Sunday, October 16, 2016

Some more "shake down" tasks at Cherry Creek State Park

Sunday afternoon, I headed out with Patrick, #1 son, and Umarang, the motorhome to do some further shakedown operations.

Umarang:  Short name Uma, sounds like boomerang, in that she'll try and return with the Ural.  Patrick came up with the name by the way.

Ready to try towing Scarlett on the Aluma 638 Trailer.

It was a bit unnerving, not really being able to see Scarlett in the trailer behind me.  I could only see part of the trailer and the rig when making turns.  I see a backup camera in Uma's future.

We got to Cherry Creek State Park which is within six miles of home.  We were just going to stay two nights, test the Wifi booster and see if the weBoost cellphone booster made any difference within the park.

No issues with towing the trailer with a URAL rig on it, though I did engage the towing/haul function on the transmission to delay gear shifting while accelerating to seemingly accelerate a bit faster at the cost of MPG of course.

Once parked and leveled, we raised the Winegard TV antenna, turned on the small 19" Flat Screen TV we bought yesterday and tuned in about 22 off the air digital channels.  Not bad.

The Ubiquiti Nanostation M2, which is secured on the mast of the TV antenna found the nearby WiFi access point provided by the park.  Here's the results of the testing related to wifi:

All figures in Mbps or Megabits per second:

CCSP: Cherry Creek WiFi, no booster, using only the signal obtained by my Surface Pro 3 computer.

Download   Upload
1.56       .12
2.37       .11
2.65       .08

Using the Wifi access point provided by the Ubiquiti Antenna and Air Gateway:

Download   Upload
4.81      1.93
4.03      1.85
3.97      1.91
4.52      1.83

As you can see, using the Ubiquiti wifi booster equaled higher speeds via the nearby wifi access point.

Full details about the Ubiquiti equipment and how to set it up are in this great posting by Outsideourbubble.com:  LINK   My thanks to RichardM for sending me the link.

I then tested the weBoost device but failed to get better reception than the 3 bars I was already getting on the cellphone.  I guess we were close to the local cell tower as I was getting 4G LTE signal already and the booster did nothing to make it stronger.  I tried moving the external antenna to several locations but no joy.  There's not much in terms of metal surface for the magnetic antenna to attach to on the roof, I was left for now with using the metal in the motorhome cab, probably not optimal.

I did test with the cellphone in the weBoost cradle anyways:

4g- weboost (3 bars)

download upload
  9.56 6.49
 15.21 7.55
 16.91 6.31

4G no weBoost (Monday morning)

Download    Upload
23.7                 5.65
25.2                 5.67
24.0                 6.63

As you can see, 4G LTE is much faster but of course, costlier.  I was surprised how much faster 4G is without the weBoost.  But then, different time of day too.  Hmmm.

The wifi here will do fine for me to work on Monday.

My loving wife Martha came to visit us briefly and bring us dinner so I didn't cook.

I rode Scarlett, my 2014 Ural Patrol about the park looking for a good spot for sunset pictures, and found a good candidate at Pelican Point.  The sunset was disappointing though but I did get this one shot at a different spot:


After dinner, and since it was a Full Moon night, I tried for moon pictures.  Didn't bother trying to find a good location for the rig to try and silhouette it, not this time anyways.


The forecasted low temperature for tonight is only 51°F (10.5°C) so I doubt we'll need the furnace tonight.

The LED lights which replaced the Type 921 incandescent light bulbs are doing fine in terms of proving illumination.

The only issue was the fan in the bathroom quit working sometime in the afternoon.  I had left it running in order to draw in cool air from the air-conditioning in the main compartment.  Probably blew a fuse, I hope.  I'll take a look at it tomorrow when I've some time.

Patrick likened our being in the motorhome as being in a mobile man cave.  Amusing.


 Tom Turkey, hanging out by our RV site on Tuesday morning
as I prepped the RV for departure

Our site at Cherry Creek State Park

12 comments:

RichardM said...

Interesting name. When looking for a backup camera, there are some that aren't designed to be on all the time. WWID? Just stick an old phone in the window…

redlegsrides said...

I thought about the iphone thing RichardM, but the apps I've found require internet access....do you know of one that can just slave to my local access point and I can point to it via a static IP?

RichardM said...

I've heard of folks using Nanostream video encoder and player but I haven't tried it. My so used to use something on Android as a remote monitor using his Nexus tablet.

redlegsrides said...

Just tried Nanostream video encoder, its same as other apps, it streams the iphone's video to a server somewhere...you get the video from the server. Need something that can stay in same wifi access point.

RichardM said...

I guess that would fit with the Apple security model. Apps can't create network services. Apps can push video to a server. One of the benefits of Android. Do you have any old Android phones?

RichardM said...

IP webcam for android says no Internet required.

redlegsrides said...

thanks RichardM, no Android phones right now....

Trobairitz said...

Mobile man-cave. That is a good analogy.

It sounds like you are getting things sorted in the shake-down rides. Soon you'll be able to venture further. And how kind of Martha to visit and bring food. You're spoiled, but that is a good thing.

redlegsrides said...

Trobairitz, we're getting the RV to where I want it, slowly but surely. A longer camping trip coming soon with Martha.

redlegsrides said...

added three more pics

CCjon said...

Honest Officer, the Tom Turkey was walking by, just came in and jumped into the oven to stay warm. Want a drumstick?

Good luck extending your range with the RV.

redlegsrides said...

Tom Turkey was quite brazen CCjon, he just stood there, within five feet of me at times, as if waiting for breakfast.