Tuesday, December 8, 2009 - Brantley Lake State Park, Carlsbad NM

Remembering Site 37, Brantley Lake State Park, Carlsbad NM, December 7, 2009

Front tire balance

I rolled out early this fog shrouded morning to breakfast at the Pecos River Cafe before heading across the street to Forrest Tire to see when they might have time to rebalance the front tires. Forrest Tire got me right in and computer balanced them.

I haven't had a chance to see what effect the balancing made. Today was very windy and with the headwind heading back to Brantley I couldn't tell.

More on my loss of Verizon service at Site 42 yesterday

I set up on Site 42 again tonight, thinking I'd survive the night without an internet connection and head out tomorrow to either Leasburg Dam State Park, Radium Springs NM above Las Cruces or to Oliver Lee Memorial State Park, Alamogordo NM south of Alamogordo. But sitting here looking at the 3-4 bar signal (both EVDO and 1X) on my cell phone I was puzzled by my inability to connect to the internet. On a whim I unplugged my USB modem from the WiFi router I use and plugged it directly into the laptop. Bingo!. Huh?

I normally have the modem plugged into the router and use a Wilson amplifier to boost the signal into the modem. If memory serves, I've read that sometimes amplifiers can cause disturbances to a cell system that negatively affect the signal to other customers and even to other carriers using the same tower. Is it possible that this area with its oilfield service trucks running all over the place that there are more amplifiers in use here than in most areas and that perhaps Verizon deals with amps differently here than they do elsewhere? I'm not savvy enough about this stuff to know what's really going on but I'll take my new found connection, thank you very much.

As I write this I have the modem plugged back into the router, the amplifier is turned off and the signal is fine.

I'm staying put

Now that I have my ongoing mechanical crises subdued for a while I need a break - I'm going to stay on here for a few days of R&R.

Night camp

Site 42 - Brantley Lake State Park, Carlsbad NM

• Verizon cell phone service - Access is via Extended Network, roaming
• No Verizon EVDO service - access is via the Extended Network and service varies with many drop-outs.
• See a list of the nights I've camped at Brantley Lake State Park
• Locate Brantley Lake State Park on my Night Camps map
• Go to Brantley Lake State Park website
• Locate services on my Resources map
• Check the weather here