17 Feb to 11 March 2014

Well we travelled back to Brissie in 2 days only to be told Springers couldn't look at the van till Monday, even though we were told they would look at it Friday.  They eventually found the LNB gadget was out of wack by about 30 degrees, so they replaced the entire system, then all working well.  They tested the solar panels & found one of the so called good quality BHP panels had delaminated & the other one probably wasn't far behind it, so off with them both & on with 2 new 140w panels giving us 545w in total.  No warranty as BHP Solar don't exist anymore.  We had bought a Jack antenna on the way and wanted to mount it on the old Winegaurd base but unfortunately it was too close to the sat dish.  Springers suggested placing a Saturn 4000 antenna in between the new panels as it supposedly doesn't have to be raised or rotated as it is omni-directional.  What a load of crap that turned out to be, no signal at all where we camped just out of Stanthorpe & everyone else with winegaurds had about 24 channels.  Once back at Lawnton we got some channels but not any of sevens which is the one we mostly use.  We want this to be working for places where you want local news or if the sat dish is obstructed.

We spent a week on a property near Stanthorpe where our friend Don was celebrating his 70th birthday.  About 100 or so attended with many camping in vans, campers & tents.  It was a fantastic night with 4 fires burning, hot food supplied & a great band to boot.

We had planned to head up to Tin Can Bay via inland roads but headed back to our home base of Lawnton Showgrounds once again.  On the way near Warwick the fuel filter warning light came on & luckily I carry a spare.  With the assistance of Dennis Smith we changed the filter & continued on our way.  I got up to check on the mounting of the Saturn antenna & noticed the roof had sagged under the sat dish causing the edge strip to pull away from the side wall.  Not happy Jan!!!  I had said to Paul at Springers that I was not happy with the way it was mounted & he assured me that there would be no problem.  Crap, double crap!!!!!