BUNGEE CORD MAINTENANCE

The bungee cord supplied with your TV4RV tripod is a versatile anchor device, however it does have some limitations.   A bungee cord is constructed of multiple strands of natural or synthetic rubber covered with a stretchable cloth material.  Attachment hooks are placed at each end.

Both natural and synthetic rubber is effected by the elements.  Heat, cold and exposure to sunlight can change the properties of both materials, causing them to become brittle and weak.

It is important to check the condition of the bungee cord from time to time, looking for signs of brittleness and lack of stretch.  Once the bungee becomes weathered it should be replaced to prevent failure under stress load.  This checking procedure is even more important for full-time RVers who use their bungee tie-down continually.

We recently introduced a new, ALL-WEATHER ANCHOR CHAIN for long-term use.  It consists of a 24" length of heavy-duty chain and a turnbuckle to apply tension.  This device is ideal for full-time

RVers who use their satellite dish setup year round.  You can check out this new product on our website here.

                                                       NEW GADGET!

I don't generally recommend products from other companies in this newsletter, but last month I bought a new "toy" and would like to share it with you.

I'm old enough to remember when television programming for the day began at 5 PM and was only on three networks, ABC, NBC and DuMont.  For that reason I am often amazed that I can scroll through over 200 channels and find nothing worth watching.

We have begun downloading some TV shows from other countries, mostly UK, for some additional selections to watch.   We often have a hard time understanding the "King's English" so I also download the subtitle file, which makes it much more enjoyable to watch.  While I have a media player for the TV that can connect to my laptop to play the videos, I had to hard code the subtitles into the video file before we could watch it.  If the video file wasn't in the correct format I had to first convert it before encoding the subtitles. - -  All very time consuming.

I happened to be surfing the net for a better media player when I came upon this gem. At $40 and free shipping, the IncrediSonic Ultra Play IMP150 - HD TV Digital Mini Media Player seemed like a good deal, so I took a chance.  When the box arrived and I saw the tiny size of this thing I was skeptical that it would do what it was supposed to do.  I was wrong.  It does everything advertised, and more.  It can handle almost every file I give it and easily add the subtitle file with no extra steps.  Not only can it display the subtitles, you can change the font size, color, position, and even adjust the sync to the words if it is off. 

I just load the files to a hard drive and insert it into the player.  It accepts USB devices and SD/MMC/MS Memory Cards.  I just use 16GB Thumb Drives and it works wonderfully.

The only downside I found was the printed user manual that came with it.  Like the media player, it was tiny, with very small print.  I downloaded the pdf version of the manual so I could understand how to use some of the features and have put a link to the manual here.