Our RV Adventures

Today, with a high of 85, tonight’s forecasted low of 67, and Blue Moon BBQ for lunch, just couldn’t get much better. At least for a gate day, anyway. And the fact that the vehicle count was only 33, just made it even better.

The original forecast called for ‘Scattered Thunderstorms’, and lucky for us, that’s what they did. Just scattered all around us, but never over us, so that was nice too.

Back on the subject of mail delivery, our carrier showed up about 12:30 today with our Jet.com package, so I guess that’s all worked out now. At least I hope it is.

I spent some more time this afternoon looking at my Wilson Cell Phone Booster problem. First thing, because it was the quickest and easiest, was to check the cables running from the outside directional antenna to the amplifier box, and the cables running from the amplifier to the ‘inside’ (even though it’s outside too) antenna,

After cleaning the connections and checking them for continuity and no shorts, I then tried the next thing that Patrick, the Wilson Tech Support guy, suggested – bringing the two antennas closer together to see if the amplifier is actually amplifying. If it is, then the lights on the amplifier should turn from green to red. This shows that the amplifier is going into shutdown mode due to the feedback between the two antennas.

This is the same as when you get a microphone too close to the speakers and get that high, piercing shriek, only with radio waves instead of sound waves.

And I was showing an overload condition on the amp, so that meant it was actually ‘amplifying’.

So why isn’t it working. . . at least somewhat?

One thing that was kind of funny is that while I was using the Open Signal app on my phone to find the direction of the nearest tower, I was also watching the signal strength of the signal, shown as   -110 dbm, which is pretty weak. But then suddenly it  jumped up to about  -95 dbm, which is a decent signal.

What the heck?

But then I noticed that my phone had dropped back to 3G instead of 4G. Then after a couple of minutes it popped back into 4G mode. And my signal strength dropped back down to  -110 dbm again.

What the heck?

So I guess Monday morning I’ll be back on the phone with Wilson again.

As I mentioned yesterday, today was a  ‘Blue Moon BBQ for lunch’ day. So about 11:30 I headed over there to pick it up.

Jan did a changeup today and went with the Blue Moon Nachos, which several workers had recommended.

And she was really happy  too. Blue Moon’s version is a little different, with muliple layers of chips, chopped beef, beans, and cheese, stacked about 2 inches deep in the container, and coming with sour cream and a Chipotle Jalapeno Dip.

She got the large version, to have leftovers for another meal, as well as an obligatory  ‘Only Available on Saturday’ HotShot, a fresh jalapeno stuffed with 3 cheeses and chopped beef, then wrapped in bacon and tossed on the pit.

She said it was all delicious, and she’s found her new favorite dish.

I got the 3 meat plate, choosing Sliced Brisket, PepperJack Sausage, and Ribs, along with Potato Salad, Beans, and of course, a HotShot.

And, even better, we both had plenty leftover for dinner tomorrow.

Wrapping up for today, Jan got some really good shots of the rig at sundown today.

This is a first for me, since I’ve never seen the rig at sundown.

I’m already asleep by then.

Nature abhors a vacuum, but not as much as a cat does.

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After a very busy (for this gate, anyway) day yesterday, with 68 vehicles coming in, today was a very nice slowdown with only 38 through the gate. Don’t know why since Friday’s are normally pretty busy with salesman trying to get in their calls for the week, etc.

Last night I set up my Wilson DB Pro Cellphone Amplifier system, having given up on using the pad’s Wi-Fi connection. Or at least one of them.

There are 7 Wi-Fi signals here on site, but I’ve only been able to find the owner of one of them, the one from the oil company in the Company Man’s office. And if I could stay connected, it would be fine, a real improvement. With 2.5 Mbps download and 1.0 up, it would be very usable for us. But the signal strength is borderline and I frequently lose the connection.

But there is another one, a much stronger one. COMLINK_DIST is a solid 5 bars here at the rig, but I haven’t been able to find out who owns it to see if I can get a password. I’ve ask a number of the workers coming in, but no luck so far.

Anyway, I bought this Wilson amplifier system in 2012, our first year gate guarding . . . and on our first gate.

It was the best one they made at the time, and if I remember correctly, it was about $400. But it was worth it.

My Wilson model has now been replaced by this one, and it’s a little cheaper too.

Wilson WeBoost Home 4G Cell Phone Signal Booster

We were parked out in the middle of a big ranch near Fowlerton (pop. 62!) in south Texas with absolutely no Verizon signal whatsoever. Zero, Zip, Nada. I was told that you could kind of get a AT&T signal if you were lucky, but that didn’t help us.

So my first trip in to Pleasanton (50 miles away) for groceries, I checked Amazon, found the Wilson amplifier and ordered it overnight, having it delivered to the Gate Guard Services office near Whitsett. Picking it up the next day, I detoured back through Pleasanton, to the Radio Shack and got 4 – 5 foot antenna pole sections. Getting back to the rig, I had it set up and working in about a hour, and for the first time in 10 days we had cell phone and internet service. And of course we immediately checked in with the kids to let them know we were still alive. An hour later we got our first incoming call.

It was from Gate Guard Services telling us to pack up and get ready to move, because they were sending us to a new gate to follow a Marathon/H&P drill rig, which we did for the next 3-1/2 months.

At our first gate with Marathon, we didn’t need the Wilson amp system since we were only about 5 miles off I-37, actually right down the road from the GGS Whitsett office.

But our second gate was another story. We were in the middle of a game ranch about 20 miles south of Charlotte, again with no service at all. Not even AT&T this time. And once again the Wilson system did the trick.

I was able to pull in a Verizon tower an amazing 19.5 miles away with 3/4 bars of signal. I had the ‘indoor’ antenna outside under our canopy and rig workers would come by to make phone calls through it.

The strange thing was that although I had cell and data service, my data was only 1x, not the 3G/4G I would have expected. This didn’t make sense because the type of service is not really dependent on signal strength.You may be so far from a tower you have a crappy signal, but it will still be 3G or 4G. It won’t drop back to 1x

But a week later I was driving by that tower on I-37 and noticed my phone drop back to 1x as I passed it. But I guess as they say, “They’re Working On It”, because suddenly about a week later, I now had 3G service at our rig.

But as it turned out, that was actually the last time we’ve needed the Wilson amp in 5 years. It’s been packed away since then, only brought out to display at a couple of my Escapade rally seminars, “Gate Guarding for Fun? and Profit.

So I was expecting big things last night as I set up my system. I used 15 feet of antenna pole and mounted it off to the rear of our sewer trailer like this.

Hooking up, and powering up the Wilson amp, I was happy to see the 2 flashing green lights on the amplifier just as I was expecting. But I was not seeing any better signal on my phone. But of course I hadn’t really aimed the antenna yet.

So the first thing I did was to use the Open Signal app on my phone to find the nearest tower and aim the antenna in that direction.

And again, no luck.

Next I rotated the antenna through the 8 compass points, checking the signal level after each adjustment.

And again, no luck.

Bummer!

One thing I noticed is that adjusting the gains on the amp makes no difference in the lights. They just stay green.

After rechecking my connections this morning, with no luck, I put in a call to Wilson Tech Support and talked to Patrick, who gave me some good ideas about things to check out. So that’s up next.

I’ll let you know.

On a good note I think I may have our package delivery problem solved. And all it took was talking to the boss.

Checking my phone this morning, I noticed that my Jet.com order was Out for Delivery by the USPS this morning, and figuring it would come back as Undeliverable like my Amazon order the other day, I put in a call to the Post Office to ask them to hold it as before and I would be by to pick it up.

The guy who answered turned out to be the Postmaster, so I told him my problem, and ask about putting up a mailbox at our site, explaining that there was no way to put one on the side of the roadway, and could I put on the fence?

He said that by the rules there is supposed to be a ‘permanent structure’ at the location to receive mail at a mailbox. Apparently a 120 ton oil rig doesn’t not constitute a ‘permanent structure. Nor does the fact that there are people living in trailers here.

Although I didn’t ask him, my question is then why is a house trailer on a lot considered a ‘permanent structure’?

I had told him physically where we were located, and he then said he would call our carrier and see if they could work something out. And about 20 minutes later, while I was now on the phone with Wilson, our carrier showed up here at the rig.

Turned out to be a very nice young lady who said she actually hadn’t brought our package today, since they told her I was going to pick it up at the post office.

Since she now knew where we were, she said she would delivery it tomorrow. And that she would be looking out for any more of our packages and get them to us. Sometimes the Goverment works after all.

So hopefully that fixes that problem. At least until we move again.

Tomorrow is Blue Moon BBQ. YUMMM!

Thought for the Day:

The closest a person ever comes to perfection is when he fills out a job application form.

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