RPF0567-Accidental_Retiree_-_Small_Businesses_that_Allow_Full-Time_Travel_and_Internet_Connectivity_on_the_Road
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00:00:30.800 | I'd like to pivot now to talking about some of the nuts and bolts of technology because
00:00:36.840 | you're a real expert in that.
00:00:38.560 | And I think that'll be of help and interest to my audience and to me personally.
00:00:43.720 | It also it's a fascinating world in which we live.
00:00:47.500 | My audience is hearing our voices right now through a technology that's been developed
00:00:53.800 | 15 years ago, but really today, and it's really come into its own in the last five years,
00:00:59.280 | ever since the iPhone started automatic wireless downloading of podcasts.
00:01:06.200 | That's where this world has come into being.
00:01:08.680 | I know you don't identify, you don't listen to a lot of podcasts, you don't read a lot
00:01:12.800 | of blogs, but there's a huge community out there who does, who's interested in your knowledge.
00:01:17.680 | So let's start with techie for hire.
00:01:19.560 | What is techie for hire?
00:01:21.560 | Well, I, as I often say to people, if you don't absolutely need it, I probably specialize
00:01:30.640 | in it.
00:01:31.640 | In other words, I really do the kinds of things that a lot of the luxury items I do, you know,
00:01:40.920 | everything from satellite dish, rooftop satellite dish installations.
00:01:45.280 | I do a fair number of television retrofits, like you can see here, home theater style
00:01:51.600 | sound systems in RVs.
00:01:54.320 | I do solar installations.
00:01:56.960 | I do inverters, batteries, a lot of it's, you know, the solar has been quite big in
00:02:06.520 | the last few years.
00:02:08.760 | There's been, I can't even remember how many years it's been going on now, but there's
00:02:11.920 | been a 30% tax credit on not only solar panels, but everything related to their installation,
00:02:18.800 | the wiring, the solar charge controller, batteries, the labor, everything like that.
00:02:23.280 | You get 30% back on your taxes.
00:02:25.780 | So that's the last, probably the last three or four years I've been doing, you know, a
00:02:33.760 | fair number of solar installations.
00:02:37.360 | Internet access.
00:02:38.360 | Thank you.
00:02:39.360 | Yeah, that's huge.
00:02:40.360 | And that ranges from, I do directional wifi antennas for people that are at parks that
00:02:47.240 | have wifi, which tend to be mostly the private parks, but I've got good directional antenna
00:02:52.800 | solutions for them that make a huge difference.
00:02:55.920 | And basically my philosophy is that with an RV, that when it comes to connectivity, that,
00:03:01.560 | you know, you set up your own local area network in the RV and then you make just one connection
00:03:05.480 | to the outside world, as opposed to, you know, some people come into parks and they've got
00:03:10.480 | four or five, six devices and they're connecting each one individually to the campground.
00:03:16.320 | My approach tends to be to connect to your own internal router that puts you behind a
00:03:21.280 | firewall and gives you all the, you know, kind of nifty things that you can do when
00:03:26.080 | your devices can talk to each other.
00:03:28.320 | So I mean, something as simple as a, as wireless printing, you know, can really only reasonably
00:03:33.440 | be accomplished when, when your, your device that you want to print from and the printer
00:03:38.520 | itself are both connected to the same router.
00:03:41.440 | Typically campgrounds block that kind of thing, doing client isolation.
00:03:46.000 | So you can't connect your printer and your, your laptop to the campground router and expect
00:03:50.640 | to be able to get your print job through.
00:03:53.080 | So anyway, I mean, so a lot of it's luxury items, but then again, you could also say,
00:03:58.080 | well, for people who like this kind of camping, some of this stuff is relatively, you know,
00:04:02.680 | I mean, if you're for people like me who, who I wondered earlier in the interview, I
00:04:07.560 | was talking to you about any changes and one of the thoughts that I, and I don't know whether
00:04:12.440 | this is an exposure bias in the world that I am exposed to.
00:04:16.360 | I see a lot more younger people, a lot of people who's knit, who the nature of their
00:04:21.640 | work allows them to do things like this.
00:04:24.160 | I don't see a lot of younger families who are pursuing things that previously they wouldn't
00:04:28.960 | have done.
00:04:29.960 | So I see this exposure bias, the world that I pay attention to versus what actually is,
00:04:34.120 | but I could, I can't go on the road without some form of connectivity.
00:04:39.440 | And that can range from with my job.
00:04:41.840 | Thankfully I can, as long as I touch data once a week or so I can do things reasonably
00:04:48.480 | well.
00:04:49.480 | Some people don't need that.
00:04:50.480 | They need Monday through Friday, nine to five East coast time.
00:04:53.240 | They need to be available on chat with their office.
00:04:56.220 | And so they really need that.
00:04:57.800 | But it's very doable in today's world to adjust your level of connectivity.
00:05:02.000 | So you can be very present even though you are traveling and that's what you really specialize
00:05:06.600 | in, which is really incredible.
00:05:08.080 | Yeah, absolutely.
00:05:09.320 | And again, that's, that's gotten so much better since, even since we started RVing.
00:05:15.040 | I mean in, in we bought this rig in 2010 and you know, at that point in time, I mean cellular
00:05:26.120 | internet connectivity was just, you know, just happening to the point where you could
00:05:31.160 | think about using it for, you know, for something significant.
00:05:35.560 | But still, I mean, you know, we're talking about, I mean, I originally, I was setting
00:05:38.680 | up people with three, you know, three G types of connections, which were okay for, you know,
00:05:44.240 | for, for the kinds of things people wanted to do at that point in time.
00:05:48.480 | But really the, the kind of interesting thing that's going on with, with the internet and
00:05:54.960 | with, with our ability to connect to it is the requirements of the internet have gotten
00:06:00.080 | so much bigger over the years.
00:06:03.040 | It seems like every year I get calls from people who, you know, they're kind of accessing
00:06:08.120 | the same websites and doing the same things that they were doing the previous year and
00:06:11.760 | can't understand why they're using more data.
00:06:13.760 | Right.
00:06:14.760 | And it's like, well, that's because...
00:06:15.760 | You went from 360 on your 360 pixels.
00:06:22.120 | Anyway, you went from low def to high def on your, on your, on your videos you're viewing.
00:06:28.600 | And that makes a big difference.
00:06:29.600 | Exactly.
00:06:30.600 | In terms of bandwidth use.
00:06:31.600 | Exactly.
00:06:32.600 | Yeah.
00:06:33.600 | The photo, the photos that they're seeing on those websites, the images are all higher
00:06:35.200 | resolution.
00:06:36.200 | Yeah.
00:06:37.200 | If they're doing anything with video, it just, you know, I mean, everything that's going
00:06:41.680 | on behind the scenes with, you know, you access one individual webpage, you feel like you're,
00:06:48.400 | that's all you're accessing, but there might be, you know, there might be a dozen servers
00:06:52.840 | behind that, that are, that are all providing data to that, feeding data to that webpage.
00:06:59.100 | So let's begin, let's focus on the technology that would be helpful for somebody who's seeking
00:07:05.440 | to go on the road in some format and still be able to work.
00:07:10.920 | So they need access to communications and some data connection for their virtual work.
00:07:17.160 | What's the low hanging fruit?
00:07:18.160 | Where do you start in terms of making sure that you can establish and maintain a connection?
00:07:22.520 | Yeah.
00:07:23.520 | I, you know, I think that you probably have to, I mean, I just went through this exercise
00:07:27.520 | with somebody that I was setting up.
00:07:30.280 | We were over by a great sand dunes national park in Southern Colorado.
00:07:36.040 | And you know, they, they just knew they needed to improve their, their ability to use their,
00:07:43.360 | their devices, but they didn't really know how to go about doing it or what would be
00:07:47.800 | the best approach.
00:07:49.800 | And you know, with them, I really needed to start by talking about voice versus data and
00:07:56.120 | what was, what was important to them because there are a lot of really good ways to improve
00:08:02.400 | your data connectivity that will do absolutely nothing for your voice connectivity.
00:08:08.720 | So in, in a lot of the, a lot of the best installations that I've done and, and most
00:08:16.620 | effective have probably been, have probably been data oriented because there aren't quite
00:08:23.320 | as many things you can do to improve your voice, your voice connection.
00:08:27.960 | I mean, you can use a, you can use an amplifier like the WeBoost Drive4GX and Drive4GM are
00:08:36.200 | good recent examples of, of devices that have an inside antenna, an amplifier and an outside
00:08:43.560 | antenna that allow you, I mean, they will help both with voice and data, but they're
00:08:48.200 | not definitely not the ultimate solution for data.
00:08:52.040 | So they're, they're probably about the best thing going for voice.
00:08:57.360 | But but with, you know, if you have a really good, I'm going to have to go take care of
00:09:03.360 | that here.
00:09:04.360 | Go ahead.
00:09:05.360 | Do you want to pause for just a second?
00:09:06.360 | Yeah, absolutely.
00:09:07.360 | We got the wind kicking up and we need to go and put the awning in.
00:09:14.360 | I put mine in this morning because I was concerned about it and it's not nearly as strong.
00:09:18.760 | Did it break it?
00:09:19.760 | Did it flip up?
00:09:20.760 | It flipped up, but it's, it should be okay.
00:09:22.920 | It's not broken.
00:09:23.920 | Okay, good.
00:09:24.920 | Good.
00:09:25.920 | It's a, it's a, it's a known issue when it's windy.
00:09:31.720 | You have a beautiful rig here.
00:09:33.240 | This is, I mean, have you redone anything?
00:09:36.440 | Is it?
00:09:37.440 | Yes.
00:09:38.440 | Redone a lot?
00:09:39.440 | Yeah.
00:09:40.440 | Yes.
00:09:41.440 | Yeah.
00:09:42.440 | Yeah.
00:09:43.440 | We, we took down about four walls of mirrors.
00:09:45.440 | Okay.
00:09:46.440 | Which I guess were great sales tactics back in the, in the late nineties to make it look
00:09:52.760 | bigger, but they drove us crazy.
00:09:54.640 | So, so we took down a lot of mirrors.
00:09:57.040 | We redid the upholstery.
00:09:58.040 | Um, yeah.
00:09:59.040 | Very nice.
00:10:00.040 | Yeah.
00:10:01.040 | Yeah.
00:10:02.040 | It's supposed to gust to 30 today.
00:10:03.040 | Wow.
00:10:04.040 | Step over the top here for a second.
00:10:05.040 | I'm glad I took mine down when I did.
00:10:11.040 | You use these screens and just whenever you stop, you put these screens up and that helps
00:10:15.280 | with solar shade as well as it does.
00:10:18.920 | It's privacy.
00:10:19.920 | Yes.
00:10:20.920 | And you have them custom installed, installed the little snaps and then made.
00:10:25.640 | So if you ever run into Todd and Renee Sealy, you should definitely interview them because
00:10:30.000 | they, uh, they make these.
00:10:31.400 | Okay.
00:10:32.400 | Because it's their business.
00:10:33.400 | Yeah.
00:10:34.400 | Okay.
00:10:35.400 | They're on the road business.
00:10:36.400 | What other types of on the road businesses have you seen?
00:10:38.400 | Like, uh, well we have some good friends that have, uh, that run a website.
00:10:43.560 | They had, they actually each have their own business.
00:10:46.800 | One of them has a website called go pet friendly.com and her whole thing is, you know, trying to
00:10:54.520 | communicate with people about the best ways to, to travel with pets, where to go places
00:11:00.040 | that are, they're friendly towards, uh, having dogs on the trails and that kind of thing.
00:11:06.000 | And he's got a, um, uh, evaluation.
00:11:10.520 | He's a, an accountant and he does business valuations and a few different types of coaching.
00:11:17.600 | I guess that is probably the way that I would describe it.
00:11:21.360 | They need constant internet connectivity.
00:11:24.680 | And I've done, I've, I've upgraded.
00:11:26.800 | I mean, that's, that's a, that's another interesting thing about when it comes to internet connectivity.
00:11:32.680 | Last year's best solution is not this year's best solution.
00:11:35.960 | And you can, you can typically go, you know, you can, you can skip.
00:11:39.280 | It's not like you have to upgrade every single year, but generally when you're on the road,
00:11:43.760 | I mean, if you haven't changed the way that you connect to the internet in a couple of
00:11:48.920 | years, it's probably time to at least be looking at it.
00:11:53.120 | And I mean, I mean, I, I upgrade our system basically every year in some form or fashion.
00:11:59.800 | Um, just so that I'm on top of what the, you know, the best and latest ways to connect
00:12:05.040 | are, um, and, and to get the best performance.
00:12:09.000 | I mean, this, this, uh, you know, this, this whole thing with, with, with LTE advanced,
00:12:15.000 | which a lot of people don't even know about.
00:12:16.560 | I mean, it's been sort of a soft transition.
00:12:19.480 | I hear more people talk about 5G than they do about, about LTE advanced, but yet LTE
00:12:24.880 | advanced is, which has, um, carrier aggregation.
00:12:29.040 | So you've got multiple connections to the cell tower, uh, simultaneously, and also the
00:12:34.320 | ability to support, um, uh, MIMO antennas, just like you see on a router where you used
00:12:39.360 | to be, you'd get a router and you'd have one antenna on it.
00:12:41.560 | Right.
00:12:42.560 | And then now you see them and, you know, three is common and you see them with five and seven
00:12:46.920 | and each one of those antennas is able to do, you know, one could be sending and the
00:12:51.520 | other could be receiving and one could be operating at one frequency and the other at
00:12:55.600 | a different frequency and, um, and just, you know, doing more work and less time.
00:13:00.440 | And the same thing is going on with, uh, with cellular connectivity.
00:13:04.440 | So I mean, I've, I mean, I can't believe the, some of the numbers that I've been seeing,
00:13:08.760 | uh, in the last few years.
00:13:10.840 | Personally I've, you know, I've, I've topped out at about, uh, just short of a hundred
00:13:15.280 | megabits per second.
00:13:16.280 | This is the fastest that I've seen, but I have the equipment now, uh, with, with what's
00:13:22.000 | called a category 12 data modem.
00:13:25.280 | And um, I'm in touch with people on some of the forums that I'm active on that are able
00:13:30.720 | to, to get, uh, in the neighborhood of 200 megabits per second over a cellular data connection.
00:13:36.880 | Yeah, exactly.
00:13:37.880 | Wow.
00:13:38.880 | I know.
00:13:39.880 | So let me just simplify.
00:13:40.880 | I want to, we, we threw out a whole bunch of jargon there, so let me just simplify real
00:13:43.240 | quick.
00:13:44.240 | So thank you.
00:13:45.240 | First, when you make a distinction between voice and data, specifically what you're talking
00:13:47.280 | about is the ability to speak over a cellular connection, which is using in essence, the
00:13:53.440 | old phone systems.
00:13:55.000 | It's still piggybacked on, on the old phone systems.
00:13:57.120 | It just goes through the cellular connection.
00:14:00.040 | So that's a voice connection.
00:14:01.760 | And there are certain things that you can do to improve your ability to do that.
00:14:05.840 | So if speaking on a voice connection is important, probably the best solution there is some form
00:14:11.680 | of a cell phone amplifier, right?
00:14:13.400 | Right.
00:14:14.400 | Okay.
00:14:15.400 | And a cell phone amplifier from my understanding is a device that takes, uh, usually has two
00:14:18.960 | antennas.
00:14:19.960 | It takes an external antenna that you put outside of your home, outside of your office,
00:14:23.720 | outside of your vehicle, wherever you are, you as a, some kind of antenna that is a,
00:14:28.440 | an antenna that's optimized for more gain in the cellular bandwidth, uh, which then
00:14:33.160 | it takes that antenna passes the signal through an amplifier, amplifies it to a small internal
00:14:38.480 | antenna.
00:14:39.480 | And then that small internal antenna produces a signal that your actual cellular device
00:14:44.080 | will read, will listen to, will communicate with, and it will use that signal.
00:14:48.860 | So as long as you have some form of cellular connection, some week, at least a week cellular
00:14:54.340 | connection that's being served by the Verizon towers, the AT&T towers, et cetera, the sprint
00:14:59.180 | towers, then that amplifier will take it and amplify it.
00:15:02.580 | And you can speak on your phone using the actual built in cellular connection, uh, more
00:15:08.260 | reliably.
00:15:09.260 | And the best solution there is a cell phone amplifier.
00:15:10.900 | Right.
00:15:11.900 | Good.
00:15:12.900 | Okay.
00:15:13.900 | And, and also in that I should, I should probably just, just add on one thing to that.
00:15:17.260 | And that's that your phone needs to be very close to that inside amplifier.
00:15:21.720 | And the reason is, is because, uh, and this is a problem unique to RVs.
00:15:26.480 | You just don't have the ability to get the ideal separation between the inside and the
00:15:32.300 | outside amplifier.
00:15:34.500 | And um, uh, I think you can use the analogy of a microphone and a speaker where you can
00:15:39.160 | actually create feedback.
00:15:40.660 | Right.
00:15:41.660 | And so the inside and outside, if the antennas, if they're too close and the inside antenna
00:15:46.420 | is too powerful, then you can just end up with, with a loop with oscillation.
00:15:51.580 | So as a result, they, they make the inside, uh, antenna a very short range device to try
00:15:58.180 | to avoid reamplifying the signal from your outside antenna and creating that loop.
00:16:04.720 | So the best solution there is use some sort of wireless, uh, Bluetooth connection to your
00:16:10.860 | phone and then place the phone near the end indoor amplifier and use that to speak on.
00:16:16.060 | And Hey, I mean the very most rudimentary, um, if you're ever in an emergency, take your
00:16:20.220 | phone, put a strip of duct tape on a, on a pole, stick it up in the air and use a Bluetooth
00:16:25.020 | to speak to it.
00:16:26.020 | You can get, I've tested it.
00:16:27.020 | You can get some gain, a little bit of gain and signal that way.
00:16:29.340 | I mean it, it does make a difference if you have to.
00:16:32.660 | Yeah.
00:16:33.660 | Now on the data side and data can be used for voice connections.
00:16:36.940 | So for example, I try to almost exclusively use some sort of data application for voice
00:16:42.500 | communication and many of us do, whether that's Facebook audio, um, uh, FaceTime, Apple's
00:16:48.180 | FaceTime, uh, audio or FaceTime video, whether that's something like Skype or many other
00:16:53.780 | applications and encrypted app like signal or wire, those all work over the data network.
00:16:59.100 | So many times, like I actually, I don't really care about the phone connection.
00:17:03.020 | All I really care about is data because I don't use the phone connection.
00:17:06.220 | I just use the data connection.
00:17:08.040 | So now when data connection, you're saying there's a whole range of other things that's
00:17:11.580 | available, right?
00:17:12.980 | And you, you threw out a bunch of jargon.
00:17:14.780 | Uh, you said, yes, cell phone amplifiers can help a little bit, but really what you want
00:17:19.540 | to look at is going to multiple, uh, what was the word you used?
00:17:23.660 | Uh, MIMO.
00:17:24.660 | MIMO.
00:17:25.660 | What does that mean?
00:17:26.660 | Multiple in, multiple out.
00:17:27.660 | Okay.
00:17:28.660 | So the ability to have multiple, uh, several antennas in an array, either omni directional
00:17:32.980 | or directional.
00:17:33.980 | And with what you said, LTE advanced, that's a communications protocol that allows you
00:17:38.060 | to use a router or a switch of some kind with multiple antennas.
00:17:42.220 | And it can actually draw the signal from different carriers using the LTE protocol.
00:17:48.780 | And by aggregating those signals from different carriers is basically in my layman's understanding,
00:17:55.300 | splitting up the data packets and spent sending little bits of data packets over different
00:17:59.100 | networks, which allows you to maximize your speed.
00:18:01.940 | Is that accurate?
00:18:02.940 | Yeah, exactly.
00:18:03.940 | I mean, they're the, um, I think from an engineering standpoint, there, there are a
00:18:08.460 | lot of efforts going on to figure out how to get the most out of our existing LTE network.
00:18:15.300 | And so these are some of the developments that have happened to say, okay, well, we're
00:18:18.220 | still using the same LTE technology, but now we're able to have two streams going to the
00:18:25.620 | cell tower at the same time instead of just one.
00:18:28.820 | And it provides, it's amazing.
00:18:30.060 | I mean, um, I'm not really sure of the technical reasons for this, but, but my experience has
00:18:35.300 | been that it's, that it's typically a fourfold increase in performance.
00:18:40.780 | So if you have, you know, say you've got, uh, you know, 10 megabits per second on the
00:18:46.420 | download with, uh, without carrier aggregation, you know, with just a modem with a single
00:18:52.980 | antenna, you go to a MIMO setup with carrier aggregation and suddenly that same location,
00:18:58.780 | everything else, the same, you could be seeing 40 megabits.
00:19:02.180 | So if I wanted to set up on my own rig, my own MIMO setup, where do I start?
00:19:07.500 | What brand names do I look at?
00:19:08.580 | How do I figure that out?
00:19:10.140 | Yeah, it's, um, I wish it was a little bit, uh, uh, easier to put these systems together.
00:19:16.540 | I mean, I suppose you wouldn't make as much money as you do.
00:19:19.460 | I'm glad for your sake.
00:19:20.460 | It's still a little bit hard.
00:19:21.460 | Yeah.
00:19:22.460 | So, so, um, anyway, it's kind of interesting because the, the, the cell phone industry
00:19:28.980 | in a lot of ways maybe is going in, in a little bit different direction.
00:19:33.340 | I mean, cell phones themselves have actually gotten quite a bit better in the last few
00:19:38.420 | years.
00:19:39.420 | I mean, it's not unusual for, uh, for a high end cell phone now to not only have carrier
00:19:44.700 | aggregation, but have something called four by four MIMO, which means that, uh, you've
00:19:49.620 | actually got four antennas built into a cell phone and, you know, you think of the size
00:19:53.780 | of a cell phone, what difference could that possibly make?
00:19:56.260 | But it does make a huge difference.
00:19:58.680 | So having a, you know, having the kind of the best possible phone that you, technology
00:20:03.460 | available is, is helpful.
00:20:05.500 | But anyway, back to your question about as far as data, um, the, uh, for a long time,
00:20:11.800 | the USB modems were, and there's, there are, uh, there's a company called cradle point
00:20:17.500 | and another one called a pep wave that make, um, uh, routers that are specifically designed
00:20:24.100 | with USB ports that are designed for cellular USB modems.
00:20:28.420 | Unfortunately the, between people with phones and, and, uh, the ability to hotspot their
00:20:35.300 | phones and also with these little my fi devices that, uh, that are just easy for the stores
00:20:42.020 | to deal with and sell and explain USB modems have been kind of fading away a little bit,
00:20:50.140 | but the good news is that there are still some, some, um, standalone modem devices.
00:20:56.340 | Uh, Sierra wireless is a company that makes, that makes some really good ones and they're,
00:21:02.700 | they're targeted more at the internet of things world where, you know, with the idea that
00:21:09.660 | you could say like having, you know, an ATM manufacturer could just have a place where
00:21:14.500 | they can plug in a modem and then that, that, that ATM machine can talk, you know, over
00:21:20.820 | their encrypted network to, uh, and, and, uh, you know, back to the bank or, or whatever,
00:21:27.260 | whatever clearing house is being used.
00:21:29.180 | But anyway, those same modems, which have, you know, which have gone from sort of category
00:21:34.220 | three category four modems now to, um, uh, category 12 technologies online, category
00:21:42.340 | 16 is coming and those little card style modems can be put in a USB enclosure and then that
00:21:50.220 | USB enclosure can be connected to a router device.
00:21:54.300 | And I've been also moving away from the kind of mainstream manufacturers like cradle point
00:22:00.620 | and I've been, uh, the last half dozen installations that I've done have all been, uh, where I've
00:22:06.900 | put the solution together with individual pieces using, um, using a really inexpensive
00:22:13.540 | project computer called a Raspberry Pi that can actually be turned into a router, combining
00:22:18.680 | a Raspberry Pi with one of these, uh, uh, card style modems, connecting the two of them
00:22:26.780 | together and then connecting the modem to, uh, to two antennas, external antennas.
00:22:33.180 | And the performance has been unbelievable, uh, compared to, you know, it's been a, it's
00:22:37.940 | been a, uh, a significant jump, you know, from, from what I was doing to, to what I've
00:22:43.100 | got going on now with those setups.
00:22:46.020 | And also the other great thing with this open source router software that I'm using, you
00:22:51.100 | really get great visibility to, to what's going on with the modem.
00:22:55.260 | You know, it's, it's much more transparent as opposed to the industry trend, which is
00:23:00.040 | towards sort of opaqueness with, you know, the real kind of nuts and bolts.
00:23:04.260 | So for people who don't care about that stuff, they don't have to, you know, they don't really
00:23:07.880 | have to pay attention to it, but for people who do want to know, well, geez, what, you
00:23:12.180 | know, what is my real signal strength right now?
00:23:15.220 | Uh, what, you know, what are my, uh, in the, in the three G era, it was something called
00:23:20.660 | RSSI in the, in the LTE era, it's called RSCP, but it's just a, a measurement of the quality
00:23:27.420 | of your signal.
00:23:28.420 | Um, you can get real numbers off of, you know, off of this kind of setup.
00:23:32.820 | You can tell what band you're connected to.
00:23:35.060 | You can actually see when, when you've got two bands that are aggregating together.
00:23:39.780 | Um, and, uh, you know, there's, there's lots of configurability.
00:23:43.820 | So it just, it allows everything from sort of the just person who wants a good setup
00:23:50.380 | that's going to work well for them to sort of the power user that really wants information
00:23:54.420 | to, uh, to be able to, you know, get what they're looking for out of a setup like that.
00:23:58.740 | So you're a power user and with your setup, which is admittedly advanced and admittedly
00:24:06.060 | you're, you're a geek, you're dealing with this, you're on the cutting edge.
00:24:09.940 | So with your setup, however, given that you spend a lot of time in rural areas, if you
00:24:16.220 | had a job that was nine to five that required you to be accessible with reasonable speeds,
00:24:22.380 | chat, little bit of video conferencing, you know, multiple times per week is the current
00:24:27.780 | setup in the United States sufficient that you could do that and work full time on a
00:24:32.180 | nine to five schedule with the type of advanced setup that you do?
00:24:37.300 | Susan's shaking her head.
00:24:38.300 | No.
00:24:39.300 | And she's right in that you can't do it everywhere.
00:24:42.180 | Okay.
00:24:43.180 | Okay.
00:24:44.180 | So, um, I mean, there still are places in the, I mean, this is the thing, which I'm
00:24:47.700 | really glad there are places like that because I don't want, yeah, I don't want everywhere
00:24:51.900 | to be on the grid.
00:24:52.900 | I really don't.
00:24:53.900 | I want to be off the grid myself.
00:24:54.900 | Right, right.
00:24:55.900 | So, yeah, I mean, there still are, there still are lots of places in the country where, you
00:25:01.180 | know, you're, you're absolutely challenged to get a decent cellular signal.
00:25:05.900 | It's been, it's pretty rare these days when we have no cellular whatsoever.
00:25:14.260 | Once in a while it happens, but, but generally we've got at least, you know, the kind of
00:25:19.820 | can do the basics, you know, we can, we can send and receive a text messages.
00:25:25.500 | We can check our email, we can, you know, we can order something if we need to, we can
00:25:30.220 | look at the news, that kind of stuff.
00:25:33.500 | But that next level, which I think, you know, if you're, if you're a remote worker, you
00:25:39.380 | know, typically you need, you need more than that.
00:25:43.860 | Maybe not every day, but I mean, you certainly need it.
00:25:46.340 | Like, I mean, you were saying you needed to, what, every five days or something, you've
00:25:49.700 | got to have a decent connection.
00:25:51.940 | So, but the, the situation has changed dramatically in terms of, I mean, we just came from, from
00:25:58.460 | a place above Steamboat Springs at about 9,500 feet.
00:26:02.940 | I was talking about that earlier called Rabbit Ears Pass.
00:26:06.460 | And there was a review on there from, I don't know, last year, maybe where the guy was saying
00:26:11.780 | that, you know, there's a whiff of Verizon and that's about it.
00:26:15.820 | We were getting 10 megabits on, on Verizon.
00:26:18.340 | So with 10 megabits, I mean, you know, we were streaming, we were, we can do everything.
00:26:22.300 | We did team viewer.
00:26:23.340 | You can, I mean, there's, there's no, you know, anything above about three megabits,
00:26:29.980 | maybe four megabits, you're really up into the territory where you, most anything I can
00:26:34.140 | do.
00:26:35.140 | Right.
00:26:36.140 | So I'd say I'm amazed at how many places are like that, where you can do that in pretty
00:26:41.420 | remote places.
00:26:43.620 | When we were in Breckenridge, which was kind of just before Rabbit Ears Pass.
00:26:49.260 | I mean, that's, you know, it's a small kind of vacation skiing community.
00:26:54.140 | And I mean, we had, we had performance as good as, as I see in, you know, when we're
00:26:58.740 | close to any big city, right.
00:27:00.380 | I mean, just absolutely top, you know, LTE type performance.
00:27:04.180 | So the, the you don't have to limit yourself much.
00:27:08.660 | I mean, the couple that I was talking about earlier that have the, the GoPet friendly
00:27:13.540 | website and do the valuation business.
00:27:16.340 | I mean, they, they need a good connection pretty much every day.
00:27:21.620 | And and, and they, for, for quite a few years, they were, you know, they would stay really
00:27:28.080 | focused on the areas that, that where they knew they would have really good connectivity.
00:27:33.540 | But I, but I know with the installations that I've done for them three, four years ago,
00:27:39.300 | and again, this last year, I mean, they've, they're now able to expand out into places
00:27:43.380 | that they wouldn't have considered before because they, they, they know they can get
00:27:47.380 | the connectivity they need.
00:27:48.980 | If somebody were going to hire someone like you for just a good setup and then fund it
00:27:56.340 | with the appropriate lines that you would recommend, how much does it cost to install
00:28:00.500 | some good current gear and how much does it cost per month?
00:28:04.660 | Yeah.
00:28:05.660 | Okay.
00:28:06.660 | So the, I mean, I, so I charge $65 an hour and you know, something like the setup, a
00:28:16.380 | couple of the recent setups I've done, I, I suppose between the hardware and, and the
00:28:23.340 | labor, they tend to run up around $700, maybe something like that, seven, $800, you know,
00:28:32.300 | for me to do all the work and for me to show them how to use it, that kind of thing.
00:28:36.860 | And probably half of that is labor and half.
00:28:39.060 | So about a thousand dollars.
00:28:40.400 | Somebody has a budget of a thousand dollars.
00:28:41.400 | Oh yeah.
00:28:42.400 | They can get a good strong setup.
00:28:43.400 | Yeah.
00:28:44.400 | And then how much does it cost with the plans, multiple SIM cards, et cetera?
00:28:47.940 | Sure.
00:28:48.940 | How much does it cost in a month to maintain a good connection?
00:28:51.020 | Yeah.
00:28:52.020 | So you kind of have to jump on the good, the good data plan options when they're out
00:28:57.540 | there and they, they, they tend to come and go.
00:29:02.340 | The I, we used to only have Verizon, but in the last couple of years we've expanded down
00:29:07.740 | to where I have SIM cards from Verizon, AT&T and Sprint.
00:29:14.100 | And we just, you know, we've been able to get good deals along the way, but we just,
00:29:18.760 | we just redid our Verizon plan as an example.
00:29:22.300 | And we put, we put one, one of our phones on the, what Verizon now is calling their
00:29:30.780 | above unlimited plan, which, which is, you know, there was unlimited and then they went
00:29:36.140 | to beyond unlimited and now they have above unlimited and all three of those exist simultaneously.
00:29:41.700 | Above is their top connection.
00:29:43.300 | But, but, but the above unlimited plan gives you 70, it gives you, it's unlimited data,
00:29:54.240 | but up to 75 gigabytes a month before there would be the possibility of being deprioritized.
00:30:02.440 | And it gives you 20 gigabytes of hotspot data.
00:30:06.040 | And then that, that's a, that's basically your, when you get to that 20 gigabytes, they
00:30:11.000 | drop you down to pretty much of an unusable level.
00:30:14.360 | But the nice thing is, is that you can add additional for 20 bucks per device.
00:30:21.220 | You can add additional devices to that.
00:30:23.720 | And each one of them gives you another 15 gigabytes a month.
00:30:27.540 | So you can, you can pretty much go from there.
00:30:29.200 | We just signed up for a $160 a month plan, which is the most we've ever paid for, for
00:30:35.120 | cellular, but I'm actually pretty happy with it.
00:30:37.920 | I mean, we've got, you know, we, so we've got that, we've got that phone plan and we've
00:30:41.680 | got three additional data device.
00:30:43.800 | Each, you know, each of them able to do another 15 gigabytes a month.
00:30:48.960 | So you're looking at 15 plus 45 pluses.
00:30:53.000 | So 65 gigabytes a month for $160.
00:30:58.480 | And each, you know, each device can be on a different, at a different level.
00:31:01.640 | You don't have to, not all of them have to be on above unlimited.
00:31:04.680 | You can have one phone if you have multiple phones.
00:31:07.080 | So anyway, I mean, I think, I think that, uh, and it's not a contract, which is great.
00:31:12.720 | Right.
00:31:13.720 | And the point is that with that plan, you're using that as functionally your TV service.
00:31:18.800 | I would assume you have just a high definition broadcasting, but you also are using the data
00:31:23.040 | for internet streaming, TV, entertainment, Netflix, that type of thing.
00:31:28.280 | That's also your work.
00:31:29.340 | So you're using it for all of your work, internet connection, and then also just your normal
00:31:32.960 | personal browsing of the internet and your personal connectivity.
00:31:36.280 | So if you were to take $165 a month, if that's sufficient, plus the gear, and you were to
00:31:41.040 | compare that to many people's monthly budgets, that's in line, even living on the road, that's
00:31:45.560 | in line and perhaps less than many people and their monthly budgets for all those services
00:31:49.840 | for home internet, for home TV, for home, right.
00:31:52.680 | For cellular service.
00:31:53.680 | Yeah.
00:31:54.680 | And at the same time, not being particularly limited, right.
00:31:57.280 | You know, having, having an, you know, equivalent type of service.
00:32:00.520 | Right.
00:32:01.520 | And that, that I think is a huge change from, from when we started RVing.
00:32:05.160 | I mean, there was a clear difference between what you could do in a residence and what
00:32:08.560 | you could do in an RV.
00:32:09.560 | And I think those lines have really blurred.
00:32:11.320 | That's exciting.
00:32:12.320 | Yeah.
00:32:13.320 | So where do you winter?
00:32:14.320 | And if somebody wants to hire you, how do they get ahold of you?
00:32:16.680 | Okay.
00:32:17.680 | For you to work on their rig.
00:32:18.840 | Because certainly having seen your setup, I'll affirm, you know, Scott's designing his
00:32:22.400 | own equipment.
00:32:23.480 | He's designing his own enclosures.
00:32:25.200 | He's putting stuff together in a really powerful way.
00:32:27.780 | And there's not a chance in the world that I could create something that is just simply
00:32:31.240 | as well done.
00:32:32.240 | And it's going to last as long as what you're doing.
00:32:35.160 | And for somebody who's needs it, definitely they should be hiring somebody like you just
00:32:40.080 | to install it and consider it a cost of getting on the road.
00:32:44.360 | Because for many people, if they have that reliable connection, it can make a difference.
00:32:48.280 | You know, last week I had some important calls and I had a plan, you know, I went down from
00:32:53.080 | where we are to the city that's 45 minutes away to get a reliable connection.
00:32:57.280 | But I found what I thought was a reliable wifi connection and it was in the beginning.
00:33:02.540 | But then as more and more people started using it, then my signal degraded and I didn't have
00:33:06.200 | a plan and I need to have, yes, I only need it about once a week, but once a week I need
00:33:11.040 | to have a reliable connection.
00:33:12.440 | And that is a make or break it thing for me.
00:33:14.960 | It makes a difference between my being able to do what I do.
00:33:17.760 | And so for many people, this is a, used to be maybe bill pay was an issue.
00:33:22.760 | Today many people, this is the sticking point.
00:33:24.800 | Can I work from the road?
00:33:25.880 | And to do that, they need the connection.
00:33:27.800 | Yeah.
00:33:28.800 | So how do they get ahold of you and, and, and sure.
00:33:31.040 | Yeah.
00:33:32.040 | So, um, uh, so for five months of the year, we're in, in and around Fountain Hills, Arizona,
00:33:37.200 | which is a kind of an extension of Scottsdale.
00:33:40.720 | Um, and, uh, we're in one of two parks.
00:33:45.120 | Um, the, we're in a private park for, for some of that time called Eagle view RV resort.
00:33:52.040 | And the other park, um, that's on the other side of Fountain Hills, they're only about
00:33:55.480 | 15, 20 minutes apart, uh, is called McDowell mountain regional park.
00:34:01.560 | And that's, uh, that's a Maricopa County park.
00:34:04.880 | So they, they have, they have very different fields.
00:34:07.480 | The, uh, Eagle view, one of the reasons we kind of got going there and stayed there,
00:34:13.720 | um, we used to spend the entire five months there because we actually, they've got a couple
00:34:18.560 | dozen sites there that have hardwired internet.
00:34:21.760 | And uh, you know, five, six, seven, eight years ago, that was magic.
00:34:26.920 | Um, we could, you know, we could really do a lot with that.
00:34:29.800 | And, and when I was, you know, I was doing work for people with their laptops and that
00:34:34.000 | kind of, it wasn't unusual for me to have to do a, you know, one gigabyte download just
00:34:37.720 | to update somebody's laptop.
00:34:40.120 | And so that was great for that.
00:34:41.940 | But anyway, now with, uh, you know, with what we've just been talking about with the fact
00:34:45.520 | that the cellular is so good, it doesn't really matter to me.
00:34:48.880 | As a matter of fact, last winter, I didn't even sign up for the campgrounds, um, uh,
00:34:54.520 | hardwire internet.
00:34:55.520 | I just use sprint.
00:34:56.520 | Um, and, uh, it's the least expensive plan that I have.
00:35:00.960 | And I, you know, I would get 80 megabits off a sprint at either, at either of those two
00:35:05.880 | campgrounds with, you know, relatively, uh, unlimited usage.
00:35:11.040 | So yeah.
00:35:12.040 | And then as far as getting in touch with me, the best way is probably, uh, my email address,
00:35:16.960 | which is techie for hire at live.com.
00:35:21.160 | So that's T E C H I E, the number four and then H I R E at live.com.
00:35:29.760 | And um, yeah, for those five months, I mean, I'm, I, I'm working, uh, most of the week
00:35:36.400 | and then the other seven months, I mean, I do projects for people in campgrounds.
00:35:41.480 | So, um, if somebody wants to try to rendezvous with me at a place like this, I mean, it's
00:35:46.640 | usually the biggest challenge is just getting ahold of the stuff we have to order and where
00:35:50.280 | to, you know, I'd say, I'd say that's one thing that hasn't, uh, that probably hasn't
00:35:54.480 | improved that much with, uh, with this kind of, of lifestyle is it's still difficult to,
00:36:00.520 | you know, actually physically get a package.
00:36:02.520 | Yep.
00:36:03.520 | But, um, but you know, you figure it out.
00:36:05.000 | I mean, there's, there, there are ways.
00:36:06.680 | And, uh, we just, when we were in, uh, Breckenridge, I mean, now that Amazon owns Whole Foods,
00:36:12.920 | they've started putting in lockers at the Whole Foods locations.
00:36:16.760 | And so we were using that.
00:36:17.760 | As a matter of fact, the only limitation there was the fact the lockers were full.
00:36:21.640 | Uh, every other time we tried to use them, we'd have to wait a day for people to pick
00:36:25.800 | up their stuff at, uh, at the Amazon locker.
00:36:28.520 | But, um, anyway, so that's, that's, that's the only thing about, uh, uh, about, uh, doing
00:36:34.960 | projects in the summer is, is just, you know, I mean, I keep, I keep the small stuff on
00:36:39.680 | hand.
00:36:40.680 | I've got, uh, a little less than about three quarters of a ton worth of tools and parts
00:36:46.000 | in my, in my, uh, lower bays that you saw down there.
00:36:50.120 | And I keep all the, you know, the small stuff that you need to, to do a project.
00:36:53.840 | But, but when it comes to putting in something like, you know, like a solar system, I mean,
00:36:57.880 | obviously there are big panels and, and, uh, that kind of thing that have to show up.
00:37:02.360 | But I just, I did a, an installation for somebody at, on the Mogollon Rim in Arizona at a forest
00:37:08.760 | service campground.
00:37:10.320 | They just ordered everything.
00:37:11.320 | They were at a private campground.
00:37:12.760 | They ordered everything.
00:37:13.760 | It all got delivered.
00:37:14.760 | They threw it in their car, drove up to, uh, the Mogollon Rim at 9,000 feet.
00:37:19.840 | And, and I did the whole installation right there.
00:37:22.520 | That's great.
00:37:23.520 | Closing words of advice.
00:37:25.040 | If you were speaking to your younger selves, somebody listening to this, who's working
00:37:30.080 | in Chicago and a corporate job and has said, wow, you know, so interesting.
00:37:35.160 | What, what closing thoughts would you give, uh, to such a listener?
00:37:39.480 | Start with you, Susan.
00:37:40.480 | Yeah.
00:37:41.480 | What do you think, Susan?
00:37:42.480 | I would say that, um, you, you should try it.
00:37:49.960 | You won't have any regrets.
00:37:51.720 | Yeah, exactly.
00:37:53.520 | Yup.
00:37:54.520 | And even with the fear of not knowing what's the worst that could happen, it's not all
00:37:59.280 | that bad, right?
00:38:00.280 | You can always go back to work, start a new business.
00:38:04.640 | And we didn't talk in part one, when we talked about RV finances, I'll tell you this, the
00:38:09.960 | thing that I have been so interested in with RV finances as a financial planner, a mobile
00:38:16.240 | lifestyle, whether it's sailboats or especially RVs, because sailboats, as you discussed,
00:38:20.520 | have a lot of costs, but a lot of those costs also are associated with moving.
00:38:24.000 | If you just had a sailboat and you anchored up in a Harbor that was reasonable, you can,
00:38:29.880 | you don't need new charts every year.
00:38:31.160 | You can diminish a lot of those things.
00:38:32.620 | You can scrub the bottom yourself.
00:38:33.880 | You know, you can, you can lower a lot of those expenses, but especially in RVing.
00:38:37.960 | One of the amazing things about the RV lifestyle is you can adjust your expenses as necessary.
00:38:43.360 | I've talked and read about and talked with people who are living on very low budgets,
00:38:48.560 | a thousand dollars a month total, and they just simply have the opportunity to adjust
00:38:54.560 | their lifestyle.
00:38:55.780 | So most people don't have the ability to eliminate their rent payments when they need to, but
00:39:00.200 | people who are living on very low budgets, if they have a big expensive repair, they
00:39:04.080 | spend a month out on BLM land.
00:39:06.120 | They don't drive, they don't use fuel.
00:39:08.160 | They just spend a month out there and their costs are very low.
00:39:11.440 | And then when they save up their money, they get the next social security check.
00:39:14.280 | Then they go ahead and they fill their tank and they move on, et cetera.
00:39:17.200 | Now, obviously that's not the budgets that, that, that either you or I are living on,
00:39:22.040 | but that is something unique to RVing.
00:39:24.180 | So if you try something like that and it doesn't work out, you can always transition back in.
00:39:29.640 | I say a lot easier than a lot of people could do.
00:39:32.400 | You can pivot, you can pivot very quickly.
00:39:34.400 | Right.
00:39:35.400 | Yeah, absolutely.
00:39:36.400 | Scott, your closing words.
00:39:37.400 | I took over the thing, but what closing words would you have?
00:39:41.720 | Oh gosh.
00:39:42.720 | Yeah.
00:39:43.720 | I mean, I would say much the same thing.
00:39:46.360 | It's, it's, you know, I think that you don't, you don't necessarily have to have, you know,
00:39:53.800 | a huge plan and I wouldn't, I wouldn't over process on it either.
00:39:57.880 | I mean, I think that we've, when I, when I look back at our, kind of our younger selves,
00:40:05.520 | you know, we were constantly, we'd go on a, we'd go on a one week vacation to a place
00:40:09.520 | like this and we'd pack everything in the car that, you know, we could possibly ever,
00:40:14.040 | you know, the rollerblades, the, the bikes, the, you know, golf clubs, you know, we were
00:40:18.200 | going to do all this stuff.
00:40:19.480 | Plus we were going to catch up on reading and, you know, whatever else that, that we,
00:40:23.760 | anything that we hadn't been able to do because we were working.
00:40:26.640 | And I think that, that, you know, it's just amazing when you, when you kind of just, just
00:40:32.600 | pull it back a little bit and, and, you know, just go slowly.
00:40:36.560 | I mean, we, we never drive more than about 550 or a hundred miles a day.
00:40:43.880 | We were spending the entire summer in Colorado, you know, there's no reason to, we don't have
00:40:47.960 | to see the entire US and, you know, in a six month period or something like that.
00:40:52.920 | So anyway, I would say just give, give yourself a chance, go out, give it a try and, you know,
00:40:58.760 | let the lifestyle, let the lifestyle kind of come to you, you know, cause it, it, you
00:41:04.280 | know, it's amazing how transformative I think it can be and, and how much things that maybe
00:41:09.080 | you thought you needed or were really important, just wash away, just disappear.
00:41:14.120 | Yeah.
00:41:15.120 | Well, techie for hire at live.com.
00:41:17.320 | If you'd like to get in touch with Scott, Scott, thank you for coming on the interview.
00:41:20.040 | I did twist your arm just a little tiny bit.
00:41:22.640 | Scott wasn't looking for publicity.
00:41:24.000 | He wasn't necessarily out doing this.
00:41:26.440 | He didn't send me an email like so many people do wanting to get on the show.
00:41:29.240 | He is not really involved in reading about this stuff.
00:41:33.160 | He's just involved in doing it.
00:41:34.720 | So thank you for coming on techie for hire at live.com.
00:41:37.120 | Scott and Susan, thank you both.
00:41:38.520 | All right.
00:41:39.520 | Thanks.
00:41:40.520 | Thank you for listening.
00:41:41.520 | You've honored me with your time and attention, and I'm grateful for that.
00:41:46.000 | And I hope that I've effectively served you today with some ideas and strategies and tactics
00:41:50.800 | and techniques and tools that will help move you towards your goals.
00:41:55.520 | Before you go, three simple requests.
00:41:57.880 | One, if there's an idea that's been helpful to you in today's show, make a plan to take
00:42:03.640 | action on it.
00:42:05.680 | Listening does lead to learning, but learning in and of itself doesn't automatically lead
00:42:11.080 | to a life change.
00:42:13.440 | It's action that leads to a life change.
00:42:17.400 | So take action.
00:42:19.120 | Two, take something that was helpful to you in today's show and share it with somebody
00:42:24.760 | that you care about.
00:42:26.320 | I'm depending on you to be a co-laborer with me in helping me to propagate the message
00:42:33.520 | that I'm seeking to share.
00:42:35.980 | That helps the person that you are engaging with.
00:42:39.480 | And it also helps you because teaching others is one of the most effective ways for you
00:42:44.100 | to learn and for you to cement your learning.
00:42:48.680 | Three, if there's an idea that's been specifically helpful to you and if you're gaining financial
00:42:53.960 | benefit from Radical Personal Finance, I'd be grateful if you'd consider paying me for
00:42:58.680 | this work voluntarily.
00:43:01.320 | Come by radicalpersonalfinance.com/patron and you can sign up there to support the show
00:43:05.560 | at whatever level you feel is right for you.
00:43:08.800 | This is a voluntary support.
00:43:10.600 | That's my Patreon page.
00:43:12.220 | You can support me with a dollar a month, $5 a month, $10 a month, any number that seems
00:43:17.240 | right to you.
00:43:18.240 | If you're gaining financial benefit from this show, and if it's achieving financial results
00:43:23.820 | in your life, I'd be grateful for your financial support at radicalpersonalfinance.com/patron.
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