theboondork's RV blog

Theboondork has left the building

12/12/2017

When I'm boondocking the Arctic Fox looks so big, but when I get around real RVs it looks tiny.

I didn't actually leave a building, I just left Box Wash. I went back to Ben Avery's gun range near Phoenix and checked into a full hookup site at the Trap range.

I haven't had any hookups for months and it's such a wonderful feeling to be able to use all the water I want, all the electricity I want, run my little electric heater, and my toaster oven if I want to, and best of all have all the free Internet that I can use.

When you stay in RV parks most of the time you get used to all that so its nothing special, but when a moldy old boondocker comes to town things like that are a real luxury. But I will still be just as happy to leave here in a week and get back to the boondocks.

Having hookups and free Internet will allow me to do some things that are difficult to do while boondocking. I've been putting off a couple of large downloads because they would put a strain on my phone data plan, one of which is a big update for my Garman GPS, and the others a firmware update for my phone. I will also be able to turn on my air conditioner and give it some exercise. Machines like that sitting around unused is not a good thing so they need to be turned on every once in a while, and the same goes for the house furnace.

I haven't been to a Walmart in about a month and I think I'm having withdrawal symptoms. I'm really looking forward to looking at price tags that don't give me sticker shock, and being able to buy more than just groceries without going to another store.

But I came back here to go to some motorcycle shops and kick a few tires which I will start doing tomorrow. Its become apparent that trials bikes are not easy to find mostly because very few people buy them, but there are a few stores in Phoenix that sell them but I think in smaller towns it would be kind of hopeless.

If everything works out Santa Claus might be bringing me a new motorcycle for Christmas and that puts me in the Christmas spirit just thinking about it, but not enough to listen to anymore Christmas music, I'm sick of it already.

theboondork

12 Comments

Barney Ward

12/13/2017 12:41:39 pm

Is it time for a toy hauler rV and an ATV?

theboondork

12/13/2017 02:56:59 pm

I am absolutely surrounded here at the trap club by toy haulers and ATVs. A lot of the shooters especially the sporting clay shooters use them the haul their guns and ammunition around the course, and since they miss a lot they carry a great deal of ammo.

Even though I have no desire to own an ATV, there for old people, at one time when I began thinking about what kind of RV I wanted to full time in I did consider a toy hauler for a very short period of time, because it would be so handy to get a motorcycle in and out of and keep it out of the weather.

But the more I read about toy haulers the more it became apparent that they weren't designed for full-time living. Now I'm sure a person could live in one but the ones I researched were best suited for weekends and vacations. Which explains why I ended up with a motorcycle hanging off my rear end.

Tom

12/13/2017 05:35:19 pm

I call my AF 27-5L, Reno. Reno is known as the biggest little city. Much like the 5L, it is small but when you are inside it offers everything you need and more.

Ed

12/13/2017 07:29:30 pm

You're right Ed, it is all I need and more. Getting a bigger RV never even crosses my mind, but going smaller is something I think about every now and then. But every time I think of getting something handier and easier to take places like a large camper van I think of those tiny holding tanks and small water tank and how I would have to come into town to dump and get water once a week and suddenly they're not so appealing anymore. But if I did get a another RV it would definitely be smaller and not bigger.

Tom

Vall&Mo link

12/14/2017 03:14:30 pm

Hi Tom,

So you don't have any of the unlimited cell data plans being sold nowadays?

We plan on getting one when we start full-timing (actually two, the other as a backup in case we're somewhere without coverage from the first's carrier, or if anything happens to it), perhaps you know something we don't?

Cheers
--
Vall & Mo.

12/14/2017 04:00:25 pm

Believe me, I don't know anything someone else doesn't know.

The reason I have just a basic 30 gigs of data instead of the new unlimited things is because of the fine print in all of the unlimited things.

I don't do much of anything on my phone to me its just a hotspot, and all of the unlimited plans limit your hotspot use to where there of very little use to me. And to make matters worse after a certain amount of use they throttle you down to a level that's hard to do anything other than read your email.

But if you're going to do a lot of your Internet stuff on the phone and not on a laptop the unlimited plan is the way to go.

Having said that Verizon has just come out with another unlimited plan called the beyond unlimited plan which I just stumbled into and just glanced at and it appears that you get more hotspot data but not as much as I have now and there's still some throttling going on. But I'm going to check into this one a little further.

I think the smartest thing for folks with two phones is to have one on Verizon and the other on AT&T I know that will cost more than just adding another line onto either company but there are some places where one of those companies don't have reception but the other company does, I know because I've been in those places. So two different companies should cover just about anyplace you would want to go.

Tom

Vall & Mo. link

12/15/2017 04:01:04 am

Hi Tom.

There will always be some fine print in anything being sold as "unlimited" -- it's there so the provider can stop anyone really abusing their services (we've heard about people dowloading tens of terabytes -- ie, thousands of gigabytes -- in a single month). From what we've heard, if you keep your use within reasonable bounds (say, a few hundred gigs or less per month) you should not have any problems.

Our current plan is to get a "Standard Unlimited" plan from US Mobile over Verizon (a MVNO who operates over Verizon and T-Mobile's cell networks), and as a backup, a Cricket (another MVNO, this time over AT&T's network) Unlimited plan The URLs, in case you are interested, are:

https://www.rvmobileinternet.com/us-mobile-adds-verizon-and-unlimited-data-plans-with-hotspot/
https://www.cricketwireless.com/support/plans-and-features/cricket-plans-and-features/customer/plans.html

Regarding hotspot, yes that is another thing the operators like to limit in order to avoid abuse; but we figure can always download the really heavy stuff directly in the phone and move it over to the computer later, not very convenient but we've tried it for a while and it worked for us.

Cheers,
--
Vall & Mo.

12/15/2017 11:34:46 am

Thank you for telling me that. I'm not very phone savvy and barely know enough to keep from getting ripped off so I'm happy to get any information that might get me more gigs at a cheaper price.

I just glanced at US Mobile and it does look like that could be an option for me, I'll have to dig into the details little more to figure out if it's worth switching from my normal Verizon.

I believe my biggest hotspot use is just watching YouTube videos about my various hobbies, and it never occurred to me to download the videos on to my phone and Bluetooth it over to my laptop. Like I said I'm not very phone savvy and the tiny screens are not much fun for me to look at.

I didn't know they even had MVNO's anymore. Before I went full-time I had always planned on using MiFi and when that went south I didn't pay any more attention to that sort of thing and just changed my AT&T over to Verizon because of their excellent coverage of the country.

So I appreciate you telling me about US Mobile I will have a deeper look into that plan and see if it will fit my current lifestyle.

Tom

12/16/2017 10:43:48 am

Hi Tom,

We appreciate your appreciation ;-) Seriusly, we're glad we could contribute a gram of knowledge to the ton of enjoyment and practical stuff we learn from your blog. every day.

We've used Cricket once during one of our RV vacations and it worked great, same coverage as AT&T as expected. Also regarding them and the other MVNOs, many people use their services at the forums and speak well of them,

You can also transfer most files from the phone to the computer via USB, it should be faster and more reliable than Bluetooth. .

Alas, I believe many phones can be directly connected to a TV via a HDMI adapter, or (specially with youtube) you can get an inexpensive Google Chromecast that plugs into your TV's HDMI port and then "cast"anything from your phone's screen directly to the TV, but please check it out before jumping as we've never done that personally.

Cheers,
--
Vall & Mo.

12/16/2017 11:39:57 am

Well thanks again, I had totally forgotten that my Samsung galaxy S8 has a USB plug adapter. Like I said I don't use my phone very much.

You have given me some useful ideas about how to use my phone for things that I've been using my laptop for. As I mentioned before I do it mainly for the big screen, but if I can get what's on my phone to a big screen then I wouldn't have to use my phone as a hotspot as much and maybe one of those unlimited plans would look more viable to me.

And since you mentioned a gadget for the HDMI port, if that gadget would work on one of my desktop computer screens then I could watch movies on a big screen and probably not use nearly as many amps as it takes to run the TV then I could save hotspot data and amps, that would be a double win for me.

Thanks for the info, looks like I've got a lot of research to do.

Tom

12/16/2017 02:38:59 pm

Hi Tom,

You have a Galaxy S8? Then you are in luck... we have no direct experience with it, but it's supposed to be both very inexpensive and very easy to connect it to HDMI, and if we read you well, you even have the adapter already!
https://www.mobilefun.co.uk/blog/2017/03/how-to-connect-your-galaxy-s8-to-your-tv/

Once you get HDMI out of it, you can connect it to either your TV or PC Monitor or even a projector or anything else with an HDMI input, no problem. Even the sound goes over the HDMI connection, so you will automatically get the audio on the TV (or monitor) speakers/soundbar/whatever, instead of the puny phone speaker, no extra effort needed.

Also, good point on the amps saving: indeed a LED TV (or similar monitor) will need use much less power than your computer, so you'll end up spending less juice from your Battleborns too.

In case you continue to need lots of hotspot data for other reasons. I understand T-Mobile's Unlimited plan can be had with unlimited 4G hotspot use too, you just have to pay $25 extra for it (which brings the plan's total to $95/mo). You also have a cheaper option of unlimited hotspot data for $10/mo more, but only the first 10GB are 4G, the rest is 3G (which is not that bad, not a problem for Youtube video in my experience) until the next billing cycle. And I've read that T-Mobile's coverage, while not as good as Verizon and AT&T, has been strongly enlarged since T-Mobile's started deploying in the low frequency bands (like 700Mhz) they have recently acquired.

Regarding info on cell plans and basically everything regarding internet access for RVers, most of what we know we learned from reading these folks: https://www.rvmobileinternet.com/
They know what they are talking about technically, and they are totally "wired" in the market, so they find out (and report on) a lot of stuff that would otherwise reach us only much later.

Hope that helps! :-)

Cheers,
--
Vall & Mo.

12/16/2017 04:17:07 pm

the adapter that I have came with the phone and adapts the phone plug to a USB 3 so that wouldn't help me with HDMI. I looked at the Samsung adapter on your link and it was forty something dollars so I checked Amazon and they had one without the Samsung name on it but looked exactly the same for $19 so I just ordered that one.

Most cell phone companies expand into areas where they can make some money, which usually doesn't include places where people boondock, my experience has been that if you have phone service while boondocking it's just luck, Especially in mountainous areas like Colorado and sparsely populated areas like the southern deserts so if T-Mobile's coverage has expanded it would surprise me if it was into the boondocks. Your idea of using Verizon and AT&T I believe will give you more coverage than anything else you could get with cell phones.

Thanks for all that information, once I get the holidays out of the way I will concentrate on what to do about my phone situation.... It's tough having a one track mind, not enough ambition to change it, and too lazy to care. "Carpe anno".

Tom

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