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A visit with Sky King

Chuck Woodbury
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A visit with Sky King

If you know what I am referring to when I mention “Sky King,” then you are probably at least 60 years old.

sky-k-698Sky King was a TV series that ran off and on from 1951 to 1962, about a modern day cowboy who didn’t ride a horse, but chased bad guys with an airplane. Kirby Grant played an Arizona rancher who fought bad guys and rescued people in trouble with his twin-engine Cessna.

Grant, I learned at the Museum of Mountain Flying at the Missoula airport, was born in Butte, Montana. He is buried in a family plot in Missoula.

Like many little boys of my generation, I loved the old black and white TV shows about cowboys — Roy Rogers, the Lone Ranger, Hopalong Cassidy, Gene Autry, the Cisco Kid. Just thinking of those guys makes me feel warm and fuzzy and happy. They were all good guys —fighting a never-ending battle with thugs and outlaws, always winning, but never shooting anybody. When they fired their guns it was almost always when racing after a desperado on horseback (never hitting him) or, more likely, shooting the gun out of the bad guy’s hand.

kirby-698Kirby Grant, I learned yesterday, was really Kirby Grant Hoon. The show Sky King was his claim to fame, although he appeared in a few dozen B movies. Early in his life he played violin and even led a dance band. After Sky King, he bought and traveled with a circus. Sadly, he died in 1985 at age 74 in a car accident while on the way to a Space Shuttle launch where he was to be honored by astronauts for his contributions to aviation and space flight.

I enjoyed visiting Kirby yesterday. I stood at his grave for awhile and thought about all the hours he had entertained me as a little boy. I thanked him. I felt a bit sad as I drove off, reminded once again that all my childhood TV heroes are now gone.

If you are in Missoula and would like to pay tribute to “Sky,” he’s at the Missoula City Cemetery just a half-mile off I-90. Just park at the cemetery office and turn around. He’s right on the front row beneath a big shade tree.

If you never saw Sky King when it was on TV, you are in luck. You can watch a full episode on YouTube by clicking here.

Why is a water view so important?

Chuck Woodbury
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Why is a water view so important?

A “lake view” space just opened up at the RV park where I’m staying. I’m tempted to pull up and move there. But I won’t because I’m too lazy to unhook the utilities and then reverse the process after moving.

water-703Why is it we love views of the water, whether a lake or ocean? I know that to me it’s pleasing, relaxing. At home near Seattle, my home overlooks Puget Sound. It’s somehow calming to look out over the water. It’s not exciting, but it always makes me feel good. I bet my blood pressure drops a few points.

I wonder if being in view of water has something to do with we humans being composed mostly of water, about 60 percent. Actually, men average 60 percent. Women are a little less, 55 percent, because their bodies contain more fat.

Or maybe looking at water is just pretty, and that’s why the sight of it is so pleasing. Maybe that alone is worth the extra price of a home or campsite.

What do you think?

The man who taught a dog to talk

Chuck Woodbury
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The man who taught a dog to talk

Screen+Shot+2015-10-23+at+8.36.44+AMAlexander Graham Bell is remembered mostly for inventing the telephone. But did you know he once taught a dog to talk?

Bell, born in Scotland, moved to North America in his early 20s, living most of his life in out-of-the-way Baddeck, Nova Scotia. Today, the Alexander Graham Bell Museum there honors the inventor, his inventions and his life. Among his more interesting experiments, which came before he came to Canada, was teaching a dog to talk. He did it. Sort of. . .Here is what I learned on my visit to the museum. In Bell’s words:

“By the application of suitable doses of food material the dog was. . . taught to sit up on his hind legs and growl continuously while I manipulated his mouth, and stop growling when I took my hands away. . .

“The dog’s repertoire. . . consisted of the vowels ‘ah’ and ‘oo,’ and the syllables ‘ma’ and ‘ga.’ We then proceeded to manufacture words and sentences composed of these elements, and the dog’s final linguistic accomplishment consisted of ‘Aw-ah-oo-gamama,’ which, by the exercise of a little imagination, readily passed for ‘How are you, Grandmama?'”

Protect your engine and radiator with a grill screen

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By Greg Illes

We were happily driving along the highway, enjoying the passing scenery, when suddenly a small flock of sparrows crossed our path, darting frantically about in front of our class-A before escaping. Alas, one of the tiny birds was not as adept an aviator as his fellows and I heard/felt a small “thwack.” So we pulled over to investigate.

We were both glad that we stopped. The bird had passed straight through the factory grill (in several pieces) and was distributed in a very messy fashion across two radiators and my hydraulic jack pump.

Needless to say, it was a sad (and yucky) task to clean up, and it left me with a resolve to try to avoid a recurrence. I might not be able to save a hapless bird, but I can do better to protect my engine compartment.

After some brief Interneting, I found an online provider of standard and unique metal products and I purchased a small sheet of what is called “expanded metal” — in stainless steel!

Trimming and mounting the sheet in place of my factory grill took less than two hours of fiddling and fitting, and the results are rewarding. I have a rustproof grill with openings only one-half inch wide now. Anything larger than a bumblebee is going to be denied entrance to my engine compartment, including birds, sticks, rocks and other would-be trespassers. And honestly, as an extra bonus, I feel that the appearance is much improved over the old retro-looking steel-bar grill that came with the coach.

For $60 delivered to my door, this was a worthy mini-project. If you are intrigued by the possibilities, the material is available in various metals, hole sizes, and gauges at metalsdepot.com.

Editor’s note: Amazon also has sheets of expanded metal.

photo: Greg Illes

Greg Illes is a retired systems engineer who loves thinking up RV upgrades and modifications. When he’s not working on his motorhome, he’s traveling in it. You can follow his blog at www.divver-city.com/blog.

Repair UV damage quickly and easily

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By Jim Twamley
Look around the RV park and you’ll see examples of UV radiation damage. Window frames, vents and corner pieces that have yellowed are abundant. These items are still serviceable, but they will eventually become brittle and crack, allowing moisture into your RV.
 
You can purchase new frames and vents (they are inexpensive parts), or you can remove them, give them a good cleaning, then spray paint them — they will look as good as new. You should also clean off the old caulking and reapply fresh caulking at this time.

If you choose to replace them with new parts, I would still paint them with a high-quality paint before replacing them. Paint will stand up better to UV radiation than the PVC-type material these are made from.

Use the right tools for a cheery (and safe) campfire

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Use the right tools for a cheery (and safe) campfire


By Greg Illes

Just about everyone loves a campfire. There’s even a word in Swahili that means “dreaming the fire,” it’s such a compelling experience. Perhaps the first “tool” you need is a deep sense of appreciation — of the beautiful spirit of the fire and of your responsibilities with it.

It’s certainly possible to gather a bunch of wood lying around, stack it up and set fire to it. That’sif you find some wood, if it’s the right size and length, if you have some decent kindling, and if you have a safe place to burn it. And there are pitfalls.

One time, long ago, I gathered up some forest-floor wood, an eclectic lot of sticks and branches. I put a too-long branch across a rock and stomped on it to break it in half. Ouch!!! That hurt, and I suffered a slight sprain for a few days. After that, I used the proper tools.

To gather and prepare wood for a campfire, you’ll need at least a small bow saw or long pruning saw. What about an axe? Yes, an axe will cut wood — with the proper skill and patience — and it’s still the least-safe method. But the saw will rip through a three-inch branch in one-fifth the time it would take you to chop it. You’ll find out that an axe is mostly useful for splitting, and for this task a specialty tool like the “Fireside Friend” is better and safer (Amazon, about $40). You can also use the saw (when permitted) to cut deadfall branches off of dead or downed trees. For the hyper-macho types, a small electric chain saw (Amazon) is lightweight and takes only a little juice from your inverter/battery setup. Quiet, too.

An absolutely awesome kindling product is the wax-impregnated sawdust that is sold under different brand names like Sure Start, Safe Lite, etc. (Find them at Amazon.) These will get small branches going with no paper or other help.

A general rule is that large wood needs large fires. If you split your wood into small diameters, you can nurse a small fire along for hours with much less wood consumed. It just depends on whether you want a bonfire or a hunter-trapper fire.

Now, let me say that I do know how to start a fire with matches, or even flint and steel. However, it’s a tedious and painstaking process, and once you’ve done it, you realize why the Bic was invented. Unfortunately, the little wimpy lighters for cigarettes and barbecues are often not up to the capricious winds at a typical camp. Instead, I use a disposable propane bottle with an instant-light burner (same kind used for sweating copper pipe joints). Okay, slam me, but I get those fires started right now.

Once it’s going, there are always one or more “fiddlers” around the fire — you know who you are. You just can’t resist tweaking the logs and embers, poking the fire into a different configuration, or just plain fiddling with it. The most proper tool for this is not a poker (although it will do), but a scissor tong that lets you pick up pieces of burning wood and reposition them. There are a variety of these (Amazon) for $20-$50 depending on size and quality.

There are also other tools you may take a fancy to: grills, dutch ovens, and other cooking-oriented tools can turn a campfire into a kitchen. Sadly, not enough space here to get into this category. (But you can check out campfire cooking equipment at Amazon.)

But frankly, the most important fireside tool is a shovel. The shovel is used to help prepare a fire pit, and, vitally, to help fight any unwanted flare-ups from flying sparks and embers. However, DO NOT use the shovel to put the fire out. It’s been proven time and time again that buried embers can survive for days, re-emerging later to ignite the woods when you are not there.

Use water to put out the fire. If you hate using your precious water, be sure to burn the fire down to cold ashes — ashes that you can touch. Then you can use the shovel to cover the ashes and keep them from blowing around and messing up the camp.

Be safe with your fire building and burning. There are a lot of ways to get hurt, so exercise attention and care to keep your campfires joyous.

Happy dreaming.

photo: pixabay / public domain

Greg Illes is a retired systems engineer who loves thinking up RV upgrades and modifications. When he’s not working on his motorhome, he’s traveling in it. You can follow his blog at www.divver-city.com/blog.

Use a cell phone booster to get a (more) solid connection

Chuck Woodbury
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Use a cell phone booster to get a (more) solid connection


By Greg Illes

There are a lot of places to go in an RV, but sadly only a small percentage of them have decent cell phone coverage. Fewer areas have good data coverage (3G) and only a fraction of the U.S. has any 4G.

tower-736What this means to us wandering nomads is that we have regular difficulty in getting email, browsing the Internet, or even just calling friends and family to keep in touch.

There are products intended to help us out. They are generally called signal boosters, and they have widely variable reviews from five stars (“wonderful”) to one star (“and I wish I could give a zero”).

The most significant aspect of a booster is that it is allowed a much higher broadcast power than cell phones. With higher power, it’s more likely to stay in contact with a distant cell tower. This, combined with an efficient antenna, is why any booster works at all.

There are caveats. Here is what you can expect from a good booster product:

•It will “increase your bars” — signal strength will be improved.
•It will improve reliability — fewer dropouts and lost calls.
•It will NOT create something from nothing — if you have absolutely no signal, you will still have absolutely no signal.
•It will NOT create 3G from 1X, or 4G from 3G — you might get improved phone calls, but if there’s no data signal, you won’t get data.

Given these limitations, a $200 investment must be carefully evaluated. So far, I’ve found it to be useful — but not earthshaking.

In order to get the best performance, I combined a cell phone booster with a dual band antenna. I mounted the antenna on an aluminum pole to about six feet above my coach roof. It can all be deployed or stored in a couple of minutes.

Several places I’ve been have been ideal for this setup: only a bar or so of signal, no reliable connection, calls don’t connect or are dropped. With the booster, things work again. Not like being in downtown San Jose, but, yes, working.

As they say, YMMV (your mileage may vary) but it could be worth a look.

Internet RV selling tips

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By Steve Savage, Mobility RV Service

Selling RVs on the Internet has become the hot item. So hot that dealers are having a hard time keeping used units on their lots because rather than trade, owners are trying to sell their old units before or after purchasing new. If you find yourself in this category, here are a few ideas that just might help you find a buyer:

1. Be sure your ad is complete. That means you need to include the year, the manufacturer, the model, the length, the number of slides, and some statement regarding overall condition that accurately reflects what you are selling. Often buyers use filters to narrow the number of ads they have to review and failing to put in essential information can leave your RV off the list.

2. For heaven’s sake, include pictures. You don’t need 30 or 40, but you definitely need more than three or four, and be sure to include shots of both the inside and the outside of the RV.

3. Before you take pictures, clean up your RV so it looks its best and then put the clean-up equipment away. Potential buyers want to see your RV, not your mop and vacuum cleaner.

4. Make sure the pictures are oriented correctly and are clear. Small pictures taken with your phone are seldom good enough to show detail and do not match the quality of a good point-and-shoot pocket camera. Pictures that are posted sideways or upside down say you are a careless person, and buyers may assume this carries over to how you maintained your RV.

5. Don’t lie about what you are selling or leave the defect you mention in your advertisement out of the pictures. When I read one thing and see another, I move on to the next posting quickly.

6. Be realistic with your price. NADA prices are nearly meaningless other than it works negatively to go over the average retail. Most folks will be shooting for below the wholesale price. Remember anyone can buy almost any RV for somewhere between wholesale and retail, so you’d better have something really exceptional if you’re asking high dollar.

7. Adding standard equipment to your asking price is a mistake and is not how the NADA guide is designed to be used. Standard equipment is included in the base price and listing minutia wastes a reader’s time. Stick to the stuff that’s important and try to tell a story about your listing.

The goal of selling is to capture the reader’s attention without wasting their time and providing them with a sense of what makes the RV you are selling special.

photo: NASA

Pull out storage organizes RV galley

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By Duane Curtis
Can’t find those things on the back of the deep shelves in your RV kitchen? Here’s our solution, right off the shelves at Lowe’s. At the big-box hardware store we ran across slide out containers.

These can be easily mounted with just four screws, and it’s amazing what you can put in them. Our fifth wheel has a five-shelf deep cabinet next to the refrigerator. We took three of these pull out wizards and mounted them in the spaces of three of the existing shelves. Fill ’em up and put ’em away. Need something? Roll out the container and you can easily access the contents. Here’s a plus: Even if your cabinet door pops open when traveling, the contents will stay put rather than blasting out onto the floor.

Our units mount to the bottom of the shelf and allow a little space to the side of the bin. You’ll not only find these at Lowe’s but also at other stores, including Bed Bath & Beyond.

Boil your eggs to the egg-sact desired doneness

RV Staff
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Boil your eggs to the egg-sact desired doneness

By Jim Twamley

Eggs are a big part of the RV lifestyle. How do I know? I asked you and, sure enough, you like eggs. You like them cooked dozens of ways. Ah, and for those who boil your eggs, let me tell you another way.

My brother-in-law has been using these Eggsact Eggtimers for a couple of years with great success, so I decided to get one to use in our RV. It’s very simple to use — just put it in a pot of warm water along with your eggs and cook. The timer begins to change color as the eggs cook. The color ring starts at the outside and works its way into the middle.

The indicator has several degrees of “doneness” to let you know when your eggs are just how you like them. In the picture it shows they are completely hard cooked. Once it cools down it changes back to its red color and it’s ready to use again.

You can pick these up at Amazon.com, Ace Hardware or practically any cooking store. Use it with any quantity of eggs and at any altitude. You could just use the microwave clock timer, but if you’re like me, you’ve ruined many eggs because you forgot to set the timer. It’s made from a hard resin and will take the rough-and-tumble ride in your RV’s utensil drawer.

Serving it up how you like it.

Temperature-controlled shower unit — high-end but so comfortable

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By Greg Illes

Many modern homes enjoy the benefits of a temperature-controlled shower. No more hot and cold valves, but rather one handle for setting water temperature, and one handle for controlling the flow. Once hot water reaches the valve, the output temperature never varies and you never have to “fiddle” with the hot and cold knobs (in fact, there aren’t any) while you’re being frozen or scalded by a bad adjustment.

Different users of the shower simply remember their personal temperature setting and set the handle to that position before turning the flow on. Variations in hot or cold input water temperature are no longer a problem — the temperature controller compensates, and you still get your requested water temperature.

Unfortunately, most such valves take up a LOT of space behind the wall and are difficult to retrofit to an RV. Also, most valves incorporate a separate shower feed, which then requires a separate hole and fittings in the shower wall.

Enter the Grohe Grohtherm 2000 series of thermostatic control valves. These are available from plumbing supply houses and even from Amazon. It’s a well-made European product that works well for retrofit applications. This model has all of its control valving on the shower side of the wall — virtually no space is required behind the wall — and it will fit almost any existing RV. Furthermore, the Grohe also has a built-in shower hose connection, making it even more compatible.

In addition to providing guaranteed comfort, the temperature-controlled shower will also save water. You will not have to spend “water time” adjusting the temperature, nor will you have to wait that extra half-gallon to make sure the hot water is there. Since the valve has built-in backflow-prevention valves, there is no necessity for that water-wasting trickle when you shut off the water to soap up — you just turn the flow handle off. It even has a “soft-start” feature which prevents surges and temperature fluctuations.

Installation can be a three- to four-hour DIY project that costs around $400 or more. The valve is somewhat heavy, and you’ll want to add a reinforcing piece of plywood to the outside of your shower stall. A new backing plate can be made from a piece of half-inch white polyurethane.

Feedback on towing fifth wheels with half-tons – Part 1

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Feedback on towing fifth wheels with half-tons – Part 1

By Steve Savage, Mobility RV Service

[Editor’s note: Steve’s original posting on this subject appeared in an RV Daily Tips newsletter. As you’ll see, he had a lot of feedback on the subject. This post is a little longer than our usual, but we felt it important to post it, more or less, intact.]

My earlier rambling about towing with half-ton-rated trucks brought me a good deal of email and I have promised some of those folks I would publish what they had to say along with my response, so here they are. Names have been omitted.

“There was really good information except one part. In most cases there is no way to take your truck and the trailer to a weigh station when you don’t have a Pin hitch installed in the bed. This may lead some people to think that you install a hitch. I fully agree that people need to think things out better before buying this size investment without doing good research.

“My son has a 3/4-ton Ford and a large 5th wheel, and now he is going to have to put air bags in the rear springs, or add more springs.

“The article was very good and informative.  Wish I had known more when I got my first tow trailer (19-foot, towed with a 6 cyl. GMC Jimmmy —  didn’t work too good.”

I do think, if you make a couple of passes through the friendly scale found at your local truck stop, you can get the weights of most towables. The most important point I was trying to make with my article was: It is important to think things through and not just blindly buy something and regret it later, as you noted in your email.

“I just read an article you wrote which was posted on the RVTravel.com daily newsletter entitled, ‘Tow a fiver with a half-ton?’ I thank you for it. I couldn’t agree more with two points of the message: Do your own calculations for what your truck can pull (and thank you for the nice formula to work that out) and, Why aren’t RVs designed better — especially giving forethought to repairs.

“My problem with the first point is that I didn’t read it two years ago. I’m not towing a fiver but a toy hauler. It is at the max weight my F150 can pull. I’m extremely on guard now that I know what I’ve learned since I bought the trailer.

“‘Oh, no problem! This trailer is perfect for your truck,’ puffed the salesman. Why didn’t I walk away and do my own calculations?!? If your article had been fresh in my mind I would not have the constant tension of trailer weight on my shoulders — figuratively speaking. I live in my trailer, so it’s on my mind approximately every two weeks when I break camp.

“The second point of your article is something I think about every time I read advice and complaints online from RVers. I guess too many of us are too accepting of the foibles of RV manufacturers or we think we have no choice. Things I’ve heard from salesmen or those who follow a salesman’s advice: Those tires are standard for this size RV; The floor is supposed to have some give; You can’t expect those plastic fittings to live forever…

“I could get right upset when I think of those excuses I’ve heard for shoddy workmanship or bad design or just plain cheapo junk being sold as good. I don’t know what has to change to get the RV industry to get its act together, but I do hope it happens. Maybe the powers that be will listen to the wisdom of RV techs and mechanics. Here’s hoping.”

As you have discovered, it is not very hard to find complaints online from RV owners. Sometimes I wish there was a way to locate more comments from satisfied owners to balance things out. At times, I receive comments suggesting things are the way they are because people are too cheap to spend what is necessary to obtain reliability or usability. My most common response is that it is simply easier to sell based on price, especially when many RV owners are not given the opportunity to gather solid information. They don’t ask the right questions because they don’t now what to ask.

It often seems amazing to me how much folks are willing to take for granted. Every time I have heard someone say that they had to accept this or that, I think to myself, “Apparently there is some confusion about whose pocket the checkbook is in.” The RV industry will change the second it has to, and not a second sooner. Get a hundred of your closest friends to write a letter about something and watch what happens.

“I believe you forgot to mention one very important thing — it is called stopping distance, especially in a panic stop. What would the difference be between the brake size of a half-ton versus a 3/4-ton or a 1-ton.”

This is an interesting comment that comes up a lot and I don’t know the answer. Technically, the brakes on the towable are capable of stopping the trailer or fiver, and if you have ever had a break-away pin pull by accident when you are underway, you will find yourself just about thrown through the windshield. When trailer or fiver brakes come on full force, the stopping power they create, if adjusted correctly, is anything but subtle. 

There are, however, other factors (man, wouldn’t it be great if it were simple?). If you are pulling a unit much heavier than your truck and depending on an electronic aftermarket controller which, in turn, depends on the rate of deceleration of your truck to activate, your stopping distance with a lighter truck may be greater. My thinking here is the trailer may push the truck more than it might with a heavier truck.

On the other hand, if you have a factory built-in controller which activates the trailer or fifth wheel brakes based on feedback from the pressure you put on the pedal, there may not be much difference between types of trucks because the trailer brakes are doing their fair share.

Mine is not an argument in favor of ignoring braking. I simply don’t think the answer here is as simple as it might appear. There also may be other factors I have not considered and, if there are, I am sure someone will write and let me know.

Steve (Mobility RV Service). You can reach me at mroeditor(at)chartertn.net. Please do not call me on the phone unless you are looking for service for your RV here in Tri-Cities, Tenn.

Click here for Part 2.

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