Yeah, I know, you watch TV in your RV all the time. I do, too. In fact, I have for over twelve years now. But according to the dweebs at Dish Network, you can’t watch TV in an RV. Who knew?

In Monday’s blog, titled You Win Some, You Lose Some, I wrote that Dish Network had agreed to send somebody out to install a new DVR receiver in our motorhome. Since we already have an automatic Dish high definition receiver on our motorhome, “installing basically means plugging the receiver in and hooking up the input and output coax cables. The installation was supposed to happen yesterday afternoon. It didn’t.

About 8 a.m. the installer called, asked where we were, and I gave him the campground’s address and our site number. “Hey, you can’t put a TV dish on an RV,” the guy told me. “I have to mount a pole to the side of it to hold the dish. That won’t work.” I assured him that he didn’t have to “mount a pole” to the side of my motorhome, all he had to do was hand me the receiver and go on his way. He said he’d have to have his supervisor call me back.

That noteworthy individual called back a few minutes later to tell me that you can’t have a TV in a motorhome. Okay, here we go. We batted that one back and forth for a while, and he said that there was no way they were delivering my receiver to me. End of story.

I called Dish Network back and spent the next three hours on the telephone, mostly on hold, while a series of people who could barely speak English told me that it was illegal to install a TV in a motorhome, put me on hold, never came back, or eventually hung up.

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Finally I got to a Customer Retention Representative in the United States, who assured me that the only way it was legal for me to have a TV in my RV was to park it permanently on a lot and never move it again.

I asked her to stop reading off her cue card, and look at my account and note my RV waiver, and asked her what the RV waiver was for. She said it was to allow me to receive east and west coast networks while traveling in my RV. “Okay, if I can’t have a TV in my RV, why do I have an RV waiver on file so I can receive those distant networks while I’m traveling?” I asked her. She told me that the waiver was to allow me to receive east and west coast networks while traveling in my RV. (Yeah, I heard it before too.)

Finally the light seemed to go on, and she had a solution to my problem! She told me that I was a valued customer, and all I had to do was park my RV and not move it anymore, and I could get my free receiver. But if I did that, I couldn’t keep my distant networks, because then I wouldn’t be traveling anymore.  Okay, next nitwit please.

Then that nitwit’s boss came on the line, who was another nitwit,  and explained that only Standard Definition receivers would work in an RV. Not High Definition, and not DVR receivers.

Aha! So I can watch TV in my RV, just not HD TV?  He said yes you can have an SD receiver, but no, you can’t watch TV in an RV, because every time you move, somebody would have to come out and reinstall it. Huh? Are you getting a headache yet? I was getting chest pains by then!

I told him that I know many, many RVers who have HD DVRs. I even called Bill Adams from Internet Anywhere to be sure I wasn’t missing something. Bill is the recognized expert when it comes to mobile TV and satellite dish systems. He assured me that I could use the HD receiver in my RV, with my automatic Dish HD antenna.

But when I called Dish back, after talking to Bill, they assured me that Bill was wrong, you can’t have a TV in an RV.

If it weren’t for the fact that my Winegard Trav’ler automatic rooftop dish can’t be reprogrammed to DirecTV, I’d switch today. As it is, I’ll just sit here and remember the good old days, when gas was $2 a gallon, and I could watch TV in my RV.

Thought For The Day – Politics has taught us that it is not necessary to understand things in order to argue about them.

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By 7:20 yesterday morning I was pulling out of the Orlando Thousand Trails, taking the Explorer to Camping Connection to have the Blue Ox base plate and SMI auxiliary brake system installed so we can tow it behind our Winnebago motorhome.

I actually got there a few minutes before their staff did, but once Tim, the tech who was doing the work arrived, it only took him a minute or two to check me in, and then he dropped me off back at the Thousand Trails. Tim said he’d call me by noon to have us bring the motorhome in, so they could set up the air line for the SMI brake, and then test to be sure everything was working properly.

Back at the campground, I snoozed for a little while, then Pat McFall from PressurePro called and we talked for a few minutes. Pat told me that they had just left the Escapees Dream Catcher RV Park in Deming, New Mexico, where it was fourteen degrees! Okay, so tell me all about global warming!

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About 11:30 Tim called and said he was ready for us to bring the motorhome in, and when we did, it took a couple of hours to hook up the airline on the motorhome, test everything out, make a couple of fine tuning adjustments, and we’re good to go. Tim did an excellent job, all of the work was tidy, and it’s obviously a very professional installation.

We had an older SMI Duo auxiliary brake on the Ford van, which gave us excellent service, but we decided to upgrade to their Air Force One, which provides proportional braking, is very user friendly, and installs under the hood, out of the way. An air line runs from the Winnebago’s air brake system to a hookup on the back of the coach, and I plug in an air cable to that and to a hookup on the Explorer, and every time I step on the motorhome’s brakes, it also activates the brakes on the Explorer, with the same amount of pressure. If anybody is looking for a used auxiliary brake, send me an e-mail. I’m selling our older unit cheap.

When we’re ready to go, all we have to do is hook up our Blue Ox tow bar and safety cables, clip on the breakaway cord that stops the dinghy if it were to come loose for any reason, put the Explorer’s transfer case in neutral, and off we go. Quick and easy.

We know a lot of RVers who don’t use an auxiliary braking system, and I was just as foolish for many years. I learned my lesson when some fool ran a red light in front of me a couple of years ago, and I had to make a panic stop. The front wheels of our Toyota pickup ended up sitting on top of the motorcycle rack on the back of our bus conversion. Fortunately, we didn’t have a bike on the rack at the time, so the only things destroyed were the rack and our tow bar. But it could have been a lot worse.

Before we left, we also told the nice folks at Camping Connection to schedule us for our Norcold refrigerator recall. Yes, we did have the Norcold recall done at RV Renovators in Mesa, Arizona back in May. They did an excellent job and there was nothing wrong with their work. This recall is because Norcold’s fix in the first recall apparently isn’t working. There have been a number of RV fires that have originated in the refrigerator compartment, and some people have watched their RVs burn to the ground. If you have a Norcold refrigerator in your RV, check the Norcold Recall Website to see if yours is included in the recall of the recall.

Be prepared to wait at least a month before you can get the work done. Just as with the last recall, the shops I have talked to all said Norcold is very slow in sending out the units needed to get the problem fixed. Maybe if it were their homes that were in danger of burning up, they might move a little faster!

Thought For The Day – I carry a gun because a cop is too heavy.

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I closed yesterday’s blog by telling you we had tire troubles. Here’s the story:

From the time we left Gilroy Tuesday morning, until the time we arrived at the the Emigrant Trail Museum in Truckee that afternoon, one of our inside dual tires had lost over 35 pounds of air. This is the same problem we have been having with the inside duals ever since Camping World installed them the end of February. Supposed they fixed it when we went back a few weeks ago, but evidently not.

At that time it was determined that the problem was the valve extensions, and it might still be. Especially since one look at the scratches and tool marks on it told us that the valve extension was not new, and was probably the one that gave us problems before.

Our motorhome has an onboard air compressor, and I have an air hose, but as it turns out, there is a problem in our auxiliary air system somewhere and we couldn’t get it to work. We found a gas station where we could fill the tire, and I left the valve extender and PressurePro sensor off, and checked the tire again before we set off yesterday and it was still holding pressure. So once we get into Salt Lake City, I’ll find a new extender to put on the tire.

Yesterday morning we left Boomtown Casino and followed Interstate 80 east across Nevada, Traffic was busy in Reno, but the rest of the day we didn’t have much to deal with. The first part of our route was pretty curvy as we followed the Truckee River, and then we came into a big valley with salt flats as far as the eye could see. We zipped past this barren landscape in no time at all, but it took the pioneers of the Donner Party six days to cross the salt flats.

Miss Terry was taking pictures out the window as we motored along, and she managed to capture this smiley face somebody made to welcome travelers.

Some of the mountains off in the distance still had snow on top of them, but down on the highway it was over 90 degrees!

Part of our route had some steep climbs and downhill grades, but nothing compared to crossing the Sierras the day before. Both days, the Winnebago had no problems, the big Cummins diesel engine never started to get too warm, and carried us over the top as fast as I wanted to go. After years of being passed by eighteen wheelers in our old bus on even small grades, it’s sure nice to pull over into the left lane and pass them by as they labor up the hills!

We stopped at the Flying J in Winnemucca for fuel, but their RV pumps were out of order, and there was a long line of trucks at the truck islands.  We continued on another 50 miles to Battle Mountain. I don’t think the Flying J there was a company store, but rather an affiliate, but it was easy to get in and out.

We saw some nice rock formations alongside the highway!

We arrived at Crossroads RV Park in Wells, Nevada about 4:30 p.m., with  346 miles under our belt for the day. Crossroads is a small Passport America park, nothing much but a gravel lot with 30 amp full hookup RV sites. But at just $10 a night, it’s a good bargain. We have four bars of high speed EVDO internet service, which is always nice.

One of our subscribers recommended Crossroads to us, and said the managers, Dennis and Irma Sayers, were wonderful people. When I checked the place out on RV Park Reviews, their friendliness was mentioned in the first three reviews I read. So I was looking forward to meeting this nice couple.

Sure enough, they were just as nice and helpful as could be; Irma checked us in and chatted for a while, then Dennis got us parked and made sure we were hooked up okay. I asked about restaurants, and Irma got right on the phone to call the shuttle van from a local casino to come and pick us up and take us to the restaurant. You don’t get that kind of service very often!

When we got back from dinner, Dennis and Irma stopped by to check on us, and Terry gave them a tour of our motorhome. I think Dennis was thinking about going RV shopping by the time they left!

We have about 180 miles to go today to reach Pony Express RV Resort in Salt Lake City, and then we’ll have a few days to relax, do some genealogy research, and we have a couple of technical issues on the motorhome that we need to look into. Nothing major, but apparently the gremlins have been at work.

Thought For The Day – A true friend is someone who sees the pain in your eyes while everyone else believes the fake smile.

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We spent most of the last couple of days wrapping up the paperwork from our recent Eastern Gypsy Gathering rally, and logging in all of the subscriptions we sold there.

At each of our rallies, we ask attendees to complete a feedback form, telling us not only what we did right, but what we could improve as well. Looking over the rally feedback forms, it seems like overall folks had a good time and went away happy.

One frequent comment is that they like the small laid back feeling of the rally. This is something we strive for at all of our events, because that’s the kind of rally we enjoy ourselves. We’ve been to too many of the huge mega-rallies where there are thousands of RVs, and nobody knows anybody. A lot of folks tell us our rallies are more like a family reunion.

It also seems like people really appreciate the variety of educational seminars we offer. Mac McCoy told the audience at the rally that our events are the “new Life on Wheels,” and Joe Kieva agreed, which was a great compliment to Terry and me. As core Life on Wheels (LOW) instructors, these were the guys we looked up to when we went to LOW as new RVers ourselves. Getting to know them personally years later when we became instructors ourselves only increased our admiration for them, so their comments on our rallies are high praise.

Writing about the rally in their RV Notebook blog, Joe and Vicki Kieva said in part “The Eastern Gypsy Gathering Rally is over. And it was a good one. Great location, informative seminars, relaxed, friendly atmosphere. Nick and Terry Russell know what it takes to put together a successful rally. They have experienced rallies as attendees, vendors and seminar presenters. So now, as rally producers, they understand the expectations, needs and interests of rally participants.”

Our vendors also liked our idea of having them inside, in the same building where we held registration and served morning coffee and donuts. It really helped their sales!

Of course, we can’t please everybody. One lady wrote that she did not appreciate me telling her on two different occasions that she could not bring her dog into the seminar buildings. We announced several times that only service dogs were allowed in the buildings, but some people just don’t get it.

Another complaint was that there were not enough full hookup RV sites at the fairgrounds, and that two remained unused through the rally. We reserved the few full hookup sites for handicapped attendees and those with special needs. Some folks did not show up, even though they had registered and paid, but we did not want to give their sites away and then have them arrive and not have a place to park them. There were also a few of us on full hookup sites who arrived a week before the rally began to make preparations, and who stayed after the rally ended to handle post-rally details.

And we had a couple of comments that there was not enough free time to socialize. While we usually have a lot of impromptu get togethers around the RVs during our rallies, the weather did not cooperate very well for that this year. But while we offer a lot of activities for those who want them, nobody has to attend each and every one. That’s why we had a hospitality area in the vendor building, with tables and chairs where people could just sit and visit, play cards, and get to know one another.

We keep learning with every rally, and try to implement those lessons to make future events even better.     

With this year’s Eastern rally behind us, it’s time to start focusing on our Western Gypsy Gathering, which will be March 8-12 in Yuma, Arizona. We have made a change to our vendor policy at future rallies, starting with the Yuma event. In the past, we have only allowed one vendor per type of product, but we have had so many requests for more vendors that, after talking to the vendors at Ohio, we have decided to start allowing vendors in who sell competing products by a different manufacturer. So while we may have a vendor selling PressurePro tire monitoring systems, for example, we may also have a vendor selling Doran systems.

One final word on our rallies before I close this blog. We have set the location and dates for our next Eastern rally. It will be August 30 to September 3, 2010 at Elkhart Campground in Elkhart, Indiana. This will be two weeks before the Escapees rally in Goshen, which will allow vendors and attendees to come to our rally, then have a week off before they go in to Escapade.

And for those who have complained about not having full hookups at our rallies, we will have both 50 and 30 amp full hookups available by pre-registration, as well as sites with just water and electric. This is a departure from our previous rallies, and we’re looking forward to seeing how folks like it.

Thought For The Day – Drive carefully! Remember, it’s not only a car that can be recalled by its maker.