Handy Hints, Gadgets, Products & Gizmos
Another member suggested a new forum section with new products but it doesn't look like it will be feasible. So I thought I would post this here under General RVing Issues. If enough people post (even...
Forum Discussion
We were only able to get a few trips in this year, so only a few new tips and pretty weak at that.
We bought a Tailgater satellite system this year and have a 100 ft cable so that we can get it to where it can see the satellites. Unwrapping 100 ft each time is a pain so I left a foot out and wrapped the rest up on a reel. Now I start at the trailer and unwrap as much as needed, connect the foot long pigtail to the Tailgater and drop the rest of the reel on the ground.
Since the TV/Sat will be on longer term and the big inverter uses a few amps just being on, I put the TV/Sat on a 150w inverter that uses little power and leave the big inverter off except for running the big things. It saves the battery power and keeps us from have to restart the satellite every time we want to use it.
Where we boondock it's pretty dark at night. The trailer has the porch light but nothing on the other three sides. I took a clamp on light with a 100w equivalent florescent bulb and clamped it to the unused TV antenna. That high it lights up a big area and can be rotated in any direction. We will also leave the truck pointed so that a quick push of the key fob resets the alarm and turns on the headlights. When something does go bump in the night we can light up the two sides of the trailer we can see out of quickly. We only turn on the lights when we walk the dogs at night or hear something, otherwise it is dark around us.
One of the reasons we didn't get much camping in was we had to take the trailer to the shop for a insurance write up. Since we didn't know if we were getting it back we emptied it and the stuff sat in my garage for a month mid summer. It was quite a pile since we were rigged for multiple styles of camping but only really do one. So we took the stuff that we would only use when we had hook ups and boxed it. Same with the roughing it gear we used for decades. Anything we were not using is stored on a shelf and easy to grab if we need it as we head out to the trailer. The trailer itself is much less packed and finding things is so much easier.
Last thing is we went through a few years of fire bans and bought a propane fire pit from Lowes for $100. Even though we didn't have a ban this year it was nice on the first night when I didn't have time to collect and cut wood, when the weather was too windy or we knew we wouldn't want to sit there long enough to make lighting a fire worth it. To make it feel more realistic we dropped it down into the stone fire pit and it looked great. Move back a few feet so that you couldn't see the base and you couldn't tell it from a real fire.
We bought a Tailgater satellite system this year and have a 100 ft cable so that we can get it to where it can see the satellites. Unwrapping 100 ft each time is a pain so I left a foot out and wrapped the rest up on a reel. Now I start at the trailer and unwrap as much as needed, connect the foot long pigtail to the Tailgater and drop the rest of the reel on the ground.
Since the TV/Sat will be on longer term and the big inverter uses a few amps just being on, I put the TV/Sat on a 150w inverter that uses little power and leave the big inverter off except for running the big things. It saves the battery power and keeps us from have to restart the satellite every time we want to use it.
Where we boondock it's pretty dark at night. The trailer has the porch light but nothing on the other three sides. I took a clamp on light with a 100w equivalent florescent bulb and clamped it to the unused TV antenna. That high it lights up a big area and can be rotated in any direction. We will also leave the truck pointed so that a quick push of the key fob resets the alarm and turns on the headlights. When something does go bump in the night we can light up the two sides of the trailer we can see out of quickly. We only turn on the lights when we walk the dogs at night or hear something, otherwise it is dark around us.
One of the reasons we didn't get much camping in was we had to take the trailer to the shop for a insurance write up. Since we didn't know if we were getting it back we emptied it and the stuff sat in my garage for a month mid summer. It was quite a pile since we were rigged for multiple styles of camping but only really do one. So we took the stuff that we would only use when we had hook ups and boxed it. Same with the roughing it gear we used for decades. Anything we were not using is stored on a shelf and easy to grab if we need it as we head out to the trailer. The trailer itself is much less packed and finding things is so much easier.
Last thing is we went through a few years of fire bans and bought a propane fire pit from Lowes for $100. Even though we didn't have a ban this year it was nice on the first night when I didn't have time to collect and cut wood, when the weather was too windy or we knew we wouldn't want to sit there long enough to make lighting a fire worth it. To make it feel more realistic we dropped it down into the stone fire pit and it looked great. Move back a few feet so that you couldn't see the base and you couldn't tell it from a real fire.
