Greetings from Portland.. 2021 TAB400 incoming.

sponaugle

My 2021 Tab400 will arrive in July, just in time for outfitting for the Oregon Star Party.  This is the first camping trailer I have owned as I have in the past been either a tent or back of my Suburban camper.  Very excited to play around with the Tab and see what all it can do.  My 8yr old daughter is equally excited to do some camping, and my wife is happy to have us leave her a peaceful and quiet house.  

I'm primarily interested in overlanding/boondocking, so I'll probably do a few things to extend that capability - nothing too extreme, probably more solar, larger solar and land charger, lithium batteries, and a the other usual accoutrements of that kind.  I'm an electrical engineer so that part of the equation will be fun to explore.

No doubt getting out in the open land will be a nice change from the last year of pandemic work and school from home. I am relatively detail oriented, project oriented, and perhaps a bit on the over-engineering side of the equation.   I'll do my best to contribute to the collective wisdom that this forums has accumulated.   Lots of great threads to read while I wait!

Cheers!  

Jeff

(If you are interested in my particular over-engineering, you might enjoy a read of the build thread on our new house which just completed last year:   https://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=409988 )

Polanskyster

greetings, I'm from Portland as well.

DougH

@sponaugle Thank you for sharing the blog. How did you ever manage to fit so much living and avid interests into one life?

ADRawli

Yeah, I’m guessing you might not have much trouble adding mods to your new 400.  Just spent about 90 minutes of sleep time speeding through your house/garage build. Man... what a house... what a project!  Nice to know at least we will have 1 thing in common... welcome to the T@B club!!

sponaugle

DougH said:

@sponaugle Thank you for sharing the blog. How did you ever manage to fit so much living and avid interests into one life?

Thanks!  It does seem like there is a never ending list of interesting things to learn about.  I figure if I run fast enough, perhaps I'll get a few picoseconds more due to Lorentz time dilation.  

sponaugle

ADRawli said:

Yeah, I’m guessing you might not have much trouble adding mods to your new 400.  Just spent about 90 minutes of sleep time speeding through your house/garage build. Man... what a house... what a project!  Nice to know at least we will have 1 thing in common... welcome to the T@B club!!

Thanks Alan and Natalie!  It was a pretty fun project, and there are still some cool ongoing things I'll post up about soon.  Lots of really interesting specialities and crafts come together in a project like this, and it makes for a great chance to learn some stuff. I do like modding things, so I'm happy to see some of the awesome ideas here!

NorCalMike

I just ordered a 400 last weekend and expect delivery in July as well.  I suspect our respective units will be some of the last ones off the line for model year '21 so we just missed the 4% price increase.  I was told they are making switchover end of June and after 4th of July holiday they will producing MY22.  Only changes I could confirm was discontinuing Solo and blue trim option along with some graphics changes. 

dsfdogs

@sponaugle welcome! I'm in Canby (grew up on the south side of Cooper Mtn). I just spent several hours pouring over all 41 pages of your mountainside build. Holy smokes! Congratulations, it's truly impressive. I had no idea lots were sold on the edge of Forest Park. I was surprised at the low price for 20 acres but good thing considering all the below ground infrastructure you needed! I love the floor to ceiling windows and your choice for fireplace material is perfect as the view takes center stage. I probably drove past your driveway last fall when I was exploring that area again...I don't think I'd been up there since high school ('81).

I have a concern though...where will you park the 400?! I assume the garage doors are tall enough, but you are full up! 

I somehow suspect you'll tear apart the 400 and rebuild it...

Lastly, there are other ham radio operators here too.

ADRawli

@sponaugle
I guess we have more than the one thing in common, that being our T@Bs.
#2... ham call: N7OIL (thanks for pointing that out @dsfdogs.. missed in the blog).  Been a Ham since 10 years old (45yrs), but really never been all that active.  
And #3... my wife and I have vacationed in Oregon 4 or 5 times in the past 3 years or so.  Most recently, in mid January, we drove all the way from Dallas to Yachats (just south of Newport) to stay for a week.  Love that area, but a little ‘saddened’ with the ‘mess’ we noticed as we drove through Portland.  

Cheers!   
Alan

sponaugle

NorCalMike said:

I just ordered a 400 last weekend and expect delivery in July as well.  I suspect our respective units will be some of the last ones off the line for model year '21 so we just missed the 4% price increase.  I was told they are making switchover end of June and after 4th of July holiday they will producing MY22.  Only changes I could confirm was discontinuing Solo and blue trim option along with some graphics changes. 

Ah very cool.  I didn't know the model year roll over was this early in the year.  I also didn't notice the 4% price increase for next year, so that is also good news.  I'm glad I went to purchase when I did!

sponaugle

dsfdogs said:

@sponaugle welcome! I'm in Canby (grew up on the south side of Cooper Mtn). I just spent several hours pouring over all 41 pages of your mountainside build. Holy smokes! Congratulations, it's truly impressive. I had no idea lots were sold on the edge of Forest Park. I was surprised at the low price for 20 acres but good thing considering all the below ground infrastructure you needed! I love the floor to ceiling windows and your choice for fireplace material is perfect as the view takes center stage. I probably drove past your driveway last fall when I was exploring that area again...I don't think I'd been up there since high school ('81).

I have a concern though...where will you park the 400?! I assume the garage doors are tall enough, but you are full up! 

I somehow suspect you'll tear apart the 400 and rebuild it...

Lastly, there are other ham radio operators here too.

Thanks!  We were lucky to find this location, as there are not very many like this in the forest part area.  These spots were part of a partition in the original forest park land allocation that were empty until the mid 90s, and it was a real surprise to find one that had not been fully developed in 2017!   Indeed I do need to figure out where the 400 will go, but fortunately  I have until July.  The shop door is 12 ft tall, but it would be a pretty tight turn to get in there.

Always great to see other radio operators too!

sponaugle

ADRawli said:

@sponaugle
I guess we have more than the one thing in common, that being our T@Bs.
#2... ham call: N7OIL (thanks for pointing that out @dsfdogs.. missed in the blog).  Been a Ham since 10 years old (45yrs), but really never been all that active.  
And #3... my wife and I have vacationed in Oregon 4 or 5 times in the past 3 years or so.  Most recently, in mid January, we drove all the way from Dallas to Yachats (just south of Newport) to stay for a week.  Love that area, but a little ‘saddened’ with the ‘mess’ we noticed as we drove through Portland.  

Cheers!   
Alan

Excellent Alan, K7JBS here.  I was just looking around to figure out what HF radio to put in the 400.  I was thinking about getting an Icom7100, since the remote display makes it easy to put the unit close to the battery, and I could put an external antenna jack on the back side.

No doubt the mess in Portland is sad to say the least. I certainly hope things will improve this year. 

sponaugle

@sponaugle - Photos too large and deleted.  Please resize your photos.  https://tab-rv.vanillacommunity.com/discussion/47/what-size-should-my-posted-forum-photos-be#latest  Moderator

In getting ready for the Tab I have been preparing my towing vehicle, which is a new 2021 Suburban.  

Since I'm doing mostly overland stuff, I also added some radio gear.

 
I put on a Yakima platform rack that I can mount to HF verticals on.

I put a new Yaesu 400XDR 2m/440 radio with APRS for the VHF side of things, and my trust ICOM 706mkiig for mobile HF.

N7SHG_Ham

@sponaugle looks like nice clean install. I have the 400 in my shack and run a node with it. My only mobile install is in my work truck which also does duty as the Tab 400 TV and that radio is a VHF DMR which does double duty for work and amateur use. HF is for now a portable, Elecraft KX3. N7SHG