My New Verizon 8800L Jetpack…

Mary is no longer available for RV traveling, but we remain good friends.
Because we have 5,000+ postings, I’ve invited her to continue posting entries on this blog.

To view past blogs, scroll to the bottom of this page and use the menu.

I’m currently in my 24th year of full-time RVing and my lifestyle is changing, For more info click Here

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The motorhome is parked at Shady Acres RV Park in Yuma, Arizona. I’ll depart here March 4th.

 

 

 

 

My new Verizon 8800L Jet pack arrived on Thursday.

 

My old Verizon 791L Jetpack was 3.5 years old and since my arrival in Yuma, AZ on December 20, 2018 had been struggling with Internet signals. Talking with Verizon support personnel informed me that my primary problem was congested cell towers. Normally fine for the about 80,000 population, the problem becomes the additional 80,000 winter snowbirds, including myself.  🙂 The towers become overworked and Internet signal problems result, eg: slow loading and buffering on videos.

 

The new Verizon 8800L Jetpack promises faster speeds and stronger signals because it has many more channels than the 791L.

 

 

 

 

As always you may left click upon an image to see an enlarged view and then click once again to see an even larger view…

 

 

 

 

My old 791L was Velcroed to the internal antenna of my WeBoost amplifying system which includes a rooftop antenna…

 

 

 

 

Here’s the box the new device came in…

 

 

 

 

And here’s the new device Velcroed in the same location…

 

In the about 36 hours I’ve had the device, I must say I am most pleased with its operation so far. It was extremely easy to set up and the Internet signal seems noticeably faster and stronger…so far…so good. Let’s hope it continues in this manner.

 

An added plus, Verizon is giving me a $33 trade-in on my 791L.  🙂

 

If you are curious about this new device, here’s the Verizon link…

https://www.verizonwireless.com/internet-devices/verizon-jetpack-mifi-8800l/?sku=sku3220058

 

 

 

 

I hope you enjoyed the photos.

Forecast for today is sunny and 79 degrees.

 

Enjoying 65-75 degree temperatures with low humidity most of the year is a primary joy in the RVing lifestyle!

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving”…Albert Einstein

 

“Let me recommend the best medicine in the world: a long journey, a mild season, through a pleasant country, in easy stages.” –James Madison

 

 

“Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all of one’s lifetime.” —Mark Twain

My current travel rig is a 2006 Fleetwood 26′ Class A Motorhome and a towed 1986 Ford Bronco II, Eddie Bauer Model. This photo was taken in the desert at Slab City near Niland, California…

On October 27, 2012, I created a two-minute video titled America The Beautiful. The music America The Beautiful is by Christopher W. French. The photos, which I randomly selected, are from the states of Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Montana, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Tennessee, Washington and West Virginia (not shown in that order)…are mine. Yup, That’s me standing in front of the Post Office in Luckenbach, Texas…Y’all!

Click this link to start the video. Make sure you have your speakers turned on and go to full screen asap.
http://youtu.be/FfZUzEB4rM8

If you would like to see my YouTube videos, click this link… http://www.youtube.com/user/JimJ1579/videos

If you have not checked out my Ramblin Man’s Photos Blog, you can do so by clicking this link…http://ramblinmanphotos.wordpress.com/

For more information about my books, click this link:
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/panamaorbust

All original works copyrighted – Jim Jaillet -2019

Grrrr!!!! (GA22)

Mary is no longer available for RV traveling, but we remain good friends.
Because we have 4,000+ postings, I’ve invited her to continue posting entries on this blog.

I’m currently in my 22nd year of full-time RVing and my lifestyle is changing, For more info click Here

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The motorhome is parked at Thousand Trails Palm Springs RV Resort at Palm Desert, California. I expect to depart March 6th.

 

 

Since my RVing life is changing (see above), I’m starting to re-visit previously visited places. So rather than constantly re-blogging past entries, I’ve decided to do something different.

 

 

In 2012-2013, Mary and I did a 682 day, 12,679 miles in the motorhome and 8,000 miles in the Bronco, circumnavigation of the United States, which I called The Great Adventure. I called it so because other than my oldest granddaughter’s high school graduation in June in Connecticut, I didn’t know where we would be going or when we would be there!

 

 

So, unless I do something really different and unusual warranting a new blog entry, I’ll be posting entries from that trip.

 

 

 

 

This entry was posted February 16, 2012…

 

 

 

You would have thought it would have been easy!!! Just unplug the old device and insert the new device and away you go. No way could it be that easy!

 

 

Yesterday I went to the Verizon Store about 15 miles away and picked up my replacement modem. By rights I should have been able to just plug it in to the router and have our Internet signal. But real life just doesn’t work that way. In the below photo the modem is on the left and the router is on the right…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Arriving back at the motorhome…first thing…the modem plugged directly into my computer…but the computer wouldn’t recognize it. BUT IT WORKED AT THE STORE!!! I spent about three hours trying to make thee darn thing work. But no dice. I finally gave up and decided to have my happy hour. I really needed a drink by then! I decided to attack it once again in the morning when I’m rested after a good night’s sleep.

 

 

Okay…back at it this morning. I finally got the computer to recognize the modem and got a weak Internet signal which I’m using to publish this Blog entry. It’s weak because I’m too far away from our amplifier system to plug it into the modem.

 

 

Now the router is a totally different matter. It doesn’t want anything to do with the new device…despite that it’s identical to the old device! Oh no…that would be too easy!

 

 

The next apparent step will be to call technical support at the router store and get some technical help to resolve that problem. However they do not open until 9:00 AM Central Time which means that I cannot call them until about 1.5 hours from now. Grrr!!! Hopefully 24 hours from now I have this problem resolved.

 

 

Why can’t things like this be easy? If I were in charge of the world…guaranteed things like this would be easy! But I’m not in charge of the world, so I guess it’s a matter of c’est la vie…which in French means…such is life!

 

 

 

TWO FOR THE PRICE OF ONE! MARY WROTE A MANY GREAT BLOGS…SO WHENEVER SHE PUBLISHED A BLOG POSTING THE SAME DAY THAT I DID…YOU WILL BE ABLE TO READ HER BLOG BY CLICKING THE BELOW LINK! DO IT NOW…!!!

https://otrwjam.wordpress.com/2012/02/16/just-visiting/

 

 

 

 

I HOPE YOU ENJOYED THE PHOTOS.

 Yesterday was sunny and 78 degrees. Forecast for today is sunny and 83 degrees.

Enjoying nice weather is another joy in the life of a full-time RVer!

The red dot on the below map shows my approximate location in the State of California. You may double left-click the map to make it larger…

Enjoying 65-75 degree temperatures with low humidity most of the year is a primary joy in the RVing lifestyle!

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving”…Albert Einstein

My current travel rig is a 2006 Fleetwood 26′ Class A Motorhome and a towed 1986 Ford Bronco II, Eddie Bauer Model. This photo was taken in the desert at Slab City near Niland, California…

On October 27, 2012, I created a two-minute video titled America The Beautiful. The music America The Beautiful is by Christopher W. French. The photos, which I randomly selected, are from the states of Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Montana, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Tennessee, Washington and West Virginia (not shown in that order)…are mine. Yup, That’s me standing in front of the Post Office in Luckenbach, Texas…Y’all!

Click this link to start the video. Make sure you have your speakers turned on and go to full screen asap.
http://youtu.be/FfZUzEB4rM8

If you would like to see my YouTube videos, click this link… http://www.youtube.com/user/JimJ1579/videos

There are more than 700 photo albums in my Picasa Web Albums File. To gain access, you simply have to click this link… https://get.google.com/albumarchive/110455945462646142273?source=pwa

If you have not checked out my Ramblin Man’s Photos Blog, you can do so by clicking this link…http://ramblinmanphotos.wordpress.com/

For more information about my books, click this link:
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/panamaorbust

All original works copyrighted – Jim Jaillet -2017

My New Verizon AC791L Jetpack

The motorhome is parked at Mary’s home in Murphys, California.

I’m planning to  depart November 30th. While here, I’ll do routine maintenance, minor repairs and major cleaning of the Bronco and motorhome.

Today…My new Verizon AC791L Jetpack…

Getting an Internet signal on the road can be a tricky situation. Back in 2009, I installed a Wilson Electronics Amplifier to boost the incoming signal. This booster system has a 12″ antenna on the roof to gather the signal before amplification…

As always you may left click upon an image to see an enlarged view and then click once again to see an even larger view…

 

 

The antenna on the roof…

 

 

The electronic booster…

 

 

Then (my older system) a wire with the boosted signal led down to a Cradlepoint Router and Verizon UML290 Air Card which I’ve had for several years. The UML290 was advertised as a 4g/3g device but has never worked properly. Whenever I approached a larger city with 4g it got all confused, locked up and refused to work. With Verizon assistance I locked it into the 3g position, but still occasionally had to call Verizon for assistance as I changed locations. An awkward installation…

 

 

Yesterday I installed the new 4G Verizon AC791L Jetpack. You can see the antenna wire coming in from the right and plugging into the right bottom of the unit. The router is now container within making for a much cleaner installation. My amplifier is only a 3g device and does not come into play until I get away from a 4G signal. My current location at Mary’s home has a weak Verizon signal with only one bar on my cell phone. My new Jetpack has a two bar 4G signal without benefit of the booster. A good sign that the newer technology will be a better system for my situation…

 

 

Here’s a closer photo of the new Jetpack provided by Verizon…

 

You can read all about this new device made by Netgear, which arrived on the market only about one month ago, by clicking this link…http://www.evdoinfo.com/content/view/5132/64/

 

I hope you enjoyed the photos.

Yesterday was a cloudy and 66 degrees. Forecast for today is sunny and 72 degrees.

Enjoying nice weather is another joy in the life of a full-time RVer!

The red dot on the below map shows my approximate location in the State of California. You may double left-click the map to make it larger…

Enjoying 65-75 degree temperatures with low humidity most of the year is a primary joy in the RVing lifestyle!

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving”…Albert Einstein

My current travel rig is a 2006 Fleetwood 26′ Class A Motorhome and a towed 1986 Ford Bronco II, Eddie Bauer Model. This photo was taken in the desert at Slab City near Niland, California…

On October 27, 2012, I created a two-minute video titled America The Beautiful. The music America The Beautiful is by Christopher W. French. The photos, which I randomly selected, are from the states of Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Montana, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Tennessee, Washington and West Virginia (not shown in that order)…are mine. Yup, That’s me standing in front of the Post Office in Luckenbach, Texas…Y’all!

Click this link to start the video. Make sure you have your speakers turned on and go to full screen asap.
http://youtu.be/FfZUzEB4rM8

If you would like to see my YouTube videos, click this link… http://www.youtube.com/user/JimJ1579/videos

There are more than 600 photo albums in my Picasa Web Albums File. To gain access, you simply have to click this link… https://picasaweb.google.com/jimjrver

If you have not checked out my Ramblin Man’s Photos Blog, you can do so by clicking this link…http://ramblinmanphotos.wordpress.com/

For more information about my books, click this link:
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/panamaorbust

All original works copyrighted – Jim Jaillet -2015

My New Cell Phone…

The motorhome is parked at Thousand Trails Long Beach RV Resort in Seaview, Washington. My scheduled departure date is June 17th.

Mary is at home tending to personal matters…home maintenance, family, friends, rentals, etc.. She is now scheduled to meet me July 29th in Bellingham, Washington.

I have a new cell phone. So what? I change mine every month!…you say. Big deal! In my humble opinion, an event that has not happened in eight years deserves a Blog posting.

Well, I’m an old guy and tend to take care of my possessions and they last a long time. The below photo shows my old LG VX8300 (left) now in its eighth year of service. My new LG VN360 also known as Exalt is shown on the right. I’ve put them side-by-side so the physical size difference can be seen. The Exalt has a 3″ screen…the largest available in a flip phone…

As always you may left click upon an image to see an enlarged view and then click once again to see an even larger view…

The below photo shows them side-by-side in their protective cases…

My new LG was waiting for me when I arrived at my current location three days ago. I’ve spent the last couple of days becoming familiar with it, using the 119 page online manual.

They old phone was working just fine except my second battery was showing signs of getting tired…getting old…just like me. So I decided to upgrade and while I was doing it, might as well as opt for a larger keypad and screen.

Being an old guy all I want my phone to do is make phone calls. Mine does not need to sing and dance! Some of thing newer technology is interesting. I’m particularly enjoying the voice commands. Instead of having to scroll through dozens of contacts to find the desired recipient of my call…I NOW SIMPLY FLIP OPEN THE PHONE AND SAY…”CALL WILLIE NELSON”…AND IT AUTOMATICALLY MAKES THE CALL. (Actually, that’s just an example…I don’t really have Willie’s phone number.  🙂 ) The larger keys and screen makes it easier to text with my grand-kids, so that makes life more enjoyable.

In addition, I got it for free from Verizon…such a deal! Like my good friend Ted Price says…”Free is good!”

You can read all about the LG Exalt by clicking this link…http://www.lg.com/us/cell-phones/lg-VN360-exalt

I HOPE YOU ENJOYED THE PHOTOS.

Yesterday was a cloudy/sunny day at 62 degrees. Forecast for today is cloudy/sunny and 63 degrees.

Enjoying nice weather is another joy in the life of a full-time RVer!

The red dot on the below map shows our approximate location in the State of Washington. You may double left-click the map to make it larger…

Enjoying 65-75 degree temperatures with low humidity most of the year is a primary joy in the RVing lifestyle!

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving”…Albert Einstein

On October 27, 2012, I created a two-minute video titled America The Beautiful. The music America The Beautiful is by Christopher W. French. The photos, which I randomly selected, are from the states of Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Montana, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Tennessee, Washington and West Virginia (not shown in that order)…are mine. Yup, That’s me standing in front of the Post Office in Luckenbach, Texas…Y’all!

Click this link to start the video. Make sure you have your speakers turned on and go to full screen asap.
http://youtu.be/FfZUzEB4rM8

If you would like to see my YouTube videos, click this link… http://www.youtube.com/user/JimJ1579/videos

There are more than 500 photo albums in my Picasa Web Albums File. To gain access, you simply have to click this link… https://picasaweb.google.com/jimjrver

If you have not checked out my Ramblin Man’s Photos Blog, you can do so by clicking this link…http://ramblinmanphotos.wordpress.com/

For more information about my books, click this link:
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/panamaorbust

All original material Copyright – Jim Jaillet 2014

Titan Missile Museum, Sahuarita, Arizona

Yesterday Mary and I took the Bronco about 10 miles south of our current Moose Club RV parking location. We went to the Titan Missile Museum which is located about 20 miles south of Tucson, Arizona. The site is an actual former ICBM launch site. It is the only one that has survived to become a museum. After the Cold War ended all the other 53 silos were destroyed per the SALT Treaty.

Here’s The official museum website link…
http://www.titanmissilemuseum.org/

and here’s a Wikipedia informational link…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_Missile_Museum

Here are a couple of Google Earth images. First a general site view…

As always you may left click upon an image to see an enlarged view and then click once again to see an even larger view…

And then a closer view of the missile silo half-opened…

Under terrible photography conditions…harsh sunlight on a bright white light-colored structures and dimly lit interiors…we nonetheless ventured forth. Here are some of the photos that I took…

In the above photo all three underground components of the site can be seen. The middle is the access portal. On the left is the control center and crews quarters. On the right is the missile silo. The highest state of alert ever reached was on the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. On that day the launch keys were taken out of the safe and set on the control console desktop. They were not inserted into the control panel. This complex was built for a one-time only launch. None were ever launched.

We spent two hours here…one hour of which was a guided tour. Another enjoyable day of full-time RVing.

In other news…

More than 12 hours late with today’s entry. A 2.5 hour Verizon Internet signal outage early this morning…then another full day out exploring…then an evening meal at Moose Lodge #1964…the friendliest Moose Club in the United States where we are currently parked…and finally a little time to post today’s Blog entry this evening.

All original material Copyright – Jim Jaillet 2012
For more information about my three books, click this link:
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/panamaorbust

Finally…

In my last two Blog entries I’ve described frustrations associated changing out my defective modem here in our motorhome. The day before yesterday involved three hours of frustration. yesterday was an additional three hours of frustrations. During 1.5 hours on my cellphone with the router technician since it was not recognizing the new device…I took this self-photo…

You can see just how much fun I was having by the expression on my face! Since I had borrowed a short ethernet cable to use during the process…I had to sit in the passenger’s seat so I could connect to the router which can be seen of the shelf below the curtain. While there I had to balance the computer upon our large bread board atop my lap while the cellphone was on speaker so I had two hands to balance everything in addition to doing the typing associated with the functions.

You probably know a little about interfacing the modem and router. Download updated software, restart the computer, figure out new configurations, restart the computer. Nope…didn’t work…set a new configuration…can’t remember passwords, restart the computer. Etc……..

So…FINALLY…after six hours of frustrations…the system seems to have settled down and appears to be functioning correctly. When I began this process three days ago I was fearing that I was going to have this kind of experience. The system didn’t let me down. It was every bit frustrating as I was expecting. Hopefully it will be some time before I have to deal with a like matter in the future. Now to get back to my normal life. Today we expect to move the motorhome south  of Tucson, Arizona for a few days of seeing and doing attractions of the area.

All original material Copyright – Jim Jaillet 2012
For more information about my three books, click this link:
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/panamaorbust