Travel Planner
As you plan a trip route and your overnight stops, you also need to figure out what campgrounds are located in the area where you will be stopping. Sometimes we can remember the name of a campground that we’ve stayed at before but little else about the facility. To help us organize our campground information, we purchased a binder and some page protectors. We went through the campground maps we’ve saved and sorted them by city and state. On each map we already had written information such as the camping fee, notes about the park or area, whether the sites are large or small, if there are tight turns, the availability of free Wi-Fi service, etc. Now when we plan a trip, we can look up a campground and see if our memory is correct.
Steve & Cindi Zona, F234817, Full-Timers
Storage Compartment Insulation
I found that heat reflectors used for windshields also work great to line the back of my cabinets. And it looks good, too. This type of material comes in three-foot-tall rolls and can be found in the automotive department of mass merchandise stores. Measure the height of your cabinets and cut to fit. There’s no need for tape or any other fastening material if it is cut to fit snugly. It is amazing the amount of heat this material keeps out.
Christine Vite, F196468, Statesville, North Carolina
LCD TV Installation
When the old-style 21-inch television in my motorhome began to fail, I decided it was time to replace it with a 26-inch LCD TV. Installing the new one would be a problem, however. The opening for the old TV in the enclosure above the dash was too small to accept the LCD TV, and I could not enlarge the opening. Also, putting the TV in the enclosure would have interfered with the vents along the top and bottom of the LCD TV’s case. The only option was to mount the back of the TV to the outside of the enclosure as though it were a wall.
All of the LCD TVs that I looked at were intended to be mounted either on a stand or with their backs against the wall. All had threaded receptacles on their backs for bolts that would attach to brackets for wall mounting. Mine had three vertical rows of threaded holes, but I used only the two outer rows and not the center row. I purchased a wall-mounting kit for the LCD TV and a pair of 5-inch strap hinges. (I did not use the wall bracket included in the kit, and it might have been possible to fashion other brackets for the back of the TV, but using those included in the kit was easier.)
After aligning the holes in the brackets with those on the back of the TV, I began by securing a bolt through just the bottom hole of the bracket into the TV. I then slid half of each of the strap hinges into the “U” of each bracket so that the outermost hole in the hinge lined up with a hole in the bracket and a hole in the back of the TV. I then bolted the hinge and bracket into the TV. (This was done for both hinges.) This left the top of each bracket extending above the body of the back of the TV. I secured a third bolt through a hole in each hinge that lined up with a hole in the bracket. I used lock washers on each of the six bolts.
To make the inside of the RV enclosure the right height to attach the strap hinges, I screwed a piece of plywood to the top of the compartment, then attached the other half of the strap hinges to the wood. This allows the bottom of the TV to be tilted up for access to the space inside the enclosure. Placement of the hinges relative to the front of the enclosure was determined by trial and error, moving them out far enough to permit the TV to be tilted.
Being able to tilt the TV up made it easier to attach cables to the TV “” I used separate video and audio cables to improve picture and sound quality “” and also provided access to new storage space (in which I installed two shelves and a night light with a switch). During travel, movement of the TV is prevented by a shock cord across the lower front surface fastened to hooks attached to the outside of the enclosure.
Kenneth G. Crosby, F167401, Livingston, Texas
Light On A Dark Subject
The panel board in our new motorhome is black and hard to read. To make it easier to find the switches we used most, I put a touch of fluorescent paint on the edges of the water heater and water pump switches.
Arlene Chiarolanzio, F181694, Florham Park, New Jersey
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