. 

After stopping a couple more times, we had lunch in Mexican Hat. I had a Navajo Taco. Not the best one but tasty enough. 

We then headed to Gooseneck State Park. There were several of these formations and the river was a bit over 1000’ below the viewpoint. 

Days 5 & 6 - Bluff, UT

Monday - We stayed an extra day in Farmington as we didn’t get some planned tasks done yesterday since we rode the train. After some Internet research, I discovered that the Onan 4000 generator has a manual altitude knob. It was set for sea level. I adjusted it for 5000’ and it started right up. I ran it under load for 15’ without any issue. 

Tomorrow, we head out for several days of dry camping and we really needed a functional generator. 

Tuesday - A short travel day to Sand Island Recreation Area near Valley of the Gods and Monument Valley, two things on Bridget’s bucket list. We are in a BLM campground, so no hookups of any kind. I filled up the water tank and dumped the tanks at the RV park before we left. 

We are only here for two nights so we should be good. It is warm with forecasted highs in the low 90s. I switched the refrigerator to propane and we are running the A/C right now. The Victron battery monitor says that we have ~5 hours of battery. I suspect that we’ll start up the generator around 3:30-4:00 and it’ll need to run for several hours to recharge the batteries. The solar is producing around 25amps so around half of the claimed capacity. 

Later - After setting up, we headed to Natural Bridges National Monument. The famous road, Moki Dugway, was on the route. It is a gravel road that switchbacks its way up a cliff. 

Natural Bridges was about another 30 miles north and has a few that could be seen with only a short walk. It was considerably cooler here than at the recreation area where we are camped. 

When we arrived back at the RV, it was 95°F so the generator was started to both recharge the batteries and run the microwave. The generator started easily, and the batteries were down to 68% after running the A/C for over 2 hours. We’ll see how long it takes to charge them back up. 

Durango-Silverton Railroad

Sunday - Today’s adventure required us to drive an hour into Colorado. We rode the Durango-Silverton train with a steam locomotive. It is a 3½ hour trip each way from Durango, CO, to Silverton, CO. 

Very scenic train ride. Billed as the most spectacular train trip. It’s a narrow gauge track with a top speed of 15mph. 

We were in one of the mid-level, enclosed cars and took the round trip. 

They allowed us two hours to have lunch and explore Silverton. It really reminded me of Dawson City in the Yukon Territory. The elevation is over 9300’, and it was a very nice 55°F. It’s a small town of mostly restaurants and gift shops catering to the train tourists. 

During the two hour break, they turned the train around so we will see what we missed on the ride up. I really like the mechanical sounds of the steam engine so I’m glad that Bridget was able to schedule steam. 

This is one of the best parts of the trip. 

I was obsessed with trying to get a picture of the engine from our car. 

Day 3 - Farmington, NM

Saturday - Another 270 mile travel day on some really beat up roads. New Mexico doesn’t seem to spend much on highway maintenance. Very scenic. The picture is north of Albuquerque on a secondary highway. It was in much better shape than the interstate. 

We crossed the Continental Divide at 7,380’. This is much higher than on I-10, my preferred route with the class A. Lots of hills on this route. 

At our lunch stop, I started the generator but it wouldn’t stay running. The inverter just isn’t enough to run the microwave. But, I hadn’t turned some of the other stuff off. 

Later - We arrived at the RV park at around 3:15 and all set up around 3:30. This class C is so easy to setup. The site was almost level and the quick connects on all of the water hoses makes it quick. 

We are at 5340’ elevation so it’ll be cool tonight though we may leave the A/C running all night. It got warm inside the RV last night. 

Day 2 - Vaughn, NM

Friday - An almost 300 mile travel day from Big Spring, TX. The original plan was to a large rest area near Mesa, NM, a very small community north of Roswell. But it was a no overnight parking rest area. We continued on to an RV park in Vaughn, NM. Pretty pricy for what you get. Full hookups but we really only needed electricity as it was 87°F when we arrived. 

At our lunch stop, I left the RV engine running and we were able to run the A/C. I had it turned down to 50% max power. I had turned it on about half an hour before stopping to cool down the RV. At some point, the refrigerator was switched to propane and was not running for most of the drive as I usually turn off the propane at the tank while traveling. It was 47°F by the time we arrived. Checking this needs to be on our check list. 

A drive-through in town came highly recommended by the campground host and had 4.8 stars on Yelp. The food was excellent.

Just another overnight stop. The best thing is the forecasted low of 56°F. That will be a nice change. The elevation here is almost 6000’.

Day 1 - Big Spring, TX

Thursday - We left the park at about 10am heading northwest to Big Spring, TX. Very little interstate on this route which is a good thing. I discovered a small water leak from my faucet installation. The cold water connection is dripping where the faucet connects to the Pex. I’ll try tightening it this evening. I should have installed shutoff valves on each line. 

The first part of the trip was through the hill country and very scenic. We are now going through mostly ranch land and it’s greener than the last time we were through here. 

Later - The fix for the leak was simple. Just tightening the connection. I thought that I had pinched the rubber washer. We are in an RV park so full hookups. We found that with the refrigerator, portable freezer, StarLink, and the converter running, we don’t quite have enough capacity on our Victron inverter to run the A/C. 

Tomorrow, we are continuing northwest into New Mexico. 

Only a Couple More Days!

Saturday - I adjusted the antenna for 20m while waiting for the midday test session to start. I used the NanoVNA to manually tune the JPC-12. It worked well with an SWR of almost 1.0. On 20m, I made about 40 contacts during the test session, so much more activity. 

Tuesday - I took the Ural out this morning to burn up the gas in the tank. I almost made it to Bandera before turning around. Around 5 miles from Hondo, I needed to switch to "Reserve", so the timing was just about right. The Exxon station at the east end of town had non-ethanol gas. I filled up, and it took 4.4 gallons. The bike ran much better on the way back to the park. Normally, 60-62 mph would be about all I could get, and the engine would bog down and lose power with more throttle. Not the case with the non-ethanol gas. It kept accelerating all the way up to 70 mph. This is how the Ural used to run in Alaska, where all of the gas is non-ethanol. I'm undecided on whether I should only use non-ethanol, as it is more expensive.

Yesterday's project was replacing the faucet in the class C. Wayne, another member in the park, gave us the faucet, which was brand new, still in the box, from Alliance. He said that his wife didn't care for the finish. This is a huge upgrade for the class C. We can now easily refill the Berkey without needing cups or saucepans. I needed to order a couple of fittings from Amazon, and they arrived overnight. Less than 24 hours from order to delivery.

While waiting for the midday test session, I have been running WSJT-x on 20m, making FT8 contacts. Over 35 contacts. No international contacts today, but it is the middle of the day. 

This afternoon, while waiting to see if anyone shows up for the afternoon test, I reconfigured the JPC-12 for 40m, and checked with the NanoVNA, before starting up Winlink Express and Vara HF. There was one email waiting to be downloaded, and the download speed was a blistering 382 Bytes/minute, not per second but per minute. The message was 2313 Bytes and took almost 6 minutes to download! This would make a 300 baud modem connection seem fast. I was using a station in Brownsville, TX, which was 376km away. I still think the technology is kind of cool.

Almost Ready

Thursday - The day started out cool-ish, but it was pretty warm and muggy by the afternoon. I was able to hit the Brownsville Winlink RMS station this morning to pick up my Winlink email, al6t@winlink.org. BTW, RMS = Radio Mail Server in case you were wondering. Very little FT8 activity on 40m today. I think I picked up only a handful of new contacts. All of them under 500miles. I switched to 20m and picked up an additional seven contacts almost immediately.

I laid out most of my hand tools today to try to figure out which ones I might need this summer. Unfortunately, that amounted to most of them. I picked up another zip-top toolbag since the old knapsack I was using had developed some large tears over the years. It was one of the vendor freebies from a conference.

Bridget noticed that the skylight over the shower was dripping water into the shower, so I just picked up a couple of tubes of Dicor self-leveling sealant to re-seal the skylight. 

Friday - The first thing this morning, even before coffee, I went up on the roof of the class C to add another bead of Dicor around the shower vent. There were some possible leaks, but nothing obvious. No cracks in the existing sealant. There was another dab of old Dicor in the middle of the roof, so I just cleaned the spot and added another layer of Dicor on top of it.

I tried FT8 on 40m again today but got very few contacts. I was too lazy to adjust the antenna to 20m as it was hot and muggy all afternoon.

Still Packing and Winlink-Wednesday

Wednesday - We've been getting lots of storms lately. This was last night. It was windy with rain, but not as much as the surrounding area. This morning, while walking to coffee, the streets weren't as flooded as they were after similar storms. There was some debris from trees, again, not as much as in some other storms.

It was clear, hot, sunny, and very humid by the afternoon. I continued to move stuff out of the class A and the shed into the class C that I "needed" for this summer trip. I don't plan on taking the Blackstone griddle or the large Starlink storage container this time. I moved the portable refrigerator/freezer and plugged it in. Since we picked up the small refrigerator for the shed, we don't have to bring all of the refrigerator/freezer items with us like we did last summer. The portable unit will actually get real use on this trip.

I still plan to bring the ham radio with me and this time I plan to bring the ATAS-120 antenna. I had forgotten it last year.

I checked in with Winlink-Wednesday again on 40m. This just means that I sent a specially formatted email message using the radio as the transport. I used an RMS stations in Lubbock and Brownsville. The JPC-12 vertical antenna worked well. Very low bit rate as in sub-1200baud modem speed. 

Still Getting Tasks Done

Monday - I helped out in the kitchen today for a Memorial Day lunch. The lunch was good, as usual, as was the conversation. 

This morning, before it got too warm, I changed the oil on the 4K Onan generator on the class C. After finishing, I ran it for around 10 minutes just to ensure some fresh gas made it into the carburetor. There wasn’t much of an electrical load as the batteries were fully charged and the A/C was only drawing about 300 watts. Right now, it 86°F outside, the A/C, refrigerator, and converter have been running all day and the Multiplus is set to no more than 12amps from shore power as it’s just plugged into a convenience outlet on the class A. 

Yesterday, I made one of my furthest contacts on the radio using FT8, a digital mode with computer to computer communication through the radio. Over 8000 miles to Saudi Arabia. I was just running this sort of on the side during a long test session. 

This afternoon, I spent a little time cleaning up the wiring on the class C dash for all of the accessories. GPS, dash cam, TPMS, rear camera display, and the Magmount phone charger. I just used some plastic clips stuck to the dash. Mostly because I move the dash cam back and forth to the Jeep. I wanted the cable to be easily removed. 

Class C Electrical Changes

Saturday - I made a few changes to the electrical system on the class C. I changed the absorption voltage from 14.6V to 14.4V on all three lithium chargers, the Multiplus, the Orion, and the solar. The battery manufacturers, SOK, really doesn’t provide much information to configure these devices so it’s left to the installer to come up with something based on their published battery specifications. Originally, I used the high voltage cut off by the BMS of 14.6V. This was a change that I had made on the class A a few weeks ago.

The other change was reconnecting all of the 12V loads in the RV back to the original AGM battery. This battery will be charged by the stock converter which is powered by 110VAC. Wherever that voltage happens to be coming from. Shore power, generator, or the Multiplus (from the lithium batteries). The change was accomplished by moving two cable. The one feeding the fuse panel and the two one from the converter.

My reason for the change is to eliminate the led lights flickering whenever the lithium batteries are fully charged. The BMS will disconnect the cells for a few milliseconds then reconnect. I just found the flickering kind of annoying. There is some inefficiency added due to the conversion from 12VDC to 110VAC then back to 12VDC. A benefit is that the AGM battery will be always charged. The AGM battery is used to start and run the generator. Having it charged is a good thing. 

I also filled the built-in propane tank as well as the gas tank. Over $100 for half a tank of gas!

Misc. Projects

Wednesday - I still seem to prefer playing with the digital modes on the ham radio. Mostly FT8, FT4, and now Winlink. Possibly, since I can have it running on the MS Surface while participating in tests on the Mac. 

Thursday - We ran a few errands in San Antonio today, including a stop at Costco. I picked up a new Apple Watch to replace my last one, where the face fell off. The new one is the series 11 with GPS but no cellular. The last one was a Series 3 with a 38mm face. The new one has a 46mm face, and it feels huge. There wasn’t a whole lot of choice at Costco. But I'm happy with the purchase. 

Friday - I moved the class C in front of our lot to continue some projects. It'll probably be here until we leave for the summer. The first minor project is a better location for the Garmin RV GPS. I have been using a cup holder mount with a flexible arm. It was designed for a phone, and the arm was too flexible. Plus, the location wasn't optimal.

I removed the little cubbie and coin holder, as it just snaps in place, and drilled a couple of holes to mount a plastic phone mount piece to the bottom of the cubbie. It seems pretty solid, and it's a much better location for the GPS. I also installed a mag-mount phone charger since the aux audio input now works on the in-dash radio. The console was a real mess last summer with all of the cords lying around.

Here is some data from my A/C on battery power "test" today. It seems that we should be able to run the A/C for at least 4½ hours on just battery power with some solar. I'm not going to complain, as we couldn't run the old Coleman A/C on battery power at all.

10:30am A/C on, 75° outside, A/C set at 74°, at 100%, no shore power, SoC 100%

1:04pm 84°F outside, SoC 75%, 100Ah used

3:00pm 88°F outside, SoC 36%, 249Ah used

3:02pm low battery alert, plugged in to shore power. Max current in 13.5A

A bit less time than the Victron claimed. I haven't replaced the cables from the battery to the inverter, and the draw from the battery was around 125A. I had added around 10' of 2/0 cable when I relocated the batteries to the passenger side of the RV. I was planning to upgrade the cables to 4/0, but never got around to it. I also need to extend the battery voltage monitor cable to the new battery location.

A Few Busy-ish Day

Saturday - An earlier start this morning. I helped cook breakfast here at the park. Just pancakes, sausage, and bacon. I haven’t had pancakes in quite a while. They were good.

The rear A/C stopped cooling in the middle of the night. This morning, I changed the compressor overload switch, and it seems to have fixed it. 

I had added some bleach to the fresh water tank on the class C yesterday to sanitize the tank. Each faucet was run to clear out the pink RV antifreeze and run the bleach/water into the lines. After 24 hours, the tank was emptied. Two fills, flush lines, and emptying the tank were done. That should eliminate the bleach/water from the water system. The tank was filled with fresh water. N.B. The specs for the RV say 40 gallons of fresh water, but the tank only holds 30 gallons. 

I switched the water heater bypass off and used the pump to fill the 6-gallon tank, and ran all the faucets to clear the air out of the lines. 

I pulled the dash out a little to see if I could find out why the aux input to the in-dash stereo wasn’t working. It turns out that a cable was unplugged. Easy fix! While working on this, I was running the roof A/C. It was nice and cool. Even when working on the dashboard. 

I turned on the propane at the tank and lit the stove, water heater, and refrigerator (on propane). All three are running, but the refrigerator will take a while to cool down. Once the water heater shuts off, I’ll check for hot, running water. 

Later - Hot water works. No propane leaks! I cleaned the refrigerator using hot water. I will let the refrigerator run tonight and see if it’s cold tomorrow morning. 

Tuesday - Soldered another PL259 connector onto the length of RG8X coax that I had cut 50' off of. It turns out that I want to have the antenna further from our shed than 50'. I just need to wait for the barrel connectors to arrive today. I'm also going to try the JPC-12 antenna to see if it performs any better on 40m. For both of my antennae, 40m is the limit.

I know that most people could care less about this but I finally got Winlink running over HF. Specifically, 40m. I switched to the JPC-12 antenna instead of the ATAS-120 as it performs better on 40m. But is more hassle. I used two different station one 207 miles away and one 376 miles. Just to make sure that it wasn’t a fluke. This is a method of sending/receiving email via radio.