Avoiding Chores

Tag: outdoors

  • DECKED Storage System For Your Truck

    I got the DECKED storage system for my F150 truck as a way to get some storage but keep my truck bed open and not install a tonneau cover or truck cab.

    The install process is identical to the videos you see from DECKED with a few exceptions for the F150 or Tacoma where the front OEM tie down need to be replaced with provided hardware from DECKED. The install manual is very dense with information, so take your time and read each page slowly and while you can do certain things out of order, it’s best to do each step in order.

    DOWNLOAD THE MANUALS

    You’ll find the PDF manual for Ford, Dodge, Chevy & GMC, Toyota, Mercedes and Nissan.

     

    CAN YOU INSTALL THE DECKED BY YOURSELF?

    Yes. Book a morning or afternoon in order to install this by yourself. Provided you watched the videos and read the manual, you should have no problems.

     

    CAN YOU LIFT THE BOX?

    No, Get a buddy or help when loading in your truck or unloading. The size of the box is too big to handle by yourself. If need be, simply open the box while in the truck and unload each piece individually (like I did).

     

    CAN YOU DO THE INSTALL IN STAGES?

    Yes, some items can be done independent such as the drawers and ammo cans with C channels.

     

    DO NOT TIGHTEN ANYTHING UNLESS THE MANUAL TELLS YOU

    Don’t skip ahead any steps and once you reach the spot where the action is to tighten, then tighten. This is important when adjusting the DECKED.

     

    THREAD THE DRAWER WHEELS FIRST

    The cast metal threads for the drawer wheels can be a bit stubborn, so thread them first before the actuall install, it will help as you won’t have a lot of room when putting in those final wheels.

     

    HOW MUCH ROOM DO I HAVE?

    Each drawer for the full size truck is 150 litre in capacity. Each ammo can can fit either an equivalent of a six pack and ice, or a few propane camping canisters and/or webbing. IN short, the ammo cans can fit a lot of stuff you don’t mind getting wet.

     

    IS THE DECKED WATER TIGHT?

    The main drawers are water tight but not air tight. Dust or morning dew / humidity will get in.

    The ammo cans are not water tight. Drill the drain holes if you don’t want water to collect in the cans.

     

    HOW TALL IS THE DECKED?

    12 inches tall. on my F150 I got 9 inches left to store items above the deck.

     

    WHAT IS DECKED WEIGHT CAPACITY?

    Each drawer can fit 200 lbs of gear and the top deck can support 2000 lbs. As long as you don’t drop anything to pierce steel, the DECKED should support the load.

     

    HOW HEAVY IS DECKED?

    It is about 200 lbs and you should not see a difference in your fuel economy, but when loaded you will feel a difference when driving. and you have a stable load in your bed.

     

    WHAT ARE ESSENTIAL DECKED ACCESSORIES?

    Buy the dividers. It is something they should add as default but having 2 to 4 dividers will help you organise your gear in each drawer. Other items to consider would be the drawer locks or bed tracks to secure your load.

    The weekend is almost here!! #inreach #craftbeer #decked

    A post shared by Jim Cyr (@thecyr) on

     

    FURTHER VIEWING

    On top of reading the manual for your truck, these install videos were a great help.


     



  • All-In-One Coffee Brewer Kit For Camping – Cafflano Klassic

    I wasn’t feeling the love with the various outdoor systems out there and I wanted something nicer that would be more than just for backpacking.

    So I found this Cafflano Klassic all-in-one pour over coffee maker at my local hipster coffee shop, but your can find it also at large outdoor stores like Mountain Equipment Co-op, Amazon and other retailers.

    You have 4 pieces to this kit: double wall cup, steel mesh coffee filter, coffee mill with ceramic grinder and a water reservoir with spout to pour your water.

    The coffee mill is adjustable by simply removing the handle and turning the disc, you will see the ceramic grinder increase or decrease in distance between each other.

    The process is easy. Use the cup, filter and grinder and pour coffee beans into the mill. Grind the coffee into the coffee filter. Once done, unscrew the coffee mill and start pouring the water into the filter.

    I’ve found that the little spout in the water reservoir is just at the right amount to properly get your coffee grounds to release the goodness. I tried using the kettle and it didn’t do a good job IMO.

    Once done filtering your coffee, simply lift the filter and place it into the reservoir and you are ready to drink the coffee. Now the size of cup is more like a restaurant and not a mug of coffee. However, it does not take long to brew a fresh cup provided you have a kettle with plenty of hot water.

    Overall, I think this Cafflano Klassic is great for the road, camping, cottage and other excuse to have coffee.


     



  • How To Extend Range of DJI Tello With Wifi Repeater

    The DJI tello is a great toy drone for 100$ which we’ve covered in previous posts here. But the main drawback I’ve experienced was the poor range and video streaming. If you are doing selfie shots, it works great but try to go beyond the 20 foot range and you get poor video and the dreaded frame drops.

    While the march 2018 firmware fixed a lot of the problems, there might be situations where you need a better wifi signal between your phone/tablet and drone.

    A quick scan of the Tello facebook group showed that many were using a wifi extender as part of their kit when going out in the field.

    What You Will Need

    The part list is pretty simple and you probably already some of these items. This repeater is handy as the connection is USB and the battery bank is used to power it.

     

    The Process

    The steps are a mashup of other efforts you can find on youtube, but I’ll describe them in more detail. You’ll only need to do this once.

    1. Change the wifi settings on the Tello
    2. Scan the QR code on the Mi WiFi package to download the Mi home app
    3. program the repeater to connect to the tello using Mi Home app
    4. A new wifi access point name will be created, it will have [tello wifi name] + [_plus]
    5. Connect phone/tablet to the new access point

     

    Change wifi Settings On Tello

    You may or may not need to do this, but connect the tello to your smartphone/tablet as usual and using the tello app, connect to the drone and go into the settings | wifi area. We will change the wifi name from the default tello_*** to something shorter and setup a password. You may not need to set the password, but just enter a simple one.

    Now, with your smartphone, connect to this new wifi access point, you will need network in your list before you use the Mi Home app to program the repeater.

     

    Download the Mi Home App

    On the Mi Wifi package, you will see a QR code, use your QR code reader app or Apple Wallet to scan the code, this should open up the app store for the app to download. Create a Mi account and you are ready to program this repeater.

    Change the region to Hong Kong so that when you add a device, you will see the Mi Wifi repeater listed. From here you will go through a connect wizard. At this point you may have to switch wifi connection to the drone using the new name and password. What we’re trying to do here is have a connection to the drone and using the app, program the repeater to connect to it automatically using the updated wifi name & password.

    You will see a solid blue light on the repeater when successful.

     

    Connect to New Access Point

    At this point the repeater will be connected to the drone and will have created a new wifi access point. You simply now need to connect to it using your phone / tablet.

     


     



  • The DJI Tello Drone With SDK Is Great For Young and Old Kids

    I’ve always wanted to pick up a drone to take with me while out hiking and other outdoor activities, but I never did commit dropping essentially 1000$ for something that in the end was a pain to carry around. With no-fly zones popping up in both Canada and the US, why bother? Sure leading drone producer DJI have been releasing smaller and smaller drone like the
    Mavik or Spark. I just couldn’t pull the trigger.

    So I ended up buying a toy drone after Christmas for a 100$, that is essentially my price point. I got this novelty Star Wars X-Wing Drone. Which is great for geek purposes but not the easiest to fly.
    Then I was alerted to the DJI Tello. You may have seen it as a product from Ryze, but I think the story goes that DJI just bought them out.

    Anyway, we get for 100$ USD a fantastic entry level drone that happens to have some of the technology that made DJI the leading drone manufacturer. I wanted to take a closer look.

     

    What 100$ DJI Tello Drone Gives You

    You get a drone, battery, spare propellers and that’s about it. Not even an extra micro USB cable to add to your collection *sarcasm*.  You then use your smartphone and download the Tello app. So far so good. The drone needs about an hour to charge up.

    You get 5mp camera which does 720p video at 30 fps. This is just fine for personal usage, you will not use this for professional grade work.

    But the real value is getting the DJI sensors and smarts to make this fly like a more expensive drone.

     

    Update The Firmware

    After you download the app and sync up the drone via wifi, the first thing you need to do is to update the firmware. If you are looking at videos on youtube of the video quality, you’ll be glad to know that the firmware update improves the video quality…. by a lot.

     

    Too Small For Windy Days

    The drone is way below the drone rules you see in the US & Canada, so you can fly this pretty much anywhere, but you won’t have the range like the more expensive drones. The small size almost makes it more difficult to operate once winds are above 20mph.

     

    Photo & Video Quality

    I can’t complain about the photo and video quality. It’s totally passable. Think of the camera is like an iPhone 4. You might want to edit the photo to enhance it. Same thing goes for the video. As noted above, the updated firmware (as of March 24 2018) improved the video quality. The reason is that there is no on board storage for photo & video; it’s streamed via wifi to your phone or tablet while flying.

     

    Programming With SDK

    A big selling point is the ability to use a SDK or the drone blocks smartphone app to program the drone to do pre-defined steps. This is great for kids to learn coding. You can use a laptop and download the SDK and Scratch programming tools from MIT. Great for classrooms where you can fly the drone in the gym or in a field.

    But for adults, I think the drone blocks app is a better venue since you do the programming on the phone or tablet.

     

    It’s Still A 100$ Drone

    Note that you don’t get a GPS chip, the DJI sensor is not top of class, the weight makes it difficult to operate in windy weather, the smartphone app is hard to operate unless you get a bluetooth controller and the battery life is short (13 min) and with no spare battery.

    Remember that this isn’t a 600$ drone that produces those nice shots you see on blogs or commercials. This is meant for personal use. But compared to other 100$ toy drones, this is a huge step up in quality.

     


     



  • Which GPS is Best for Running, Hiking, Hunting and Geocaching in 2017?

     

    2017 Black Friday and Holiday season had some nice buys for those wanting to upgrade a dedicated GPS unit. I’ll mention low, medium and high price options to consider buying. I talk mostly about Garmin as this is what is dominating the sales charts, store availability at my local big box stores and general word of mouth.

    If you are sure what you want, buy now. Otherwise wait until January when new models for spring are announced.

     

    My predictions for 2018

    I expect to see not much change in the wearable space for runners. Incremental updates, focusing on the round watch face will dominate. For handhelds, I think we are due for a number of updates as we have not seen any major updates in a few years. Hikers wanting the latest and greatest may want to wait, but there are several good models available and at attractive price drops.

     

    BEST GPS FOR HIKERS / HUNTERS

    Low cost choice – eTrex 30x or map 64s
    The 20 used to be my recommendation but price drop on the 30x is worth a look due to additional sensors. Firmware appears to not have been updated in a while as compare to map 64s.

    GPS map 64s has a handful more features and winning design for 10+ years. Think about your fingers if you are going to be outdoors in the winter.

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    Medium Cost- fenix 3 HR
    Fenix 3 is on the way out to being discontinued but still able to find a good buy. For those wanting a watch for hiking but other activities like trail running this is a good option. Firmware updated as of November 2017. May not use latest connect IQ watch faces or widgets.

     


    High Cost – inReach Explorer+
    inReach is in a category of it’s own. You have to decide about

    • Which GPS functions do you really use? waypoint / navigation / tracks
    • Garmin maps
    • Buying a Subscription


    BEST GPS FOR RUNNING

    Low Cost – Forerunner 35
    Small form factor, great for all day use. Contains basic running functions for 10k range casual running and offers daily tracking and smartphone notifications.


    Medium Cost – Forerunner 235 or Vivoactive 3
    FR235 – runner focused watch, very good at what it’s supposed to do.
    Vivoactive 3 – multi activity types that want a stylish option with daily tracking and notifications.

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    High Cost – Forerunner 935
    Most features for running and biking & triathalons. Serious types that uses strava and considering doing iron man type training, this is what you want.


    BEST GPS FOR GEOCACHING

    Low Cost – eTrex 20
    Medium Cost – Oregon 650t
    High Cost – Montana 680

    Geocachers I’ve seen over the years like a different set of features for their GPS units. But these features are common with all devices in this section which ends being important.

    • SD card
    • Load Garmin or custom maps
    • Paperless Geocaching

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  • Chinook Twin Peaks Guide 6 Tent Review

    After nine good years as our primary family camping tent, it’s time to retire the
    Chinook Twin Peaks Guide 6 tent. At time of recording, the tent is still available on Amazon as such I recommend it as a great budget tent for a young family of four or couple that want a lot of room but like to have one structure at camp.

    There are three main requirements that we had when shopping for a new tent, which still holds today.

    TENT SPECS

    The tent has an overall footprint of 9.4 x 13.8 where the sleeping area is 8.5 x9.4 and the screen tent or vestibule area is 5.3 x9.4

    The tent has 5 poles which you can get either in fiberglass or aluminium.

    Peak height is 6.9

     

    REQUIREMENT 1 – INTEGRATED TENT / VESTIBULE

    We really liked the idea of a single structure where the tent and vestibule could be integrated. This tent does well in this department. An included clip floor allows you to keep a clean tent area. The area is large enough to allow 2 adult camping chairs and either a kids chair, cooler or large dog. You still have room to move around. Also makes for a great change room when you get caught in rain.

    REQUIREMENT 2 – HIGH CEILINGS

    As you get older, having high ceilings is just fantastic being able to stand up in the morning to change or move around. Peaks are 6 foot 9. Overall, the tent is great for people just under 6 feet tall.

     

    REQUIREMENT 3 – FULL RAIN FLY

    Unlike many tents you see where the rain fly only covers a portion of the tent, we wanted a full rain fly so that any water could flow away from the tent.

     

    WHAT’S BAD ABOUT THE TENT

    One thing that we had to deal with out of the box was the alignment of the zipper for the tent/vestibule door. You always needed two hands to close it. Extra fabric created pockets where water would pool and drip inside the tent once the tape seams from the rain fly started to fail.

    Other minor issues which came about just after long term usage was seeing the stiches in the floor open up, creating gaps. Now you can use duck tape but it’s time to retire this very good budget tent.

     

    Learn more about the tent from Chinook’s web site



  • How We Got Back Into Family Car Camping

    [info_message style=”info”]This post will be updated as we do more trips and upgrade our gear as we go along![/info_message]

    We haven’t done any car camping in several years, I had gone down the path of hammock camping and rustic camping with the boys for the last few years. This summer, we wanted to do more family car camping.

    Excuse To Buy More Camping Gear

    To my surprise, I had SIX bins full of camping gear, but really only two were suitable for car camping. The first step was to go over all my gear and find out what would we use. Once the initial triage was complete, I broke down the gear into three main containers.

    • Kitchen Bin – This was anything & everything related to the picnic table, fire pit and luxuries like head lamp and radios, games, foil, etc…
    • Bulk Bin – This bin was reserved for larger light items such as sleeping bags, air mattress, propane heater, etc..
    • Tent & Tarp Bag – Our current family tent and silnylon tarps to string across the picnic tables. Tarps include the hennessey hex tarp and MEC guide tarp.

    This would provide the basic shelter and tool required to do a weekend camping trip. Luxury items were additional bags, we ended up packing the following:

    For coolers and drinking water, we made some changes from our initial outing, but settled on this setup

    • Coleman 12v Powerchill cooler – Using a few frozen bottles and the truck battery, our contents kept cold and most importantly dry.
    • Coleman wheeled cooler – we reserved this portable cooler for our drinks and ice packs that we would place inside the 12v cooler during the overnight to keep things cool. This worked out very well, we might add dry ice to this setup.
    • Rubbermaid 5 Gallon drinking water cooler – Filling up 5 gallons of house water before we leave may not seem to be a smart move, but you never know the water situation when you get to camp. Having safe drinking around is a big plus.

     

    Getting the Right Family Tent

    This is a point of great debate. Should you spend a lot of money on a family tent. Honestly, I think you need to. Our current tent which is being retired this year is the Chinook Twin Peaks Guide 6 tent which at the time I paid over 300$ for. However that was ten years ago and just now that parts are failing where we want to consider a new tent.

    The big tent features we look for are the following for a family car camping tent:

    • High ceiling – No surprise that having 6 or 7 foot high walls are a big selling point by not having to crawl out of the tent on your hands and knees in the morning.
    • Screen Tent Vestibule – Out Chinook twin peaks screen room / vestibule can accommodate all our camping chairs and even our large black lab AND small aluminium side table. This saves you space from buying a screen tent and on those rain days, you can all stay in your tent.
    • Double Wall Fly – While many cabin tents have a very small rain fly, we prefer tents with a full rain fly. If you are trying to make a weekend in between rain storms, having that second wall will keep your tent & gear dry much better than seeing your walls get progressively wet as the rain continues to pour down.

    After nine years, our Chinook twin peaks is finally showing signs of wear we are looking at alternatives. We think that the Eureka Echo Tour 600 (Canada only) might fit the bill. Another candidate is Kodiak Canvas Cabin Tents.

     

    Recent Purchases That Made The Difference

    Everytime we did an outing, we kept a wish list of items we think would make our camping experience better. Here is a running list of items we got and highly recommend for car camping.

     

    Coleman Double Wash Basin

    After an outing at Baxter State Park in Maine, I wanted something that we could do our dishes since the rustic area meant we had to be minimalists. Single wash basins were nice but when I stumbled on the Coleman PVC double wash basin, I knew this would be a good purchase. At 14$, it did not disappoint. 3 litres of water on each side can handle dishes up to 4 people and fold nicely into the bin. It sure beats having a large salad bowl in your bin taking up valuable room.

    What’s great about this bin is that you can wash & rince at the same time. While not very good when dumping into a drain, it’s still a valuable piece of your kitchen bin.

     

    GSI Bugaboo Camper Cookset

    A nice compact cookset is a good thing to have IMO. You have what you need in a single footprint and not wasting any space. The downside is that non of the cookware kits are cheap; you will need to invest a bit of money in a good set, no matter the brand.

    The GSI Bugaboo Camper cookset has been out for a few years but has been a great addition to the kitchen bin. Containing 2 & 3 litre pots, covers, 4 nested cups, mugs and plates – this is a great kit. The only thing missing are cutelery. While the plates are small, the only thing I would get is a set of glasses, the odd shaped mugs works ok, but don’t fit in the holders the camp charis offer.

     

    Coleman 12v Powerchill Cooler

    There was a point of time in the 90’s and early 2000’s that Coleman quality was kinda poor. However the last few years it has been a renewed focus on products that just work. This 12v cooler is no excpetion. We wanted something that would eliminate melted bags of ice and take advantage of 12v power or plugged in power at a serviced campsite. We found this Coleman 12v powerchill cooler at an overstock store and it came with the wall plug adapter. You need to manage this cooler with ice packs to keep it cool. We tried the frozen milk gallon and didn’t keep things as cool as I would have like. Using frozen litre bottles and ice packs worked a lot better. The benefit of using this type of cooler is that any leftovers can stay cool on the drive back home so that you don’t waste any food.

     

    Still more camping to come in 2017!

     


  • Field Communications With A Ham or Amateur Radio Portable Kit With J-Pole Base Station

    Before smartphones and LTE towers were the norm; your options for communications while hiking were limited. Basically you would go for your Ham Radio or Amateur radio certificate (call sign) and prepare a communications kit. Now with new technology like satellite communicators like garmin (delorme) inreach and spot, you save a lot of space in your pack.

    1. What I want when hiking in the wilderness:
    2. be in communication
    3. be able to communicate with party
    4. people are following me
    5. check the weather

    But I decided to dust off my kit to show you what I was working with. Make sure you add in the comments your setup.

    Gear List:
    Yaesu FR-60
    Dual band short whip antenna
    Long whip 2m antenna
    SMA to coax adapter connecters
    patch cables
    extra battery packs

    With the above you can carry this in your pack with no problem, but if you are car camping or have a long term basecamp then these additional items can improve the gain.

    DIY j-pole antenna using TV antenna wire & PVC tubes
    telescopic painters pole
    camera tripod

    I chose going with COAX connectors as it was easier to get, better prices and easier to trade or find components at a flea market.

    Building a J-pole antenna and finding parts to make a tower using a painters pole and a camera tripod. The benefit of a j-pole is that the higher off the ground, the better the gain.

    This being all fun learning about radio theory but with new technology like inReach and SPOT, it saves a lot of room in your pack, so depending on your area it’s a toss up which option to choose.

  • Baking a Apple Cranberry Pie Outdoors in A Cast Iron Dutch Oven

    Baking An Apple Cranberry Pie Outdoors Is The Best

    With harvest season almost to a close, I had a bag of fresh cranberries and couldn’t figure out what to make with it. So I looked at my dutch oven and pie plate and thought that a apple cranberry pie would be a nice challenge cooking outdoors.

    It was a nice cold November morning, so the additional challenge f keeping the dutch oven nice and warm to prepare the crust and filling would be interested. That’s what I love about cooking outdoors with a dutch oven and charcoal.

    Overall this was a fast dish to create about an hour in total as compared to 30 minutes with a standard oven. I did make this pie previously in the oven to see how it came out with the pie plate.

    Speaking of pie plate, my stoneware pie plate that I got while visiting PEI Stoneware is working out very nicely. I recommend checking them out http://www.islandstoneware.ca/our-retailers

    Ok, this pie is pretty simple, we just need the following items:

    • Pillsbury pie crust (2 crusts)
    • 4 to 5 apples
    • squeezed juice from 1 lemon
    • 1 cup of cranberries (fresh or frozen)
    • 1/2 cup packed light brown or cane sugar
    • 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
    • 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
    • 1/4 teaspoon salt
    • 4 chunks of butter (table spoon size)

    This should all fit in a standard pie plate (9 inches). Depending on the size of the apples, you *might* have extra filling.

    Take a pie crust and place it in the pie plate and bake it in the dutch oven for about 15 min. I used rolled up aluminium foil to make a trivet so that the pie plate was about 3/4 inch above the surface of the dutch oven.

    While that is happening, cut up the apples and mix in a bowl with the cranberries, squeeze the lemon and add the dry ingredients.

    Remove the dutch oven from the heat and put the filling into the pie. I didn’t bother to remove the pie plate from the dutch oven.

    Put to cover back on and place the dutch oven back on the coals and put a bunch on top. We’re aiming for 375F but I’m using hard wood charcoal, so had to estimate how much that would be as compared to using briquets.

    Give that a good 20-30 minutes until the filling starts to reduce and bubble. Rotate the dutch oven often to make sure you get uniform heat distribution.

    Remove from heat, lift cover and place the chunks of butter & second pie crust on top. Decorate as needed, then back on the coals. We want to have it around 425F so that the crust can get a nice golden color. That might take more than 15 min depending on how hot you get the dutch oven.

    Once done, remove from dutch oven and let it cool. The pie should taste great with the sweetness of the apples and tartness from the cranberries. The added flavour from the charcoal just adds to it.

    This pie is a nice treat while at camp or cottage in the fall.

  • Hammock Camping Knots – Which Ones To Use?

    Which knots to use when hammock camping?

    That’s a great question. You can use a variety of knots when hammock camping, but it really depends on your hammock camping system. In this post, I’ll go over the knots that I’ve used when hammock camping with my ENO Single Nesthammock. So let’s go over the components. Make sure you add your two cents in the comments as this guide is what I use and there are many options.

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    Knots to Use For a Ridgeline to Hang a Tarp.

    One of the great things about hammock camping is that you can customize your system, and for me that is mostly in the tarp area. It is a vital component to protect you from the rain, wind and even snow. So the knots used here are important to know and tie well. For types of tarps I’ve used; I switch between a Hennessey Hex tarpand a 10’x 8′ Sil nylon Guide Tarp with storm doors.

    I like to setup a ridgeline and hang my tarp underneath it. For this, I use an alpine hitch or butterfly knot to get my line nice and tight and prussic knots to tie my tarp and tension/move as necessary.

    Knots to Use to Tie Your Hammock Around a Tree

    I have two ENO single nest hammock, one that is modified with whoopie slingsand an “out of the box” version. If I take out the unmodified hammock, I usually bring either some ENO straps or my own webbing to wrap around the tree. Some of the knots I use with these two configuration are: water knot, clove hitch & marlin spike hitch.

    There you go! Some of the knots I’ve used when out hammock camping. If you have your own system with a different set of knots, leave them in the comments below!