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I have a family of 4 and a dog. We have an 11' TC with no slides. It's tight. I wouldn't want an additional person in there. I carry this camper on a Chevy 3500 crew cab dually. I'm overweight. I've installed air bags and heavy duty shocks and it handles pretty good. I tow our boat behind the...

Buying a 1/2 ton truck for a TC isn't saving money. You'll spend it on all the required upgrades. I carried a pop-up TC on my Dodge 1500 for a while. It was overweight with no passengers and no gear. I added airbags and E tires. It handled the weight better but was still technically overloaded...

I would certainly get a 3500 series truck. With a truck camper the payload is the most critical specification. Campers, full loaded with gear, are usually heavier than people think. Unless you need the power of a diesel I would get a gas engine. Most any gas engine offered in a 3500 truck will...

I install solar electrical systems. A lot of jobs are in nice residential neighborhoods but we do a lot of off grid cabins and homes too. I often find myself trying to get my 9,000 pound work truck up mountain roads in the snow to service one of these off grid installation. The job that's...

Thanks guys, I'll check out RUD and PEWAG. I certainly don't look forward to putting chains on and off but I guess I'll get lots of practice. I think I can get a good lesson in installation from my Dad. He drives an 18 wheeler and delivers feed to farms. He's always having to put chains on the...

My work truck is an '03 F-350. It has open diffs front and rear and is worthless in any conditions other than pavement. I'm trying to get to to a steep, muddy job site and it won't get there. My boss won't spring for lockers but he said he would buy some tire chains. I thought chains were for...

I had a '96 1500 ext. cab 4 x 4 with the 5.9 and auto. I loved that truck. It was comfortable, reliable, good looking, and went in the snow like no other vehicle I've ever owned. The only problem I had with it was the transmission. It went out (like pretty much all of the Dodge autos.) at around...

I've been using Diamond NR-770HA antennas on all my vehicles for years. It is a 2m/70cm dual band antenna. It's a 1/2 wave on 2m which I feel is important. You have some gain over a 1/4 wave but you keep the more upward pattern that is important for getting out of mountain hollows and up to...

I would take all of your power wires, positive and negative, directly too the battery. A new fuse block, from Blue Sea or someone else, mounted near the battery would work well. I wouldn't just tap into existing circuits in the cab. Not only could you overload them when transmitting but you...

Beginning in 2013 all commercial radio traffic has to be narrow band. If an old scanner is still wide band the audio levels will be very low when listening to the new radios.

Auto patches or phone patches on repeaters used to be very popular. I've impressed many friends by making a phone call form a remote location before cell phones became so widespread. Now, phone patches are hard to find. Just because a repeater has one doesn't mean you get to use it. Usually, to...

Is this a GN or bumper pull trailer? TC are heavy, putting one toward the front of a flatbed will add some serious tongue weight. I wouldn't bolt thru the floor. I wouldn't want holes in the camper or bolt heads inside. I'd use the normal tie down points. Some chain and turnbuckle are all that's...

Yes, that's the controller I was talking about. I guess I forgot the M. It's basically the same circuitry as the controller you listed but gives you the metering which is nice to have.

Even though a 60 watt panel is more than you need it may be no more money to go to a larger one. The larger a panel you buy the cheaper it gets on a watts/dollar basis. Almost all cables with MC4 connectors are 10 AWG which should be fine for your usage. I would get one cable with a male on one...

4 x 4 vans are very cool. I've thought about one myself. But, I can't make myself see it as an improvement over a truck and truck camper. Trucks are plentiful in 4 x 4 configuration with just about any trans and engine you want: auto, manual, diesel, gas, etc. If you think finding a 4 x 4 van...

A "battery maintainer" is only good for barely trickle charging an already charged battery. It won't run a CB, ham, TV or anything else. It probably won't run much of anything directly. Most of those panels are good for far less than 1 amp. Now you know why it was being given away.

Try a company called Blue Sea. They make lots of electrical gear for boats. It's all marine grade which is great. You can usually find their stuff at West Marine or Overtons or some other marine place.

I'm sure it varies by state a lot. In VA a truck camper isn't a vehicle so the DMV couldn't care less what you do with it. Most owners of personal pick-up trucks just have normal passenger car license plates. Technically those plates are only good up to 7,500 GVWR but I don't think anybody...

In my opinion anyone considering a truck camper should start with a 2500 series truck. However, the fact that 3500 SRW trucks exist makes 2500 trucks pretty pointless. I used to carry an 8' pop-up camper on a Dodge 1500. I was overweight by 600 pounds with no trailer and no passengers. If you...

Since you'll be hauling a hard side camper I'd get the 265s since they have 400 pounds more capacity. That's 800 pounds total. Hardside campers are heavy and tire capacity is usually a problem Make sure to get E load range.