Date: Thu, 9 Apr 2009 13:34:18 -0700
Reply-To: Rocket J Squirrel <camping.elliott@GMAIL.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Rocket J Squirrel <camping.elliott@GMAIL.COM>
Subject: Re: was solar panels, now gen. noise
In-Reply-To: <003001c9b94c$112fad00$338f0700$@com>
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Right on. But you make my point: Next to a river or busy highway, those
bitty generators are drowned out and perfectly acceptable. On the other
hand, quiet campgrounds where all you can hear are breezes in the tree
boughs and birdies chirping are 20 to 40dB quieter than places with
continuous background noise and the sound of the generator can really
carry. Those are the places I like to camp.
There was a fellow in a quiet CG near Lake Arrowhead that fired up his
construction-site type generator for a few hours each day. The racket
carried for a mile or more. I was gonna ask the campground host if she
could maybe put a bug in his ear or something, but two things dissuaded me
from bringing it up:
1. She drove from campsite to campsite twice a day in a stunningly noisy
Diesel pickup. Could hear that thing clattering 20 minutes before she got
to my site. She didn't like to turn it off when pausing to chat (why is it
that the people with the noisiest engines are the least likely to turn
them off?) so I had to literally shout over the sound of the engine to be
heard by her, and me standing only a few feet away from her truck. So I
guarantee that she never, ever, heard his generator over the rattle and
roar of that beast.
2. She mentioned that the fellow had been in the CG for a few weeks
because his house had been damaged in a fire. So I felt the man was
already going through enough misery w/o being hassled by someone whining
about his generator noise.
--
Mike "Rocket J Squirrel" Elliott
84 Westfalia: Mellow Yellow ("The Electrical Banana")
74 Utility Trailer. Ladybug Trailer, Inc., San Juan Capistrano
Bend, OR
KG6RCR
On 4/9/2009 12:47 PM Robert Fisher wrote:
> On one of our camping trips last year our next-spot neighbor had one of those wee-bitty Hondas that he was using to charge the house batteries in his travel trailer. He ran it from around 9 a.m. to lunchtime each day- plugged it in and sort of shoved it under the trailer. I only knew because I saw him do it; I couldn't hear it over the noise of the river, the kids playing and my wife listening to (low-level) music via her zune/sirius boombox. I didn't smell it either.
> In contrast, my step-dad, on the other side of us fired up the 80's era Onan gennie in his motor home in the afternoon and basically drowned out the world, and it stank. I mentioned to him at one point that he might consider doing himself and the world a favor and upgrading to something more modern and he got a little defensive, but that's the way that goes. Sometimes a 'seed planted' is sufficient; they're considering getting rid of the behemoth altogether and getting something from this century.
> The point is, the little Honda wasn't bad at all from maybe 30-40 ft. away.
>
> Cya,
> Robert
>
> --snip--
> No sir -- I'm sticking to my generators make poor campground neighbors
> stance until someone demonstrates otherwise. In a quiet campground. Like
> White Tank CG in Joshua Tree, or Laguna CG (on a weekday) near San Diego.
> Places where you can hear a car coming long before you see it.
> --snip--
>
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