I have been spending a lot of time and sweat equity- (not to mention some coin) on upgrades to the mobile shack, AKA N1RWY-13.
Been busy with a 30 some odd list of maintenance items that needed to be addressed, as well as some additional upgrades, that I wanted done.
Happy to say that the station is now powered by 440w of solar, and a Morningstar ProStar 30 amp solar charger. I realize that these are only rated for 400W or solar – however, I will get into that on a later post and how I can justify the additional wattage.
I have also upgraded the 400W inverter to a HF 1500W inverter, that I have waited for about 20 months to purchase, looking for that perfect deal. I ended up getting it for $97. Score.
Now before some of you jump on me about HF stuff being junk, trashy, noisy on the radios.. this isn’t part of the ham station, rather, this is part of the “make the XYL happy” program. I have slowly converted all of the TVs (yes, all two of them) to 12V operation. The next thing she NEEDED to have was coffee in the morning. I have made coffee on the range with the percolator, however, she will not use it. She wants to use a standard coffee maker – put in water, put in filter, put in coffee, close the basket, flip the ON switch.. coffee in 5 minutes.
Well.. that ability was lacking before the inverter. Now it is not. Now she can make the morning coffee and enjoy that modern convenience, and I can get us farther away from the “RV parks” and more into the wilds. The additional solar on the roof helps bring the batteries back up after the pretty large hit to the power bank to brew coffee. We could even power the microwave for a short period of time if we absolutely needed to… and gosh.. even run the vacuum cleaner. (Crazy talk there!)
But… if she is smiling.. I am smiling!
More to come. _ . _ _ . _