Ham Radio V/s Travel Trailer
Last month, (March, 2019), we bought a 2015 Forrest River Salem Cruise Lite Travel Trailer, Model T231RKXL to replace our old 1996 5th Wheel. (We still have the old one, slowly transferring all of our “gear” into the new one that will fit). The old one is just over 30′ long, all of which is livable space, and the new one is 27′ 4″ long, but only 23′ inside is livable space – as you might imagine, we are not going to get everything in there.
Just the same, Amateur Radio is a great part of our lives these days, and it will be a part of our RV recreation too.
Found my way explaining the easy way to put up a Ham Station in an RV to a fellow Ham this morning, sent him a follow up eMail with pictures of what I was doing for test purposes yesterday – and decided it was time to update the blog with that story. What follows is essentially copied directly from that eMail – enjoy!
First – get your coaxial cable inside!
Easter Sunday, 21 April, 2019 – still preparing for our “Shakedown Cruise” on the travel trailer. Until you have actually done it – you don’t know it will work on this trailer – so I needed to test running a coaxial cable with UHF connector on it using the rubber weather seal on the slide-out. First, had to slide it back in about 6-8 inches, then pass the coax through – it went very easy. Next thing is to pull in the amount of coax necessary to reach the location we will put the radio, (kind of dressing up the seal again) – then opening the slide fully again to seal rain out.
One thing you really must remember is to form a drip loop so any water/rainfall/dew will drip down – away from the trailer.
On the inside, simply covering the cable with a runner will be fine, (I will be moving that dark one as it will be for Missy to lay on). I will use a flat, rubber cable runner to go under the table and keep us from getting tangled up in the coax. All very easy to break back down and prepare to move the trailer again. Update 5/6/2019: The rubber cable runner arrived, cut to fit, and worked perfectly.
This was our very first MFJ expansion pole we used for a portable mast. The top few sections of it is broken, but what is left is perfect for our purposes. That particular antenna is a Comet Tri-band 6 m, 2 m & 70 cm. – for our shakedown cruise I will only be using VHF inside the trailer for several of the weekly nets we check in on. (I can setup/tear down that antenna with nothing more than an 8mm wrench).
All I really had to buy “extra” for the trailer is that hitch adapter to mount on the rear bumper. The rest of it, except for that Comet antenna, is all from my toolbox. I will be taking it down to move the trailer, (obviously), but this gives you an idea of our setup for rapidly throwing up a ham antenna. When I next re-assemble it, that 4 foot length of PVC pipe is the perfect diameter to fit between the short one inside the mount and the pole/mast, (I didn’t bother with it for this test). When it it all set up, and at the reduced length of the mast, no guying is going to be necessary unless I get in some real weather – at which time I will reconsider the necessity of setting it up to begin with! (Note: These days we also have a Heavy Duty fiberglass expansion mast with clamps – just like WA6FFT’s, for use with the truck. It has a big enough diameter that extra PVC stuff isn’t necessary).
Just one final note – we will be careful to assure the coax and everything is setting up on top of the spare tire, and there will be a ring of Ajax soap lay down around the mast to keep the critters/ants for using them to gain access to the trailer. (Ajax around tires, stabilizers, etc., is part of our standard operating procedure for setting up camp).
Hope this gives you some useful ideas on enjoying heck out of the hobby while out and about in your RV with the family, especially those grandkids! Have a great time with them walking around Lindo Lake today, Heidi and I kept their little legs going 20 years ago and now the eldest is bringing us great-grandkids. 👍😎
Update 5/6/2019: We had a lot of fun with that antenna and an old Yaesu FT-2900R (VHF only) radio on our “Shakedown Cruise” to Santee Lakes, CA. I am now considering a highly compromised, but *very* capable “do everything” antenna to replace it with – something like the MFJ-2389 “3.5 – 450 MHz Multiband Base Ground Plane Vertical Antenna – 8.5 Feet Tall – 200 Watts – SO-239”. We shall see.
73, dave/W6TUX & Heidi/W6HPY