Dory 2023 trip to quartzsite hamfest and palooza

[joeblack5]

Tuesday
My previous post yesterday got lost with the spotty internet.
We are having good fun here at the ham radio quartzfest. The girls are studying for their ham tech license and that would be nice if they can pull it off. Yesterday was super windy and with the low temperature it was somewhat unpleasant. Nevertheless the ham people pulled of a couple of nice seminars., One one the image was about gold panning, nice fun
The chickens produced an egg , most welcome.

[turf]

i may be to old to rave.
we spent the windy day cooped up at skoolie and ended up changing plans.

skoolie was fun, but we decided to go coastal. tonight we're camped at Huntington Beach, CA for a couple of days and then we head home.

[cadillackid]

Originally Posted by joeblack5

Tuesday
My previous post yesterday got lost with the spotty internet.
We are having good fun here at the ham radio quartzfest. The girls are studying for their ham tech license and that would be nice if they can pull it off. Yesterday was super windy and with the low temperature it was somewhat unpleasant. Nevertheless the ham people pulled of a couple of nice seminars., One one the image was about gold panning, nice fun
The chickens produced an egg , most welcome.

Ham radio is (was) fun.. I regret letting my license expire and now i need to go get it again.. I do miss it.. when my work got busy i somehow got away from going to hamfests and no longer storm chased on weatherNets.. I really need to get back into it.. it was really a lot of fun even though i didnt do much more than 2 meter and 440 stuff..

[joeblack5]

Turff, to bad we did not hook up,. Chris, yes get it again, kids and of nice to play with once in a while.
We met some nice people out here and our girls studied hard and passed the ham exam.. since they are young and girls that caused some nice excitement.

[joeblack5]

A couple of entrepreneur electronic designers and ham operators made a vhf radio with gps positioning info. They set up a dragon game with a gps grid and a remote game computer. We got one of their radios and played for a long time.. very cool..
This morning we went in quartzsite for breakfast.. it is very busy here . Then we picked up water at a gas station , groceries and went to the flea market to buy some goodies.
Back at camp we took a try to wash with our washer we had taken along.. I need to make some mods so it uses less water.
Elfie's cluster had decided to not work so I spend some time to chasing wiring. One bad ground, one loose connector in the cluster and one bad fuse contact.. a royal pain.
Late in the afternoon there was happy hour with a lottery drawing,. No luck for us in that field.

[Rock-N-Ruth]

Originally Posted by joeblack5

Turff, to bad we did not hook up,. Chris, yes get it again, kids and of nice to play with once in a while.
We met some nice people out here and our girls studied hard and passed the ham exam.. since they are young and girls that caused some nice excitement.

Congrats to the girls!

[joeblack5]

Thanks Rock and Ruth,

We woke up on empty batteries so that was a bummer. The link10 battery monitor pulls of some tricks that are not handy. After some jumper wiring and restarting the solar chargers all started working again.
We are still at the hamfest. This morning early there was a swap meet and I scored some goodies.
After that we left to downtown quartzsite to celebrate Leena s birthday. Also Tanya needed internet to do some online in person school work..Then we drove with Elfie to Ehrenburg and checked out skoolie palooza.
More on that later.. we may get stop there for a couple of days.
We were back around 4 pm and found that we charged 120 ah at 25 volt.. not bad..
In the evening I started dory to let the alternator help out a bit as well.

[joeblack5]

Some birthday

[cadillackid]

driving across the country, getting a HAM license, seeing all kinds of cool sights... that *IS* a REAL EPIC birthday celebration!!!

[joeblack5]

Hi Chris,. Yes I think we are pretty fortunate, hope it will last. I am sure the chaos theory will set in at some moment.
This morning we had another swap meet. Got a better antenna for the baofeng radio and then there was the balloon launch.. pretty cool
Then we felt hungry and did not want to load our battery with the induction stove this morning so we decided to drive back into quartzsite and go to a Mexican breakfast restaurant.. now picking up some more water and help cleanup the ham fest camp area and off to skoolie palooza site

Johan

[Bus'n it]

Wow, what an epic trip so far! All I see are some amazing memories made for your family. I need to take Chris' advice and stop working on mine and just go somewhere. With business slowing down, I may just have to do that. I showed Marie your pics and she was all smiles. Living vicariously through your travels! Ironically Quartzite is a hop skip and a jump away for us. Keep posting pics!

[joeblack5]

He Simon,
It would have been nice to see you at skoolie palooza. Or still can,
We broke up camp at quartzfest and are now taking a shower at the shell fuel station at exit 5. Then a couple of miles to Ehrenburg skoolie palooza site.. curious how many will still be there..
The kids gathered left and abandoned firewood from the ham fire rings so we can do some outdoor cooking.
This morning we went back in town for breakfast since it was now my wife's birthday. Then some more water fillips and a quick flea market stop. Back to ham camp loading bikes and cleanup..
Time goes fast with this life style.
Some pics from the way out of quartzsite...
Quartzsite was put on the map because here they experimented with camels for desert warfare..hence the camel's on the sign for the city.
Then there is the RV show..

Johan

[cadillackid]

wow quartsite is like a big camping Mecca it sounds like.. I gu8ess if its sunny all the time it makes a good place for boondocking with solar

[s2mikon]

But not in the summer. Hotter than the gate hinges of hell.