Camping with the Sound Police

The best way to have drycamping electrcal power along is to have more than one way to get it:

- We can idle our motorhome's gasoline engine (Ford V10) to charge all batteries, heat the whole rig, or air condition the whole rig. It can hardly be heard 10 feet away.

- We can run the built-in Onan to charge all batteries, heat the whole rig (if the propane furnace system should ever fail), air condition the whole rig, or run the microwave. The Onan was installed well enough by the RV manufacturer such that it's not at all irritating inside .... or outside past, say, 30 feet away .... especially when parked on a soft surface.

- We can run a no longer available very small suitcase Honda to charge all batteries. It's noise level is only a low frequency humming at a constant 54 dB such that you can sit right next to it and carry on a conversation. It's even less irritating than an idling Honda 2000i (53dB) because the suitcase Honda's sound seems to contain no high frequency components - unlike the 2000i at idle - and a 2000i is really irritating when running full bore (59dB), or especially when going up and down while powering a cycling microwave or air conditioner.

We're touring hit and run campers who rarely spending more than 3 days in the same site, so we don't even have solar due to our 230 AH AGM battery bank plus wanting power flexibility regardless of sun, shade, cloudy skies, night skies, high altitude cold, desert heat, or Southern U.S. heat and humidity. We don't like to be restricted as to what location, what weather, or what season we can camp in and still have the full comforts we paid for. RV's cost too much for them to not to be ready for anything and everything. Tent camping is only camping. RV'ing is intended to be camping on steroids.

Our group will run the generators all night, so we don't have to listen to them during the day while we are fishing. I personally don't, but that is the group dynamic. All the generators are Hondas, except for one camper with a pair of Champion 2000 watt inverters.

BUT, we are boondocking at a large reservoir, and if you park close enough for those quiet generators to bother you, you shouldn't have parked so close to our group.

It is much cheaper to run the fuel sipping generators all night than pay for a site at the campground, and the fishing is better where we go.

I have no problems with people running a generator or making some noise as long as it starts and stops when the rules say it should. Of course, rules will vary greatly from location to location and that's part of the game.

Next time you hear someone's movie playing outside, kindly ask them if they know. We have 2 different friends who had turned the outside speakers on for a particular reason. Shut thing off and went to bed. Next time they used it the outside speakers were still on and they did not realize it. It could be they just forgot they are on and with the noise of the movie inside, would not realize the outside speakers on are.

If we have a "top 10, wth was this thread even about?" List going for this year, congrats to the op for getting this one snuck in at the 11th hour! Lol

Sam Spade wrote:

TomG2 wrote:
It has never happened to me in hundreds of campgrounds and traveling forty states over fifteen years. That is why I asked. I must be lucky.

Didn't you say that you are a NASCAR fan, Tom ?

If so, does the above statement include "campgrounds" at major races ??

Having done about 15 of the tracks myself, I would find that near impossible to believe.

After working NASCAR and many other race events around the country for over seventeen years, I don't really consider the so called camping area's as a campground.. They are just mass gathering spots where you are jammed together with your RV. Only lakes are settling ponds near by, most have large lighting towers running all night and a check in and out gate manned 24 hours.
Even at large space tracks such as the Glen, you still get jammed into a So called camping area that is so tight you barely have room to walk between the rigs!

At most of the events I have "Camped", if you don't show up with som type of generator you are considered a rookie!! And if you don't have a twenty five foot tall flag pole and whirly gigs displaying your favorite driver,, you are considered a rookie!!
I would also like to point out that about five years now,, maybe longer,, if you don't have some type of LED blinking light on top of your flag pole you are---------you guessed it---Rookie!!

Thats why I have separated Events from actually camping.
At Events, loud crazy behavior is welcomed all hours of the day and night!! Doing burn outs and popping wheelies on you ATV or having all night corn hole or washer or ladder ball tournaments are accepted behavior. The best I have seen is a bag piper on a skate board riding around all hours playing music!! Hell we stopped him and offered him a beer or three and fed him smoked tri tip and all the fixins!!

Now "Camping" this is VERY unaccepted behavior! I believe we all go camping for relaxation time and to get away from the hustle bustle life we encounter! But it seems on both sides of the reality scale,, some folks take it to far and we need to meet in the middle some times!!

I think that's the point. Is the noise expected for the situation. At a NASCAR event, it's expected and people accept it as part of the "ambience". In the middle of a national forest, it's not expected and people don't accept it as part of the "ambience".

Just because it is acceptable to do at one place, doesn't make it acceptable at all places. Knowing the difference will go a long way at preventing problems.

As for leaf blowers, they are rotgut. Their engine noise is far different than a lawn mower and it cuts into your head like an ice pick AND all it does is blow all that dust, mold, and pollen up into the air making it impossible for people to breathe. And when did it ever become acceptable to just blow all your leaves and dirt into the neighbors' yards and street rather than to pick up your "trash".

Sam Spade wrote:

TomG2 wrote:
It has never happened to me in hundreds of campgrounds and traveling forty states over fifteen years. That is why I asked. I must be lucky.

Didn't you say that you are a NASCAR fan, Tom ?

If so, does the above statement include "campgrounds" at major races ??

Having done about 15 of the tracks myself, I would find that near impossible to believe.

I expect lots of noise at "Events" like Nascar races.

Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain - - - and most fools do............... Dale Carnegie

What I find funny is the ones that complain about generator noise but are ok with starting their 15 year old diesel truck up at 7 am to hit the road.

Noise is noise. Some are ok with hearing a baby cry or dogs bark. Others are ok with hearing a generator.

My father in-law would complain about leaf blowers constantly saying it was noise pollution. Yet his lawn mower was ok and the plane he flew on was ok.

When I would point out to him the he could cut his lawn with one of those old push lawn mowers that doesn't have a motor, he would get upset and say that is different. LOL

I choose to enjoy my time instead of worrying or complaining.

When camping on a holiday weekend, around us if you don't get your Memorial Day weekend reservations by the first of the year at state parks, you end up without electricity. When there is nothing between you and a camper even 50 yards away a generator is still loud. We had a guy there with all his toys, TT, boat, 4 wheeler and a running 14 hr per day generator. Only time it stopped was for refueling it. Not cold enough for AC or hot enough for the furnace. Why don't these people have some type of enclosure around it to direct the sound upwards other than they could give a rats a$$ that that constant noise bothers others. Yes Hondas are quieter but they don't sound like birds and wind rustling through the trees ie....nature sounds. Not everyone has the luxury of camping during the week when campgrounds are mostly empty and in the NE there are no boondocking locations.