Dreamstreamr Odyssey Chasing 75 Degrees


	NON-Improvements edited May 29, 2009 [reformatted information for presentation] updated Feb 12, 2009[parsed unsuccessful improvements/equipment items only to this page] Okay, what about the failures? Not necessarily failures, but disappointments. Not every change is an improvement, and sometimes the result is so poor as to be a failure. Some things look like an interesting idea, but nothing is improved. We do not try to invite failure or waste of time or money. We try what we think will be worthwhile. Not everything works out. We are willing to try any reasonable suggestion to improve convenience in our lifestyle or functional performance of our equipment. Sometimes the reasonable (or well-recommended) improvements result in flops. You may not experience the same result or you may not perceive the result as we did. We are reporting what we've tried and how we think it turned out for us. Draw your own conclusions. Following is a brief listing of some things we learned we could do without, and wouldn't mind having our money back: Black tank chemicals: We see no use for them on our holding tank system. Other people doubtless have different experiences. Here's ours: Four years we've gone with only using chemicals for the first two weekends, in Summer 2004. Honestly, if we had bad smells entering our camper from our black tank we would reconsider. The toilet bowl has a good seal, the tank is vented to the atmosphere, we use water when we flush the tanks, and we sometimes (but not always) use comfort stations (if available) when we have bowel movements. We often rinse our tank briefly with the factory-installed tornado rinser when we dump the tank. We are not interested in paying extra to support the chemical industry, nor pushing chemicals into the waste treatment systems, nor sitting on chemicalized cauldrons. We're seeing no problems, no added chemicals, less cost, and less pollution. Cheap sewer hose: We bought an inexpensive red sewer hose, then another inexpensive brown one. They didn't connect well together and the end fittings were awkward. To extend the hose I had to unthread the plastic end fitting and replace it with a coupling piece to which each hose would screw onto. It was messy, didn't store well, punctured easily, and we don't need it the leaks or the hassle. We now use a Blueline® system available, among other places, at Camping World. We have two ten foot sections with a slide-on coupler and a slide-on connection to the ell which threads into any of four different sizes of sewer dump connections. Not very expensive and worth every nickel. Cheap inline cartridge water filter: This is probably a great idea and it just didn't work for us. We used these during our first two years when we were camping every month or more. We replaced the unit periodically. What ruined it for us was having extremely low flow on an outing. We traced the problem to a newly purchased and installed filter unit stopped up on the second use. Some of our friends and some people we see at rallies use one- or two-cartridge filter systems and are very happy with them. We switched late in 2008 to a single (replaceable) cartridge sediment filter for the Airstream's water hose. This may prevent, or reduce the incidence of, small stones and other debris from lodging in the valves and water heater. We care even more about filtering water we are drinking or cooking. We filter our drinking water (including for hot tea) with a Brita pitcher on our counter top. It rides in the sink with the fruit basket when we are towing. Refrigerator interior fan: This looked like a good idea. Heat rises, so doesn't cold air settle to the bottom? In theory the answer is yes. In our refrigerator we have a lot of food. We open the door to take things out or put things in a few (or more) times daily, disturbing the air. The little fan, at $15 plus batteries, can accomlish almost nothing in our fridge -- there's no space for it to push the air effectively. In two years we have never frozen leafy greens despite reading interior air temperatures, at the middle, of below freezing. As Jim O'Brien at The Right Gear bicycle shop in Concord, NC, used to say, "this is a solution looking for a problem." We dumped this little accessory. Reese® hitch: You have to believe this is a great product, they're everywhere. The dealer installed one on our first Airstream. The dealer provided us with an entry-level model hitch with lifting chains for the weight distributing bars and a separate friction-type sway control. There are many choices of weight distributing hitches. We found a very effective combination weight-distributing and sway control hitch assembly when we bought our second Airstream and shopped the hitch ourselves. We eliminated counting which link to connect and prying the lifting chains and the messy friction sway control bar. We shortened the number of steps we take to hitch and unhitch. The Reese® name is popular for good reason -- I'm sure they must sell excellent products. The dealer-installed first hitch was an entry-level product in their line. We would next time either select their top of the line hitch or buy another brand. Tekonsha® Voyager® brake controller: Much the same argument as Reese® hitch, above. The problem is the less expensive model of Tekonsha (same manufacturer as the Prodigy) brake controller simply is not in the same performance class as the Prodigy. Every single trip with the Voyager required we recalibrate the controller for proper brake control. During any trip changing conditions would sometimes require fiddling with the controller settings. Tekonsha makes fantastic brake controllers. We are very pleased with our Tekonsha Prodigy® brake controller. We installed it almost two years ago and have not adjusted it since. We haven't needed to. The price difference between brake controllers is miniscule, perhaps no more than $35 between the Voyager and the Prodigy. why would you want anything less for something upon which so much depends? Through-glass 2 meter amateur radio antenna: Was it an installation error Jim made, or old adhesive on the product, or the perfect alignment of several factors leading to the failure? We'll never know, but we installed two through-glass antennas in one afternoon. Four days later we hit the road on a 100 mile trip, towing our trailer. The 2 meter amateur radio antenna blew off or was knocked off the driver's side rear window somewhere between Punta Gorda and Sarasota FL. We're returned to using the magnetic mount 2 meter antenna on the truck's roof. We could drill and install an NMO mount through the truck's roof -- the ultimate mounting method most always used in the commercial world. Through-glass CB radio antenna: The mag-mount CB antenna hit the garage door header, scraped parking deck lights and beams, and makes more difficult washing the truck's roof. Unlike the 2 meter radio antenna, the CB antenna stayed stuck on the glass. It does not work well, though. We've gone back to using the magnetic mount CB antenna on the truck's roof. It is far more effective at radiating signal power than a through-glass antenna. It is not filtered by the glass, it is taller, and it has more metal. OEM Sony® radio: This wasn't a failure, but technological obsolescence. Our radio was installed by the Airstream factory in October 2004. It was pretty cool then, with flashing display, equalizer functions, great AM/FM reception, good power, a remote control, subwoofer outputs, and a very good cd player. It couldn't play some newer formats and lacked input capability for iPod or other MP3 players. It didn't fail. It was great. It just couldn't do what we wanted. Portable small battery-powered light in bathroom: We added a stick-on $5 light on the wall above the toilet and turned it on by touching the lens. We fed it occasionally depending upon usage with rechargeable AA batteries. It produced enough light for toileting but not for showering. And it seems like it needed fresh batteries every week. Turned out to be just a little more work than it was worth. See #19 above. That's a pretty short list of disappointments. We'll continue to watch for what has turned out differently than we thought. We'll let you know if anything changes. If you are interested in our experience with, selection of, or sources for any of these accessories just ask us and we'll be glad to share with you anything we can. Return to top of this page Return to Dreamstreamr Home Improvements Page Go to Dreamstreamr Home Page E-mail Us at as4822@gmail.com (C)dreamstreamr.com 2007-2010

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