Dick Eastman's RV

I Was (Almost) Robbed

I have been traveling in the motor home for almost a week. I have charged several restaurant meals and campground fees and in-store purchases on my bank's debit card. I was a bit surprised today when my bank called and told me there was possible fraudulent activity on my card. At first, I assumed the charges were legitimate as I had made charges in several states in the past six days. However, as the lady on the phone recited the charges to me, one jumped out at me as obviously bogus.

Thursday evening, someone charged a night's stay at a Motel 6 somewhere in Virginia. Not only have I not been in Virginia for a year or so, but, if I was, I would not have stayed in any motel. After all, I am traveling in a motor home and am carrying my own bedroom with me! I have no need of motels!

The lady at Bank of America kindly credited the charge to my account.

On the Road Again

After a six-week stay at home, I am leaving in the morning. I am headed to genealogy conferences in Ohio and in Kentucky, to an airshow (the world's largest) in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, and then to Birmingham, Alabama to prepare for the Federation of Genealogical Societies' conference being held in a few weeks.

Hmmm... Alabama in August... this might be warm.

I'll be traveling in the motor home and towing a Mini-Cooper behind. I'll stay in various RV campgrounds along the way. I should be on the road for about two months although I will make a quick airline trip home for some family commitments for a few days in mid-August. (I'll leave the motor home in a storage facility in Alabama during that time.)

How Not to Install an iPad

It seemed like a great idea. The iPad has an optional built-in GPS and you can download some great navigation software for use in automobiles. With its big display screen, an iPad should be a much better GPS than the present device I have with a small screen. Should be... It didn't work out that way.

I purchased a RAM mount for the iPad. It looks like most of the other mounts included with GPS devices, except that it is bigger than normal. The RAM mount has a suction cup for attaching to the windshield, a short arm that holds everything over the dashboard, and a clip-in mount for the iPad. It was a bit expensive at $38.84 from Amazon, but I have other windshield mounts made by RAM and have always been impressed how well they work. They never fall off the windshield in the hot sun.

Flag Pole Buddy for Long Range Wi-Fi Now Available at Camping World

I wrote a three-part series of articles entitled "How to Build a Long-Range Wi-Fi System" that is still available with Part #1 starting at http://goo.gl/VpO8F. In that article, I described how I installed an external antenna on the back of my motor home that allows me to connect to wi-fi networks a quarter-mile away and sometimes even further.

In Part #3 of the article (available at http://goo.gl/IgkvI), I described the masts that I used. My first experiment was with a military surplus set of ten four-foot long fiberglass poles. That didn't work very well. The poles were big, heavy, awkward to install, and looked ugly. It got stares in the campground. I later discovered a telescoping aluminum flagpole mount made for recreational vehicles. Although it is described as a flag pole, this mast is perfect for use with a small to medium sized antenna on top! I use it for both my wi-fi antenna and for a television antenna that works a lot better than the one installed at the factory on the motor home's roof.

Yellow Jacket iPhone Stun Gun Case

This has got to be the ultimate gadget. You can convert your innocuous-looking iPhone into a snarling defensive weapon. A new iPhone case also houses a 650,000-volt stun gun. That should be quite the defensive weapon! It looks about like any other iPhone case and shouldn't raise eyebrows wherever you carry it. Somehow, I have to believe this thing will be illegal in a number of states.

The Yellow Jacket iPhone stun gun case also provides another use: it is capable of giving your phone up to 20 hours of additional standby battery. Apparently, a stun gun uses very heavy duty batteries!

This is no joke.

Old Time Camping

Three thousand campers set up tents in Arcadia, Florida in 1929. Click on the image to see a larger picture.

Is This the Most Practical Mini Camper Ever?

The ParkLiner is a camping trailer that measures only 15 feet from tongue to back bumper. However, it packs a lot into that tiny space. Click on the picture to the right to see  a larger image.

Amongst the features:

10 Worst-Rated States for Retirement???

Money-Rates.com has published a list of the ten worst places to spend your retirement years, along with explanations of why each state was so poorly rated. I was surprised to learn that Maine was the worst. Hey, that's my home state! I was thinking of retiring there!

The third worst state is Massachusetts, the state where I have lived for years.

Now I know why I purchased the motor home. I can now live where I want and, if I don't like where I am, I can easily disconnect and move on.

Mickey, Donald and Goofy Head Out on an RV Adventure

From 1938:



I especially liked the telephone. Every RV should have one like it!

Another Free Wi-Fi Source

Free wi-fi is available wherever you find it. This is from Whitson Gordon's FaceBook page:

BestBuy has a hidden WiFi network named "BestBuy" they use for their display devices. You can connect to it just fine by typing in the SSID (it won't show up in the list of WiFi connections) and there's no password or wireless security.

I assume that it is sensitive to upper and lower case, as are most all SSIDs. Enter exactly: BestBuy