Washington state

 Berry picking in our camp grounds and using them in everything.  Did get reminded of the thorns 😎

 Playing with my 10 & 11 meter radios.  Ten was dead but made some contacts on eleven👍

 Here is my two meter set up.  I was excited for my first contact of the day till we discovered we were
Just six camp sites apart, still a contact is a contact🤓

 The Columbia River at Astoria, what a great area to visit for a few months (Oregon & Washington).  Below a photo while surf fishing and more😊

In Atlanta to visit friends with our tow

Having a great visit in Atlanta on our way to Florida for the winter😎. I will start posting on a more regular bases now🧐

Out our door 10 June

First night in Washington State - Spokane KOA

Playing with my 10 meter HAM radio

Been on the road a month and are enjoying it.

 In Palm Springs area enjoying the 80’s, we see the snow birds are moving north.

 Above you see my simple radio set up.  Below we cooked a Cornish game hen by solar😎

Our site in Grand Junction

Wet and cool but it was a nice visit as we head S/W for a few months, and warmer weather😎  I would give this KOA a 5 out of 5 and we will be back to it.

Below we arrive in Palm desert, have a drink and start exploring the area to include 29 palms.  We enjoyed our visit to the nearby national park and date farms.  We stayed a month in the area and loved it.

First time using our extendastay propane

We are visiting our son in Colorado as we start our full timing, with temps in the 20's at night we will run out of propane before we leave here.  So i hooked up our extendastay for the first time.  I have a standard gas grill bottle and figure it will last two days/nights.  I can either fill it at the camp ground or do an exchange at a gas station or grocer.

Here is our set up.

 

At 45 day and 32 at night and lots of rain we added a 25 foot heated water hose below and the extend a stay bottle 20 pound BBQ bottle hooked up above.  The bottle has lasted two nights so far and looks like it might go three but we will not push it to that.

Photo after two nights.

New Antenna's I Made

In the last post I said we will be hitting the road soon, so I wanted to make two quick up antenna's. Dipole antenna's are quick to set up when I am outside.  They are made out of some wire and a length of coax ran to the radio.  Here I am just showing the antenna's.

Only one or two more posts on me and my radio stuff then on to our RV travels and more.  Kathy flew off to see her Mon with our Daughter so I am dog sitting and prepping the RV as well.

Below are some photos of the antenna's.  Below you see a simple 2 meter antenna I put together and hung of a extendable painters pole that is not fully extended.  You can see a black peace of Velcro around the pole holding up one end the black wire hanging down is the coax to the radio and the brown wire hanging down is the second half of the 2 meter antenna.

The following is the 10 meter dipole antenna set up in an inverted V.  About halfway down each line the wire ends and is tied off to some para cord to keep it in the proper configuration. When I extend the painters pole and mount it on the RV ladder the top of the antenna would be over 20 feet up and the ends would be about 8 feet off the ground. 

I carry my 2 meter and 10 meter HAM radios in ammo cans so I can set up what I want when we are stay in an area for a while.  Also this gives me more antenna options for both radios. I can take out one ammo can with a radio and a antenna in it and one with a small 12 volt battery and operate anywhere, without shore power if I want.  I also have a 50 watt solar panel I can use to recharge the battery if needed.