80grit

Looks like fun! Did you guys get any rain out there?

Were heading out the morning of the 24th. Sounds like a xmas day Dune Ride is in order

Great Pics!

We will be there 24th-31st.

By chance is there an outline or an agenda distributed (prior to the meeting day) that shows the topics to be discussed?

Terry Never been to one of these. What is the protocol? Are you looking for a show of support through head count or is it an audience interactive kind of meeting?

Signed petition

I have the car down at CBM getting a new clutch. Was just thinking since its already down there.......

Bob have you tried the ported heads on any of your engines? Was it worth the $'s ? I've been talking to Bruce on this upgrade. Was looking for feedback from someone thats already done it.

Bert is da man! On thanksgiving day, I was down with a CV issue. Bert dropped everything to come over and get the buggy back up and running for my wife and I. If there is ever a "Duner of the Month award", Bert should get it for his generosity!

Heading out tuesday morning. Staying through sunday.

That friday nite dune run was the best!

Ill keep it short and sweet. This past weekend was a 10 on the "fun factor meter." :ahhhhh: Security was in force at the south camp site checkpoint with these guys (Nick & Steve) Pete and Anna at the top secret checkpoint ( you had to dune in the dunes to find this checkpoint) Cash prizes for the winners Lots of fun Dune rides also Here is a couple of OGP And one last one of OGP and myself trying a synchronized double jump

Trailer is stocked, loaded, and hooked up. Heading out first thing in the morning.

On our last run, I kept hitting the button and saying "Hey Pete, can ya hear me now" "Pete, Can ya hear me now?" I thought you were just ignoring me.

No problem at all. Its easy to do. Where I was going with this thread was more to see how many people have radios at Dumont and see if we want to pick one of the frequencys as an Un-official Dumont frequency. That way if anyone had an issue and needed assistance, there would be people "on-air" monitoring. There would be people talking also but if murphys law happens, there would be people available to respond scenario. Just a thought.

Every channel has a frequency. The higher the frequency the shorter (electrically speaking) the frequency wavelength. The lower the frequency the longer the wavelength. You need an SWR meter to measure it correctly. You pick a frequency that you will be using most and lengthen or shorten the antenna to try a achieve a "Standing Wave Ratio" of one to one on that frequency. As you move up or down away from either side of that frequency, you will get electrical resistance and your antenna will not be tuned correctly for that new frequncy. Not a big deal until you get far enough away from that "tuned" frequency where your SWR reading is above 1.7 to 1. High SWR readings will cause lack of reception but worse then that will create heat and blow your output transistor (when transmitting) on your radio. Most of the 1/2 wave antennas have a small allen screw on the base of the unit. If you loosen it, you can raise or lower the steel shaft to electrically make the antenna longer or shorter to achieve the correct electrical wave length. Looking at the frequencys for Race band radios...they start at around 150.935 Mhz and stop at 157.845 Mhz. At least in my radio. I have the rugged radio also and they program all 4 banks. It seems like most of the freqs are between 151.13 through 153.500. So I am going to tune my antennas to 152 Mhz. Weatherman is 151.624 BFG Relay is 151.715 Checkers is 151.925 BFG Pits is 153.396 Anyways I have a Kenwood SWR meter (from my ham radio days) to handle that range and will bring it this weekend coming up if you want me to tune your antenna. Takes 5-10 minutes.

How many people are running race radios in their buggy’s. I know they use them quite a bit in Glamis. Curious how much they are used in Dumont. Couple weekends ago a buddy of mine and I used them to talk buggy to buggy. He has one in his trailer and we talked from the north pole back to camp area no problem. It was really clear and can connect anywhere in Dumont. I started thinking that they could be quite useful if you needed to call back to camp for a tow or tools or even an emergency situation. Does anyone use them? What frequency do you run? Is there an emergency frequency people monitor? I thought I would ask the Leo’s at Thanksgiving if they monitor any of those frequency’s also. I have been told the base station setups in the trailers will go 40 plus miles.

I have a few hurdles to jump this week still and some meetings on tuesday and wednesday that I can not get out of. But might be able to head out wednesday evening. Sounds like some good dune runs are in order for thursday.

Very cool of you to get involved and make a difference Jodi. I'll be stopping by to make a donation also.

Sounds Good Mike. Im looking forward to it. Im gonna head out thurs morning. 3 days of sand

I got the green light from the wifey today too. Looks like its gonna be a big turnout for the event.

Phil saved two of my weekends before he had the trailer out at Dumont. Drove out to his place in Pahrump and he had the parts I needed (and knowledge of what part I needed) to get me back up and running. When home is 5 hours from Dumont.....having a weekend saved is priceless!

I finished my inverter project and converted to 6 volt batterys. Here is the finished set up. Original pic of battery compartment with 2-12 volt supplys & winch connections. Here is the conversion Inverter is the white box on the left. Its a 3000 what inverter with 100 amp charger. Running two 30 amp lines to and from it. The grey box on the right is dual 120volt 30 amp breakers from the inverter (I pulled two 30 amp lines out of the inverter to feed the trailer) The next thing to the right is a 300 amp DC fuse I welded up a collar for the batterys and welded 4 steel strips under the batterys for support of the battery weight and then tied those together on each end with a threaded rod. (They wont slide out of place ) Then went with 4-300 amp hour sealed life line batterys (they are no maintenance batterys) They are 93 lbs a piece In this picture I added a sub panel to take the supply from the inverter and supply 4 - 15 circuits to the trailer. Everything but the air conditioners are on this. The panel on the right is the original panel that supplys 50 amp service to the trailer. I put in a double pole double throw 30 amp breaker in to supply the inverter with 2 - 30 amp circuits. Although I would never use that much power, it leaves the charger with plenty of power to charge the batterys at 100 amp charging rate when the generator is running. There was a small 45 watt charger where the sub panel is now and I took that out as it was no longer needed. The whole system is accessable inside the trailer via a remote control It was a fun project to tackle just took a while to plan it all out. Installation was not hard at all. Ill run some tests this next trip to see how long I can go before recharging via generator.