RVelectricity: Doing my RVelectricity virtual seminars at the FROG Rally

Dear Readers,
Unfortunately, I caught COVID 10 days ago, which triggered my bronchitis and laid me flat on my back for a week. I asked my doctor if I was okay to tow a trailer from Maryland to Goshen, Indiana, for the FROG (Forest River Owners Group) Rally this week, to which she replied “Are you nuts?!”

So, rather than ditching my RVelectricity seminars at the FROG Rally, I decided to try it as virtual Zoom seminars this time.

My co-pilot

Lucky for me, Tony Barthel was already at the FROG Rally, and he’s at least as much of a technical geek as I am. Thanks very much, Tony!

I had already done a number of training classes for other industries using Zoom as the distribution platform, plus Tony and I had experimented with it at the Quartzsite Show a few months ago. Now, all I had to do was come up with the content from my office at the FunkWorks Lab.

My pilot chair…

To make this happen I used a combination of multiple video cameras and a fully loaded Mac Mini running Ecamm as the front end, which was being sent to Zoom as a virtual camera. My iPad not only provided the PowerPoint slides, it allowed me to add a digital laser pointer remotely, which was really helpful.

So I had full audio/video switcher control over what I sent out to the class, as well as being able to add overlays plus see and hear the class participants. I could answer questions from the attendees in real time. End-to-end delay with return was an estimated 100 milliseconds. So, no noticeable audio or video lag on my part. Unbelievable!

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The transporter receiving pad

As all you Star Trek fans should know, it’s much easier to transport someone to a proper receiving pad, and boy did I have a great one at the FROG Rally. I’m not sure why, but there was a huge LED video wall already installed in the cafeteria at the rally, plus a very nice line-array sound system.

So all Tony had to do was plug in his laptop, log into the Zoom meeting I had already scheduled, and turn up the sound. And it worked great!

What are the possibilities?

Since Tony and I had so much fun doing this, and we’re located in New Mexico and Maryland, respectively, we can now offer to provide more virtual seminars in places where it’s not convenient for both of us to be at during a particular time.

My Zoom account can accommodate up to 300 Zoom participants at the same time, while also simulcasting to an unlimited number of YouTube Live participants. Seems crazy, but I can see every one of the Zoom logins, and take text messages in real time from the YouTube Live attendees. The most I’ve done so far was 500 simultaneous YouTube Live attendees, and it was a blast!

Special guests

I can also log-in special guests for part of these virtual seminars, and I have a lot of engineering types on speed dial already. That would allow us to get straight answers from guests like lithium battery manufacturers, air conditioner gurus, even EV and electric RV makers. The sky’s the limit…

All you have to do is ask…

So, if you have any kind of rally or RV show coming up in the next year and might want to participate, just email me the details. This could be a remote Zoom seminar with me and/or Tony or any other expert we can get in front of a laptop camera. If you have any ideas, please let me know and we’ll figure something out.

Let’s webcast safely out there….

Send your questions to me at my new RVelectricity forum here.

Mike Sokol is an electrical and professional sound expert with 50+ years in the industry. His excellent book RV Electrical Safety is available at Amazon.com. For more info on Mike’s qualifications as an electrical expert, click here.

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