RV Tech | Live Work Dream | RVing Lifestyle Design Blog

How To Upgrade Datastorm D3 Firmware

May 26, 2012April 27, 2008 by Jim

I know what you’re saying. “Oh boy, here he goes again … off on another one of his geek rants.”

But surely someone will be grateful for finding this information. It sure isn’t on the MotoSat technical support website where it should be.

When we started having some trouble locking onto our satellite for internet access, MotoSat suggested we upgrade the firmware in our Datastorm D3 dish controller. The support rep then promptly proceeded to rattle off a number of important steps, too quick for me to write them down. I decided to wait, thinking I would find details on their website.

Not. I present them here in excruciating detail for your reading enjoyment, or complete boredom whichever you prefer.

Get Your RV Ready for Spring

April 29, 2008April 1, 2008 by Jim

Spring has sprung. And as a full-time RVer with no intention of storing my fifth wheel for any longer than a day trip in the foreseeable future, I personally don’t have a need for many of the tips in the following article.

But for anyone out there who may be getting ready to hit the road for summer, the following tips will save you from a lot of potential trouble.

The good folks at Good Sam Club RV Road Service were kind enough let us reprint this article for the benefit of our readers. What Good Sams indeed …

Watch your running lights!

March 29, 2008 by Jim

Recently we were headed down a fairly steep grade outside Santa Fe, NM with the trailer in tow and had to pull over rather suddenly.

Hopefully we can tell you more about why sometime soon. However, without signing a non-disclosure agreement, you’ll just have to wait.

Normally this wouldn’t be a problem. And it really wasn’t this time, until I smelled the distinct odor of brake pads cooking.

Our Fussy Magic Chef RV Oven

February 20, 2008 by Jim

Ren? has always had a hard time lighting the pilot for our Maytag RV oven. I never had a problem, so I always gave her a hard time in return.

Then one day I couldn’t get it to light.

After far too many times of kneeling before the Magic Chef, praying that it would light, we decided to call for service since it was still under warranty. But not before I dissected and reassembled the pilot assembly and combed the owner’s manual for assistance. There was none.

A cure for the common freshwater cough

February 1, 2008February 1, 2008 by Jim

When our freshwater fill spout started coughing up water when we filled the tank, there was no need to call a doctor. I knew I could handle this one. But I did wonder why it started happening all of the sudden.

While filling up our freshwater tank a few times, we noticed water backing up and burping out of the fill hose. Upon closer inspection ? which any good RVer should always undertake in circumstances like this ? I noticed the freshwater tank expanding with air whenever this happened.

Calculate Satellite Settings with Dishpointer

April 29, 2008January 8, 2008 by Jim

Here is a nifty little widget that would have come in quite handy when our Datastorm F2 GPS unit went bad. Though using it would have required for us to be online already!

Regardless, the Dishpointer satellite alignment calculator is still pretty cool.

We’ve included the Dishpointer Lite widget here for your use. Just select your satellite from the drop down menu and enter your location ? city or zip code ? in the box. The map and details will automatically update with the required elevation, azimuth and LNB skew for your satellite dish. Drag the map or marker to pinpoint your location.

Pretty cool, eh? If you think so, wait until you check out the full version.

How to Replace the Datastorm F2 UCB

May 26, 2012January 7, 2008 by Jim

Translation: Here’s a little video we made showing how I replaced the Upper Control Board on our Datastorm F2 mobile satellite internet dish after receiving a GPS failure from our D3 controller.

If a picture is worth a 1,000 words this video must be worth at least 1,024. But here’s a few more about the experience anyway. Just to make a short story long …

New Amazon Kindle Lightens The Book Load.

September 4, 2023December 1, 2007 by Jim

Here’s a nifty new product that should lighten the load of any fellow avid readers out there who have packed up their library with them and brought it along in their rig: The new Amazon Kindle Wireless Reading Device.

If you’re like us, you had a hard time deciding which favorite books to bring with you on the road. Or, you are often leaving books at campgrounds and purchasing new ones along the way.

Either way, there is likely still a stack of books taking up valuable storage space in your RV. Well, this lightweight portable e-book reader may be just the trick to lighten your load and save you money on books and newspapers. Best of all, no computer or internet connection is required!

I don’t mean to sound like an Amazon marketing exec. I just think this is really cool. Having spent the past twenty odd years of my life in the printing industry, I’ve followed the development of electronic paper for a while now and think it is fascinating. And I remember the original Newton MessagePad from Apple, and it’s troubled launch.

Power your RV with wind energy.

May 9, 2008November 17, 2007 by Jim

A while ago, my sister Mariclair sent me a link to this manual for a Telescoping RV Tower. Rich, who together with M.C. runs O’Connell Solar ? and designed our own RV’s solar energy system ? had just spent three days at Southwest Windpower and thought it would be cool fodder for the blog. Cool indeed.

I looked into it further and discovered the tower is designed for using the Air X Marine small wind turbine with an RV.

Then when we were getting a tour of Tugboat Margot from my brother in law Tim back in Troy, NY, I noticed an Air X mounted on a boat docked nearby and filmed it in action.

While this particular tower mount wouldn’t work with our rig without some serious modification, seeing the wind generator do its job got me thinking…

Amazon finally got their groove on.

September 4, 2023November 16, 2007 by Jim

After driving for thousands of miles over the past few months, I have to say that one of the most vital accessories we purchased for this cross-country road trip has to be our iPod. We got a used 40GB iPod on eBay that has a good dent in it, but it was a deal!

I spent many a late night transferring most of our CD collection onto it before we left, and it was time well spent. I only wish I had copied all of our CDs.

While you can always find classic rock somewhere on the dial, much of this country has really, really bad radio. That’s why I was happy to find out that Amazon is finally offering MP3 downloads!

Where is my ubiquity?

October 30, 2007 by Jim

Considering everything we can do with all the connectivity and communications technology of today, what’s really amazing is what we cannot. What happened to the last mile? Granted, escape is a great benefit of getting away. But one cannot expect to get away indefinitely unless totally self sufficient. Especially, if working from home means traveling full time. And why not? There is so much to see.

In other words, we must work, from the road. The biggest challenge of which is being connected. All the time. The defacto work week for the typical commuter is two days off, in a row, if you’re lucky. For those of us who commute from one line of sight to our satelite to the next, being cut off unexpectedly is a daily threat.

Entire idyllic communities like Humboldt county live in constant fear of losing their connection to the world. And they have high capacity fiber to the region. Well, one strand at least. My string is invisible and can be cut by any number of branches, including one.

Batteries do go bad.

October 23, 2007 by Jim

I’ve been mulling over a draft for a post about our custom RV solar power system for months, ever since we left the prime solar energy country of the southwest. It has just been working so well for us that we haven’t really had to think about it much. Then our batteries crapped out on us.

For the past few months, we have spending about half of our nights in state and national park campgrounds, without hookups. And we have easily been able to go eight hours or more without using our Honda 2000i generator to charge the batteries. Or longer if we had good exposure to the sun.

Chasing Down Biodiesel

October 30, 2007October 5, 2007 by Rene

When we picked out our Dodge Ram 2500 pickup truck, one of our requirements was that it had to have a diesel engine, so that we could run biodiesel or straight veggie oil (SVO) in it. We wanted to offset our footprint by buying such a large vehicle. So we took a class on Making Your Own Biodiesel, learned the ins and outs of producing and buying it, and set off on this trip with the hope that we would find it in lots of places. Eventually, we’ll make our own, but for now, we have to rely on Biodiesel.org to tell us who’s selling it and where.

Tornado Warning Lullaby

September 4, 2023August 15, 2007 by Jim

? As a child, I was terribly frightened by the movie the Wizard of Oz. It wasn’t the witch, the trees, or even the monkeys. The idea of a tornado coming and tearing up my house and carrying me away from the comforts of my home and family was really quite traumatizing. 😥 With age and a little therapy, I’ve been mostly able to overcome …

Never run out of propane again.

August 11, 2007 by Jim

Here’s another quick tip for RVers with dual LP tanks for their rig. This was another little chore from my RV maintenance day back in Duluth. I wrote the word “use” on a small piece of magnetic sheeting to help us remember which tank we’ve been running off of since we like to use one tank up completely and keep the other one full as …