Christmas in Tucson

Alder Picnic Area, Mt Lemmon

The Wisconsin is weather making it too cold to work in the storage shed, Tucson seems to be the best place to finish it without freezing my fingers off. All packed up Tuesday morning, I had breakfast with my friend David J, then hit the road at 09:30, avoiding interstate highways as much as possible. 

Wednesday, I had lunch and took a short nap at White Sands National Park in New Mexico, drove south to the Mexico border and Hwy 9 west to the Arizona state line. At 21:00 I arrived in Tucson and boon docked on BLM land. Thursday, I spent the day at one of my favorites, Gilbert Ray campground, then Friday morning, moved to the RV Park site where I'll likely be for the next three months.

This morning, Christmas Eve day, was a bit slow and emotional. As I watched the "clouds" go by, I set up the FT-710 and FTM-7250D radios in the camper and made my first QSO with N0A, the Christmas Train special event station operating out of Fort Worth, TX on 14.258 MHz. Nice, because I love trains, Christmas, and amateur radio!

Late this afternoon, I spoke with my oldest son on the phone. He and son number 3 are together making fireball meatballs and our family's traditional Christmas sticky roles. Since I am not there with them, I was given an assignment: build a snowman tomorrow, Christmas day, and post it on my photo album. I accept the challenge. I'll head over east of Tucson to Mt. Lemmon in the Santa Catalina Mountains. I'm sure they will have some snow. I will build an awesome snowman for the kids up there! And so I did!

Not snow, it's white sand. A perfect 68 degree weather at White Sands National Monument, New Mexico

Site C6 at one of my favorite campgrounds, Gilbert Ray, in Tucson Mountain Park

Trail setup of the HF and dual band radios in the newly renovated Intech Flyer Chase camper

Marshall Gulch, Mt Lemmon

Redington Pass overlooking Tucson

Camper Remodel

Almost finished with the remodel, soon it will be time to stuff the mattress in and head to the southwest!

2022 was filled with many new adventures while camping, hiking, biking, kayaking, making new friends and visiting old friends. Travelling with the truck and camper all around Wisconsin, western Michigan, eastern Minnesota, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah provided plenty of time and experience to discover some flaws with the camper setup and find remedies to some of those issues. In late summer, in between trips, the planning and remodel began. Once complete, a final shake-down will be done before hitting the roads and trails again!

The Cabin

The first remodel of the front cabinets has been removed. The twin mattress was moved forward and placed up on a 1.5 inch raised deck to force tempered air under the bed and prevent issues during cold weather camping. A full rear divider wall was installed to establish a rear-access kitchen and separated location for the new Propex furnace and battery/charging unit. A small shelf table is positioned under the passenger side window between the rear wall and the side door.

Propex thermostat, 120v outlet with USB charger, Renogy battery monitor and remote 2000 watt inverter switch are on the back wall. 

A new electrical system was installed consisting of a 200Ah LiFePO4 lithium battery, 40 amp LiFePO4 smart-charger, a 12 fuse 12 volt panel, 2000 watt inverter, 30 amp 120 volt breaker panel, and 300 watt roof-mounted solar panels with expansion for 300 watts of remote panels. The battery and charger are now in the rear of the trailer because the tongue box where they were located conflicts with the truck's bumper mounted spare tire during truck/trailer articulation. New interior lights, exterior LED rock lights, and a 4" axle lift for the camper are under way.

For amateur radio items, I'm unsure exactly how and where the Yeasu FT-710 and connected computer will be mounted, but the monitor, keyboard and mouse will most likely be at the side table. The FT-710 can be remote-operated using the CQRlog software, however, the Yaesu FTM-7250 dual band will need to be within reach for use.

A cold air return routes air under the bed panel to prevent cold weather camping issues under the mattress.
On the wall are three switches for interior and exterior lighting, and a 120v outlet.

With the large tongue box removed, there may be room to mount two Scepter water cans flat against the front, and my fat bike above them!

The Kitchen

Though not yet completed in this photo, this is the general layout of the kitchen.
The battery, inverter, and solar charge controller are mounted to the left of the refrigerator.

The trailer's rear double doors now open to a dedicated kitchen area that includes a cook stove and a split refrigerator/freezer, both on locking slides so they are very accessible. The Propex heater is mounted on the floor to the right of the refrigerator. Above the heater is a removable shelf for added kitchen storage. To the left of the refrigerator is a 200Ah battery, 40A charging unit, a 2000 watt inverter, the solar charge controller, the main battery shut-off and fuse block. Above the refrigerator is a full width shelf that holds the cook stove and storage areas on both sides.

Yeah, I think this will work just fine for what I want to do!

Update

With most of the work done, the camper is now my home for the next several months. It's small, but it's very comfortable, but it suits my needs for a go-anywhere camper and radio shack. I'll mostly be in an RV park, but am planning several trips to do some POTA and SOTA stations, and do some remote boondocks camping.

Desert Experience

Desert Trails RV Park site 15, Tuscon Estates, Arizona

I haven't been able to do anything with ham radio since Nancy's illness. It's been about nine months since she passed away, so I am slowly moving forward with my life without her. I took off from the Wisconsin winter snow shoveling by staying at an RV park in the Tucson area for two months. I have a few more days here before I start heading home.

Before I left home, I thought I would bring the FT-991A and accessories along, and I'm sure glad I did. I mounted the radio by it's mobile mounting bracket to the cabinet shelf I made. I placed a fused line directly from the battery to the RigRunner so I can have extra connections for the Garmin GPS and a few other things, and my Heil mic is on a short boom. So far it has worked out great! An upcoming test will be when I get back on the road with the trailer. I'm planning on leaving everything in place except for the antennas.

The Yaesu FT-991A and FT3D in the camper

For ease of operating, I purchased a Yaesu ATAS-120A screwdriver antenna for HF, and a separate 2m/440 antenna, both mounted to the rails on top of the all aluminum camper. I made some heavy braided ground bonds from the mounts to the aluminum skin roof. So far, so good, but I will likely make two custom mounts from aluminum and bolt them directly to the roof. The SWR suffers a little with the current setup, so I believe a closer bond to the counterpoise will likely fix that.

With this setup I quickly made eight contacts, four of which are trans-equatorial on 10 meters. Pretty fun thing to do sitting in a tiny camper! I can hardly wait to do this in the middle of, well, anywhere!

Next on the list is getting my Raspberry Pi computer in the camper so I can use my logbook and other ham software while away from home.

East of Gates Pass, Tucson