Why I Like My Fuse Instead of an A

This summer I had the opportunity to use a large class A motorhome for about 36 hours.   It was an amateur radio event (Field Day) and the local Camping World (Camping World of Tallahassee)  was very generous .  They donated the use of 3 large motorhomes for the event.  They were really nice and I appreciate their support.

For those that don't know Field Day is the one weekend a year where a large number of ham radio operators take their equipment into the field and operate like there was a disaster. Some people do it from their house.  Some groups do it from their local emergency center.   Some clubs, like ours, go all of the way and operate in the field disconnected from everything.   Living in Florida this is good practice for a hurricane.

This gave me an opportunity to compare the Fuse to a 37 foot long Gulf Stream class A.   It definitely was a different beast from the Fuse. Some positives and some negatives.

On the positive side, the large class A was very quiet with the generator and air conditioning running.   The generator was 20 feet away  (as far away as the Fuse is long) from the living space and could hardly be heard.  The A/C was ducted and had almost no noise.  There was space in the living room for 8-10 people to sit comfortably with a couch, dinette, recliner and captains chairs.  It had huge amounts of storage space under the coach.   You easily could full time in something this large with 4 seasons of clothing and still have extra space. Multiple slides and a huge amount of floor space throughout made this feel like a palace.

On the negative side, it was huge.  The experienced driver from Camping World had no problem getting it in to place.  I would have dinged, bent and mutilated the unit multiple times.  It may have been why the unit was traded in since there was some damage to the rear of the unit.  Per the driver it got 5-7mpg and had a 70 gallon fuel tank.

In this unit, travel would have to be planned out and routes mapped in advance. You would definitely have to tow a car if you were traveling.  We like to be spontaneous and this would not with our style of travel.

For me I still would take the Fuse over the large class A.   It reminded me of why I wanted something small. I do want to be able to just pick up and go.  The Fuse is very efficient with its use of space.  You don't get extra space like in the class A, but we do have all the space we need.

Our style of traveling means we want to see things and change our plans as the mood strikes us.   So we wanted something small to make it more convenient.  Not something that creates its own series of issues.  People having different tastes and needs is why they make so many different sizes of motorhomes.

Someone asked if I would do Field Day in the Fuse?  I would if I had access to external electricity.   The Fuse only can run the generator for a maximum of 20 hours and I would need 36.  That would be a problem.  We were demonstrating radio operations to 4-6 people at a time plus the two operators.  The Fuse is really only big enough to hold 3-4 people max. We needed the large amounts of space the class A has.

Sometimes you want the small economical car, sometimes you want a sports car, and sometimes you need a pickup truck.  This is why we have different options.