Jim_Oker

Does it have any attach points for guy lines to be staked out (as seen in a few of the photos from other owners who have poles and side wall or sun shade setups)? If not see if you can add them in a secure way - their attach points need to be able handle significant forces. Otherwise that could become quite the wind sail in an unpleasant way!

I have an antenna with a similar design as the one SeaDawg posted (the one with the two circles) on the roof of my house that does well for us in getting our local stations (we also shun cable service at home though they still get our $$ as our only choice for high speed internet...). Different antenna designs optimize for different situations. If you are expecting to be far from the broadcast towers for instance you may want to get something that you can aim toward that city out there somewhere and pull in a far away signal with a tight-beam type antenna whereas if you're near urban areas a wide angle antenna that has less range may be just the ticket. BTW I had an uncle who installed antennas in rural western MA when I was a kid and one thing he stressed was that higher was always better. He was *really* good at climbing trees which is where he'd often end up putting antennas for clients, with big cable runs back to the house. This page goes into a bit more detail on the various categories of antenna along with a bit of additional info to help dispel myths about needing to spend a ton for "digital TV capable" antennas and such. Elsewhere on the site you can type in a zip code to  find  out where the nearby towers are, which is super helpful if you are trying to figure out where to aim directional antennas.

You can ask Oliver for their Delivery Checklist that they use to be sure they cover everything with new owners - that may include some smart additions for this list.

Is that correct? I was told by someone in the Oliver FB group (or maybe it was here on the forum...) that they are using both LifeBlue and whoever the other manufacturer is due to needing more supply. But that they had not stopped using LifeBlue. Do you know otherwise?

Living in the cloudy-wintered northern latitudes on the wet coast I see going with this scenario for part of my camping year. I'm hoping that the 400ah factory lithium option on hull #709 will mostly suffice for me though I did get a generator for topping off if needed on longer winter outings. I don't want to feel compelled to top off daily though but would rather run a reasonable daily deficit in the wet season here in the PNW.

Or you could strap a sturdy truck top camper like the Four Wheel Campers to a capable truck and be done with it. I get the lure but I suspect one has more exploration potential in many really rough areas w/o having the added challenge of a trailer...

I did not know about the rung cover. I've got a different model (CS125+/300) but this same rung cover fits my model also - thanks for the post! I'll be getting one of those covers for sure

Yeah probably though he's a sport and his daughter lives next door to him and they often park their big 4x4 on the patch of lawn across out narrow dirt lane from our driveway area. And the psycho delivery truck drivers (there are mostly fine drivers but some clearly don't know how to drive those Prime vans and such...) often leave muddy tracks through that bit of lawn too. But still, it's nice not to have to join the party.

As a newbie to towing I'm intrigued by this option. Now I'm going to have to ponder the mechanics of this and maybe even go look for a video or two 🙂 I was relieved when I confirmed that I could make the required backing maneuvers with our TV and trailer to get into our parking w/o making a mess of the neighbor's lawn or any such shenanigans.

I've (somewhat academically) wondered whether in a scenario like this (flat ground but gravel etc. and a tight turn or two) a smaller vehicle not rated for the trailer weight, but shorter and with tighter turning radius, would be an option for the final stretch to the parking spot. Assuming one owned such a vehicle in addition to their TV. It would not seem to pose anything close to the stresses to either drive train or suspension that must be accounted for in setting these ratings...

Yeah, here in WA we were seeing a big uptick of other outdoor pursuits such as hiking and skiing even pre-pandemic, to an extent significantly greater than our also large regional population increase. A lot of younger adults fed the boom. Imagine that - a generation that wants to spend more time outdoors doing healthy activities. While it's a pain in the butt for me I have to think this is nonetheless a healthy change, though I think some shifts back to spending more toward investing in our public lands may be in order if demand stays up. I suspect that there will be some dropoff in folks camping as their trust in various built environment options for vacations returns, but my bet is that it won't return to what we were used to.

As to an "overpriced" $40 item, I always try to remind myself to ask whether it's really worth the effort I'm considering to work around just buying the thing that costs $30 more than it should 😉 (that said, in this case I think it would not take long to source a very suitable ~$10 option 🙂 )

Yes, if you know the polarity, voltage, size of the little cylindrical plug part, and rough number of amps you can usually find an alternative that will work fine since there isn't a lot of variety with these types of power supply plugs. There are tons of variants on Amazon for instance. I recently went through this to find an alternative to the OEM $45 plug for a kitchen scale whose original plug's flimsy wires had broken. I got a much sturdier one than the OEM version for indeed about $10.

What do you mean by "the master switch?" At least on my trailer there is no such beast per Jason in service. He said I needed to disconnect at the terminals to eliminate phantom loads on the batteries.

What about disconnecting at the positive battery terminals and then using one of these plugged into shore power?

It may impact the weight of my right foot while driving but otherwise mostly no I think - I'm grateful for the ability to say that but this ability is pretty much paired with the ability to buy and own a trailer like the Oliver and a vehicle worthy of towing it, and having the time to do so. I'm pretty sure that if you are truly needing to heavily factor this in to your travel plans then you can easily find some far more economical ways to travel the country.

Thanks! Heartwarming (not!) to see that they've already replaced the battery make/model that they put in #709. Oh well, fingers crossed - hopefully it's just because either they got a better deal or else because they ended up having to put heating mats under the LifeBlue batteries...

Yes. This past September we met a couple at the WA coast who had their awning case all covered in duct tape with the awning not deployed on a hot sunny day (onshore breeze for the locals - the only time the WA coast is EVER hot). They said that, despite the wind sensor, it had beeb wrapped back over the roof from a sudden gust I think near Santa Fe, where the host had warned them about awnings and the gusts...

Yes, I guess what I'm wondering is whether the in-battery short circuit protection suffices. I imagine there's little to no harm in adding the blocks though (potentially along with cutoff switches for each post to make setting up for longer storage a tad easier).

It's a bit early in the lifespan of my setup to see much if any wear but thanks for the heads up to watch for it. My setup is the same as NCeagle's. BTW, the LifeBlue lithium batteries' data sheet includes the following: Short Circuit Protection: 850A for 500µs Short Circuit Protection release: 30 Seconds I do not know enough about the potential risks here to know if this would sufficiently mitigate against a fire if there is a short on a cable in the battery compartment as John describes. From what very little reading I've done suggests, the main goal of this bit of protection seems to be to mitigate against the risk of the battery itself exploding or starting a fire, but would it also be sufficient to prevent a fire if an otherwise unfused cable there in the compartment s shorts to the tray?

Just thinking about the options now. If one were willing to violate the explicit instruction in the user manual not to winterize with compressed air... wouldn't it also work to simply have a shutoff valve on each supply line and to blow both lines out (say from the city water port) and then turn both user-installed valves off? That would add its own hassle each time you'd do it but would avoid the issue of needing to puncture the belly for a new drain hose.

Did you create another opening for air return from the cabin into the basement?

I'm wondering how reasonably testable this question is. I.e. perhaps by measuring amps going to the furnace while it's operating? If this draw is reasonably constant then one could mock up a mod by temporarily blocking the existing return and opening a temporary one at one of the dinette access hatches for instance and then compare amp draw. If there's no discernable difference I would venture a guess that this is a good signal that the blower is not working harder. I imagine that there are techniques for measuring air flow through the hot air vents or ducting as well but that likely involves more specialized HVAC tools versus a vanilla multimeter... perhaps with a Rube Goldberg setup with a Facetiming phone or some such strapped in there as well?)

Yes and with the evaporator/condenser style fridges (which as I understand it covers any fridge that can run on propane) there's a point where it just won't keep up. I've talked with someone from AZ who camps a lot in the Sonoran Desert and thereabouts and he says he MUST have a compressor style fridge (only runs on electricity though) for his summer camping down there. He has a small compressor based freezer/fridge combo in his Four Wheel Camper brand truck top camper and he says the solar panels on top are almost always enough to keep the batteries topped off and the fridge happy. I experienced this problem once in my camper van when crossing the Mojave desert on a very hot day. I don't have an outside thermometer readout in the van so I'm not sure but I believe the temperature was somewhere between 100 and 110. I was also running on the less efficient DC power because on my van the pilot light blows out somewhere above about 25MPH. That evening when I took a break for dinner at a rest stop somewhere north of Bakersfield I realized I needed to toss any meat as well as my mayo and go shopping for fresh stuff. I don't know what the limit would have been on propane instead of 12V but I bet it wouldn't be about the same as this fridge seems on the edge in the upper nineties. When it gets that hot we generally seek cooler venues though, which is usually not hard living near the Pacific coast. But in any case yeah the propane use from that fridge which is only a little smaller than the one in the Ollie (though no freezer) is minimal even in hot weather.

Good luck down there. The weather is kind of freaky all around the country. It's warming up a bit here in WA starting today and more into tomorrow. May you get the same asap!