Camping with the Sound Police

LIKE2BUILD wrote:
There is no electricity and everybody is running gen sets over the whole place.

Which is scary when there's no wind. Another annoyance (and a deadly one) from generators.

TomG2 wrote:
This is not intended to be another quiet generator versus noisy generator discussion, but I am curious where people camp who run their generators for much of the day. I am a full timer and travel extensively. I use my generator for overnight parking in Walmarts etc. I either stay at parks with hookups or where none are needed. I do not go camping where I need to hear my generator or yours all day and all night.

We have a 'noisy' generator. I bought a cheap one because we use it maybe 2 times a year. The primary place is at Bristol Campground when we attend the August night race. There is no electricity and everybody is running gen sets over the whole place.

Stay far away from the beat up C's (or any old beat up rig) and you stand a better chance of avoiding the contractor generators.

jake2250 wrote:
We do allot of winter camping along the Northern California Coast (north of SF), Crab season starts in November. One place we frequent often affords no hook ups.
You either need allot of solar or a good generator. From November thru April it tends to be very damp and windy, thus we tend to run the furnace allot.
We do use a Mr Buddy during the day and also have 200 watts of solar so we do not need to run the genny often.
Others tend to run their generators during non quiet times and we have actually camped next to a couple of campers that seem to run it for about four hours during the day and from sundown until quiet time (10P.M.).

Unless we are socked in with fog we do not need to run our Honda 2K that often and only will run it during dinner prep so as to use the microwave and watch a movie after dinner.

Knowing the situation it doesn't bother us to hear the hum of generators
running. Most folks we encounter are conscious of others and some have actually constructed sound barriers to quiet the noisy ones down some..

I think you bring up an important factor: what are the circumstances of the location/event and how does that alter the inappropriateness/appropriateness of the generator use.

If I go to a winter campground with snow, then I expect to hear generators running. If I go to a Texas beach campground in 110 degree weather, I expect to hear generators running. I know to expect them, so they don't bother me under those circumstances.

When I go to a campground in the forest with 70-80 degree days and 50-60 degree nights, then I don't expect to hear generators running constantly.

pconroy328 wrote:
I'll fess up we run our on-board Onan more than I wish. And I do think about the noise bothering the neighbors. I feel really bad when I'm the first one starting up.

But - we're a family of five. 3 teenagers.
The predominate reason we're on the genny is not AC, not the TV.

It's the microwave.
Three starvin' teenagers - I can feed one or two off the campstove, but I do need the microwave.

cream of wheat, oatmeal, scrambled eggs, etc. can all be made easily on a campstove (or RV stove) in bulk without needing a microwave.

If the kids are so hungry they can't wait 5 minutes for the food to cook on the stove, then they can eat a poptart or fruit to tide them over.

Or pick up another campstove and let the teenagers fix their own breakfasts.

We do allot of winter camping along the Northern California Coast (north of SF), Crab season starts in November. One place we frequent often affords no hook ups.
You either need allot of solar or a good generator. From November thru April it tends to be very damp and windy, thus we tend to run the furnace allot.
We do use a Mr Buddy during the day and also have 200 watts of solar so we do not need to run the genny often.
Others tend to run their generators during non quiet times and we have actually camped next to a couple of campers that seem to run it for about four hours during the day and from sundown until quiet time (10P.M.).

Unless we are socked in with fog we do not need to run our Honda 2K that often and only will run it during dinner prep so as to use the microwave and watch a movie after dinner.

Knowing the situation it doesn't bother us to hear the hum of generators
running. Most folks we encounter are conscious of others and some have actually constructed sound barriers to quiet the noisy ones down some..

The only ones that have bothered me were a couple of Class B campers that were surfers (nothing wrong with that), but the only way they recharged their batteries was to run the vehicle engine.

And it seemed they considered that their Van was Not a Generator and would start it up every few hours and let it idle! At three in the morning the camper next to you starts there van up and lets it idle for an hour with that drone it's hard to get back to sleep!

After the second night of that I went over and asked them if they were aware of quiet time?? He advised me he was well aware of the rules of the campground and he wasn't running a generator and it got cold at night and asked me what the big deal was!! Then proceeds to explain that his van has a muffler and generators do not, tried to tell me my Honda Generator was louder than his van..
I guess I wasn't the only one annoyed by the late night early morning drone,, The camp host and Ranger were there the next morning and asked them to leave!!
Nice to know the campground is serious about quiet time!!

I'll fess up we run our on-board Onan more than I wish. And I do think about the noise bothering the neighbors. I feel really bad when I'm the first one starting up.

But - we're a family of five. 3 teenagers.
The predominate reason we're on the genny is not AC, not the TV.

It's the microwave.
Three starvin' teenagers - I can feed one or two off the campstove, but I do need the microwave.

rjxj wrote:
Another guy had 2 dead group 27 batteries and ran his Honda all the time. He had 16 gauge wire from a 140 watt panel mounted behind his truck cab all the way to mid kitchen area and then back up to the front of the fw where the batteries are. I told him that the panel needs to be pointed at the sun, he said he thought it just needed to be light outside for it to work.

This doesn't surprise me. People amass stuff for good reason, but don't bother to understand the workings.

Generators are far easier to understand.

A friend who had her coach/chassis batteries in cool storage for the summer thought she had to reinstall her batteries in the coach to get them charged. Yikes.

Like Korbe, the most often I see is the "morning" and "evening" meal times / getting dressed.

I have had folks turn them on as early as 5 am (against rules) so they can get up and go fishing. My logic is if you're going to sit in a cold boat on a cold lake for hours, you can just get dressed in the cold too.

The sound does carry - even if it doesn't sound loud right in front of it, that hum can carry for quite a ways (think of highway noise and how far it carries).

I would prefer not to hear them at all, but I can accept rules 8-10 am and 6-8 pm without issue. I won't stay at places that allow them all day - if it's too hot to be outside than why be there.

Steve B. wrote:
Sorry, but as I don't have a generator I need some clarification on their use. I thought they were used to recharge the RVs batteries, which would mean that they would be run for whatever time that is needed and then that's it. I've camped at Blackwoods in Acadia National Park (and a few other state parks) and have had folks nearby fire them up at 8:00 and run them all day. What do people use that requires the generator to go all day, and if they need that much power why do they go to a campground without hookups? I know there are hours they can be run, so I couldn't complain about it, but being woken up every morning at 8:00 sharp whether I wanted to be up or not did take some of the pleasure out of my camping in the woods experience.

With the prevalence of microwaves and AC's in almost every TT and MH any more, many people have come to believe that they must use these appliances that won't run on the RV's internal systems. Then they figure "What the heck, since I have the option, I'll use my fancy-dancy coffemaker too." None of those appliances will run with the typical RV's battery setup - they require a generator or shore power.

I will never even have the option of using the AC when I'm off grid, because I'll never have a big enough generator to run it, and that's fine with me. If I'm traveling where I need AC, I'll stay in a park with hookups. I heat water on the stove the old fashioned way. My wife and I are very good at minimizing our power usage. We have easily gone 3 nights on a single, mostly worn out 12v battery (my early experience with a TT was before they even had electric lights - everything was propane). I can't imagine that we will ever use the TV that came in our Jay Feather - don't even know why we would want to. I'll probably end up removing it to lose a little excess weight.

I realize that not everyone is us or has our approach to RV camping, but that doesn't mean that anything goes. There is too little respect for others in the world these days. It's easy to minimize generator usage, but some folks don't even try to do so. I would never gripe about someone running his genny for a couple of hours during the day to get a good charge on his battery(s), but running it all day (or worse, all night) I would find quite annoying.