Convening In Bowling Green OH

We have been attending the FMCA's 82nd international Convention at Bowling Green in northwest OH. Faithful readers will remember that Dorcas and I really enjoy attending FMCA's big rallies. There are hundreds of interesting and informative seminars as well as hundreds of vendors selling all kinds of neat stuff. We also meet many old friends. This year I am representing our local FMCA chapter, the Country Cousins, as a National Director. This means I had to attend the annual business meeting and election of our national officers. They told me this would be a piece of cake. They lied. On Sunday, the day before the annual meeting we were in meetings all day learning how to behave as National Directors, how the voting would be conducted and attending a candidate's forum. The annual meeting began Monday morning at 9:00 am. Due to some contentious budget issues and a hotly contested election, the meeting did not end until 8:30 pm. A piece of cake indeed.

The rally is being held on the campus of Bowling Green State University, which is a very nice venue. The seminar halls had excellent audio/visual facilities and were very comfortable. This is in stark contrast to previous conventions which are usually held at fairgrounds and other agricultural venues, where seminars are held in cattle barns or open tents. It rained a few days, but generally the weather has been very nice and unseasonably cool. Bowling Green is a fairly typical college town featuring a number of interesting bars and food joints. One interesting note is that Bowling Green built a small wind turbine farm, with enough capacity to power about 3000 homes, one of few such municipal ventures in the country.

As usual, we spent some money at the rally:

• I replaced our broken LP detector there. Before leaving home I learned we had no propane pressure in the coach. Upon investigation I found my LP detector had failed. The LP detector controls the LP tank valve such that when the sensor sniff propane in the house, or when the the detector is turned off, or (apparently) when the unit fails, it closes the valve and turns off the LP at the tank. I was able to bypass the detector and hot-wire the valve before we left home, allowing me to run the fridge, but I didn't want to delay replacing the detector. I soon learned that the detector manufacturer had gone out of business, and that unit was no longer available anywhere. Luckily, and mostly by accident, I found perhaps the only unit in the world that was still available. A guy that installs custom fire suppression systems in motor homes, and uses the device in his installations, had one unit and agreed to sell it to me, in spite of the fact that he had no other source to replace it. By the end of the show, at least one other customer was trying to buy it, but it was promised to me and I grabbed it up. I installed it and it works like a charm. The vendor took my old unit. He plans to pirate the design and perhaps manufacture his own units.
• We use a cellular air card for internet service when we are not near free WiFi. Sometimes we find ourselves way out in the boonies where cell service is poor or nonexistent. Several vendors were selling cellular amplifier/repeater systems by Wilson Electronics to boost cell signals. So, we bit the bullet and bought one. The system consists of an outside antenna, a powered amplifier and an inside antenna, which re-broadcasts the amplified signal wirelessly to the cell phone and/or air card. Pretty nifty since you are not tethered to the amplifier. The inside antenna is affectionately called a "candy bar" because it is about the size, shape and color of a 2.5 oz. Hershey dark chocolate bar. The system was a little pricey and we fretted a bit before buying it, but we think it will be worthwhile and will nicely supplement our Verizon air card and CradlePoint broadband wireless router. Ah ... all the conveniences of home.
• We also bought a 22' telescoping fiberglass pole. Dorcas thinks we bought it to fly her wind socks, but really it will be used primarily as a mast for our new cellular antenna.
• Finally we had our hydronic heat system serviced. Our coach is equipped with a fairly sophisticated "boiler" which provides comfort heat, domestic hot water and engine pre-heating. The unit is powered by a diesel burner, a 120v electric element and/or hot coolant from the engine. We had a technician replace the diesel burner nozzle and fuel filter and clean the burner chamber. He also replaced a poorly designed plastic drain valve with a brass valve. The plastic valve is prone to cracking, causing all your coolant to run out. Not good.

The final tally showed there were 2725 coaches at the convention. This figure is down from the 4000-5000 coaches that usually came before the recent economic downturn. The next two international conventions are in Albuquerque NM in March and Redmond OR in August. We may not make those .... or maybe we can catch Redmond on our way back from Alaska?

Rallies are such hard work. Between the annual business meetings, business pre-meetings, seminars, service calls and shopping, it seems we had little time for fun and relaxation. Well, now the convention is over, and we can begin our summer adventure in earnest.