Donna came home from her trip to LA for the 5K run at Universal Studios earlier than I expected. She arrived here at Mission Bay RV Resort by 1pm Sunday. I had football on TV – I was able to get local broadcast channels but I still couldn’t access ESPN and a few other channels.

In my last post, I mentioned rain Sunday morning. It remained cloudy all day with a few light showers. In the afternoon, the wind started picking up as an area of low pressure developed over the desert. The onshore flow of wind from the Pacific was blowing east at about 20 mph. I saw a weather alert for high winds – gusts up to 40mph – from 6pm through 10am Monday morning.

I was surprised to see a couple of RVs pulling out of the park around 4pm. The normal checkout time is noon. I mentioned it to Donna and she thought maybe they arranged a late checkout to watch NFL football. I was hoping they had a short drive – I wouldn’t want to be on the road with wind gusts of 40 mph in a high-profile vehicle.

Around that time, a technician from DISH network came to check out our reception problem. He asked me what kind of antenna I had. When I told him it was a Winegard, he wondered aloud why he was sent. They only work on their (DISH) antennas, not private-branded equipment. He had a sophisticated compass device that could locate the various DISH satellites. When I told him I was only receiving 110 – not 119 or 129 – he used his equipment to locate the satellites.

The problem turned out to be simple. I thought we were oriented facing north with the back of our coach at 180 degrees – due south. His equipment showed us facing 330 degrees north-northwest with the rear of the coach at 150 degrees south-southeast. Satellite 110 is directly behind our coach with a clear line of sight, but 119 and 129 are west of there. We have a tree on the west side of the coach and tree branches were blocking the satellite signal. He also showed me that the satellites were much higher in the sky than I thought – about 53 degrees up from the horizon.

I knew a clear line of sight to the satellites was required. I just didn’t realize our orientation put two of the satellites off to our left rear. There wasn’t much I could do about it by then. Our Winegard antenna is permanently mounted on the roof and automatically locates the satellites – it’s not like I could move the antenna or point it manually to try to find a signal.

On Sunday night, we had pizza delivered from Mountain Mike’s. They are known for their outstanding pepperoni made in-house. This was the most expensive pizza I’ve ever had delivered at $30 for a 14″ pie. Although it was good pizza, I don’t think it was worth $30 plus tip for the driver.

Expensive pizza

The wind blew hard overnight. I woke up several times when the coach was rocked by gusts. The wind continued to blow throughout Monday morning. Tree branches and leaves littered the park. The cover for the Traeger grill blew off and was under the picnic table but we didn’t lose anything.

I talked to the security supervisor, Thomas, and asked him if he thought the park would trim the tree branches blocking our satellite antenna. He put in a call to have a groundskeeper come over and take a look. While I was talking to him, a guy came and asked if anyone found a 10′ x 15′ awning mat. His had blown away in the night and he couldn’t find it.

A couple of guys came over to look at the tree next to our coach. After a bit of discussion, they decided to get management approval before they tried to do anything about the branches. When they came back, they said they could remove the branches but I would have to move to coach first. They apologized and said they knew it was a pain to disconnect everything and make the coach road ready just so I could move it 50 feet away and back again. I moved the coach and they had the branches cut in about five minutes.

I backed the coach into our site – this time I positioned it about a foot further to the right of the tree to allow more clearance. Once I had everything set up, I reset the DISH receiver. Now I have satellites 110 and 119, but not 129. This is okay – I can tune in Monday Night Football on ESPN with the two satellites I’m receiving now. In the future, I’ll avoid site 135 when we’re at Mission Bay RV Resort.

Who knew the tree next to our coach was partially blocking the signal?

The wind died down Monday afternoon. Donna and I rode the scooter to Pacific Beach. I dropped Donna off at Vons supermarket to grocery shop while I went to the UPS store to ship the old receiver back to DISH. There’s nothing wrong with it, but I’ve already installed, programmed and activated the replacement so all I can do is return the old one.

When I went back to Vons to meet up with Donna I found a beer I hadn’t seen before – Stone Ruination 2.0. I’ve always liked Ruination, but what is 2.0 all about? I bought a bottle to find out. It seems Stone thought Ruination needed to be updated. It was originally released in 2002 – before the real boom in craft beer and the India Pale Ale (IPA) style became so popular.

Ruination 2.0

I drank the Ruination 2.0 while watching Monday Night Football. In my opinion, it isn’t an improvement over the original. I’m thinking maybe Stone hasn’t been able to get the same type of hops used in the original Ruination, so they developed 2.0 and are calling it an update. Marketing – who knows for sure?

I want to give a shout-out to our friend and fellow nomadic RVer, Jeff Spencer (RollingRecess). Jeff competed in the Ironman event in Tempe, Arizona on Sunday in the men’s 55-59 age group. He finished with a personal best overall time of 11:46:06 – 12th in his division. He was first in his division in the swim and won $100 for that. His time for the 2.4 mile swim was 57:11. He completed the 112-mile bicycle portion with a time of 5:59:30 and ran the 26.2-mile marathon in 4:34:34 – he picked up the pace over the last two miles to set his personal overall best time. Jeff Spencer – you are an Ironman!

Today we have fine weather – wind at five to 10 miles per hour. The temperature should reach 70 degrees after a blustery and cool high of 61 degrees yesterday. The extended forecast calls for temperatures reaching the mid to high 70s over the next several days. We’ll be off to play pickleball at the Pacific Beach Recreation Center this afternoon.