bananadanna
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Re: Cel phone for the winter only
As much as I dislike greedy VZ they do have the most cell towers across the boonier parts of the US. If you get a cdma model (not gsm) TracFone it should use the VZ network. I believe buying your Tracfone at a Walmart in a mostly-VZ zip code will get you the cdma model. Cell networks across the US have kept improving every year we've done our East Coast to West Coast trips but VZ's steady improvement has kept it out in front for rural coverage. Carrier choice for urban areas and Interstate highways coverage matters less.343Views0likes0CommentsRe: Google Chrome probs?
The different browsers have their own strengths and weaknesses. I use Safari, Chrome, Firefox and Opera on my Mac. Each is configured with different cookie, history and other privacy preferences. A good idea to configure one browser for limited use with minimal extensions and max privacy for sensitive things like financial transactions. Another browser kills its history and cookies upon closing. My browsers get updates as available and there are lots of leapfrogging in features so I am willing to switch back and forth if some site works better elsewhere.357Views0likes0CommentsRe: Induction cook tops instead of gas
We have a portable single burner induction unit in the van and also a four-burner cooktop in the stick house. The portable feature of the van unit is great for picnic table use to keep heat out of the rv. And nothing beats mag units when a warmer is needed. The drawback to the 110v units is their relatively low btu equivalence. They do transfer almost twice the heat into the pan compared to propane but the 1500w units are still slower than propane. We have twin 15k btu burners on the outside campstove and that plus the BabyQ grill are a good complement to one or two mag burners. The microwave also displaces some burner needs---its even easier to clean than the mag burner. OTOH, our stick house cooktop is 240v and lots of amps. So 50a shore power can match the propane btus if that is your goal. Consumer's Reports always gives top ratings to the spendy mag induction house units they review.413Views0likes0CommentsRe: Collapsible/Folding Plastic Crate
I will agree that folding crates are available at many price and strength points. I inherited several folding legal-file size crates that came with metal bar inserts for file use and were generally designed to be stacked heavy half a dozen high. A delight to use in the van. I found similar sizes at various places. The Walmart version was quite inexpensive but obviously had about half the strength. I did locate a source of my kind at The Container Store and will be buying more there.554Views0likes0CommentsRe: Glass surface cooktop Induction style
We drycamp about 95% of the time with a dc fridge, microwave and mag induction burner just fine. No gennie, solar or installed propane necessary. The alternator supplies the ah's while on the road. Capturing enough of those with a large enough house bank is one key to a practical electric kitchen. (Ours is 420 ah) Periodic recharging is a second key. We use the micro and mag unit freely on the road since something like 100 amps is available after we pull out of a rest stop. We use those more sparingly in camp and get about four days to 50% SOC before wanting more road miles. Even a short grocery run quickly adds a day or two of ah's. Others could extend their stay or electricity consumption with solar or gennie use. Conservation is a third key. We use a propane bbq tank outside for grill, camp stove and heating hot water. We can't do much about the dc fridge consuming 2/3 of our daily ah's in camp but we can choose how much micro and mag we use. The micro typically runs for a few minutes. Mag units excel at simmering so that adds considerable kitchen utility at 10-20% of their full-power draw. Always great to minimize heat sources in hot weather. The induction unit transfers around 70% of the btus into the pot compared to about half that for propane. Cooking outside works even better for both. An inexpensive portable mag unit is compact and happy to sit next to the campstove if that is useful. Our mag unit use typically requires less than 20 ah/day as a supplemental camp burner. Road use requires no budgeting at all.238Views0likes0CommentsRe: MagnaSine Inverter Questions
Wow, I would consider that kind of rf leakage to be unacceptable for such an expensive inverter. No problems like that with my Prosine 2.0. Sort of sorry to hear they warned you in the manual. I'd call up Magnum tech support and ask them for the fix or a return authorization!397Views0likes0Comments
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