I Built The Ultimate 4K Rocket Chasing Van! Retired News Van Makeover Build And Tour! 

Be careful with that mast. They can’t handle much more than 35psi and need constant lubrication. Contact will-Burt and make sure that if you’re gonna use it, you do it right. Also if the truck didn’t come with stabilizing jacks you’ll need to look into them. At full extension that thing will rock enough to induce nausea in ~15mph wind. Frontline communications who built the truck can also advise on necessary gear/precautions. Source: have used those trucks for 15yr and currently maintain/service 7 of them

This is amazing Tim. A solid investment that's going to even further set your channel apart

For your safety, please secure those Ecoflow batteries! Do so with strong steel straps into the floor. During a crash, or emergency braking these will become very heavy projectiles inside the cabin and very dangerous to you and the equipment! (obviously secure other heavy items too) To stabilize the mast you may want to get some thin yet high-tension(no stretch) rope like HMPE / Dyneema or steel cable and some heavy-duty Auger-Style Stakes to drive into the soil. Plus some ratchets. This would help with the sway of the boom arm. Also as others have said, get a Starlink for RV's dish for connectivity because why not?

This is freaking badass Tim! Can't wait to see how it works out for you all. Awesome seeing you and MaryLiz in the livestream today. Best of luck over the next 24 hours mate.

Tim!! That's my old van! I worked for WFSB in Hartford CT before I retired! That is so funny. Best of luck with it. I spent a lot of hours in that can going all over the state and parts of Massachusetts.

Pretty fast if it can chase rockets!

I see that some others also have security concerns in mind. As cool as descriptive "artwork" on the outside looks, I'd recommend making the van look as boring as possible, so criminals won't easily know about the fortune stored inside. Good luck with your new mobile studio! 👍

Tim, you guys should use those outside audio inputs to record stereoscopic sound for each launch. Including stereoscopic sound in a launch video would add an awesome layer of detail to those launch replays.

I’m getting a strong Ghost Busters vibe from this vehicle. Awesome work guys.

As a broadcast engineer, I love seeing people put together small projects like this and seeing what they come up with when looking at broadcast gear from a fresh point of view.

Look in to getting a side door tent that mounts above the side door. It should help waterproof your external inputs and reduce direct rain or spray when opening side door in the rain. Looking forward to seeing your coverage. Also an Everyday Astronaut sign above the door inside would hit when your streaming and looking the the screens

17:17 Great project, one tip make sure that PC on the floor has it's GPU supported. Since it's on the floor of the vann that PCI-E slot will encounter some hits (bumps). I would advice to put the PC on the side or use another case. But the rest is awesome!

You should do a solar panel array and victron inverter so you have a solid AC power source... Neat that you're re-using a STNG truck with a pneumatic mast. Watch for power lines whenever you plan to extend it since it can kill you if you get within arc range of high power lines. If the seals are old, you may need to rework the pneumatic mast seals since the mast will slowly leak down if you don't have good seals at each segment.

You might want to keep a CO2 sensor inside the back. You'll need good ventillation back there especially with two people back there for hours at a time.

As someone who worked with outside broadcast equipment a few decades ago, I can really appreciate what modern gear allows us to do. Back in those days, a broadcast van was the size of a bus, required a LOT of 3 phase power, all to handle 4 cameras which each weighed about 70kg - not including the cables that ran out to them from their control gear. and the output from the whole van was only PAL broadcast quality.

Great project- First, I totally agree with CL below that with that mast, you need outriggers/jacks, (and you're about to become best friends with a pneumatic cylinder shop, especially seeing water blowing out of the O-rings) Second, a humble suggestion- you should probably check into 3-point captain's chairs for the front 2 seats, those are seats that normally point straight-ahead-toward the windshield BUT can be released to pivot 90° so driver & passenger face each other, and ALSO can pivot 180° backwards to face the interior, and perhaps add 2 more people able to be on laptops / working. Should ALSO mention that it might be worth getting a square-channel tow hitch, then bring along a mountain bike / e-bike to easily run errands or travel distances that you wouldn't want to walk. Third, remember when local TV news crews used KU band satellites for remote reporting? We, I happened to have a KU satellite for business, one of the odd 'perks' was flipping through the local ABC, CBS, NBC remote truck news feeds when I was bored. Based on what I got to see from behind-the-scenes setups from livestreams of 1990s news vans I'd suggest- 1) Add a connector for an awning on the passenger side, you want an awning you can put up so you can access the uplink/downlink panel and do an interview during a downpour. Might also invest in some of those magnetic-clip-together mosquito screens for garage door openings so create a "screened in porch" so that when you turn the lights on, you're not attracting every mosquito & blackfly within 2 miles. And you want a bug-zapper that you can mount ~50-feet away from the truck so you're not broadcasting with swarms of bugs drawn to your production lights. 2) Might be worth adding a Jeep-style full-sized-spare & Gerry-can mount on the back doors- can't be too prepared. Bonus, that frees up the existing spare-tire well for filling up with beer, soda, and bags of ice to keep things cool (favorite trick of football tailgaters everywhere), just slice a small split in the rubber grommet / drain plug so the water drips out. 3) Shade. In Texas & Florida, you definitely want the van roof to have a mirror finish to reflect as much heat as possible. Even better, not QUITE the James Webb level, but a silvery mylar tarp ABOVE the mirror van will reflect heat away from the van a give you hard shade. Who knows, perhaps you can find a surplus paratrooper or Dragon-test parachute and use the lower part of the mast to give you a nice shady 'big top tent" area. 4) Put quick-disconnects on EVERY microphone and headset so that when you forget what you're doing and walk away, the cable disconnects. I almost died-laughing when watching the live stream from a remote van, where local reporter Jerry Penacoli was re-recording his segment intros, forget he was still wearing a microphone & headset as he walked out of the news-van, IIRC clotheslining him because the headset wire wrapped around his neck because he spun his chair around (office chairs that spin 360° are bad, they will try to kill you) followed by a load (and expensive) CRASH as it pulled a head unit out of the rack. (Don't just slide them in on the rails, add that bolt that keeps them from getting pulled out of the rack).

So much valuable kit in there, hope it’s going to have a great alarm and gps tracking !

Always trying to find ways to step his game up, never stop! That's why I love this channel, keep up the great work Tim

Great Job Tim.. Now remember this equipment is mobile and 99% of the time problems are connectors. (or software) So a shakedown ride and possibly some anti-vibration treatment of all those cables is in order. Good Luck!!

As an audio tech who hasn't been behind a console in sometime. This brings back some really good memories. Great work as always, looking forward to seeing all you and your team bring to us as viewers. Clearest of skies.

You might want to consult a lightning protection engineer re grounding the van to the Earth when the mast is extended, as a lightning strike could cause a bunch of issues re personnel safety and equipment damage.

GO LUNA!!! Ready to capture history. 🚀

Very nice build! From a IT guy, a few suggestions id have would be to build a sliding sleeved support rail for the lines off the side of the van. The weight of those lines and if someone trips or snags one could save you a feed or port/cable failure in the long and short term. The gaming PC's I would move to a server in the rack to push the heat to the back of the van. Close up the gaps in the rack so you make a hot and a cold side and even the NUC could be moved to the server as a VM to reduce heat and energy load. The server doesnt need to be some proliant or dell server, you can move the gaming pc to a Rosewill server chassis to free up legroom and push that heat to the rear. The HDMI encoders could go into the server chassis to benefit from some air flow, and the chassis can be setup to pull from the crew area and push to the rear. Nice work and nice build! now it just needs some paint.

Tim. This is insane. The Everyday Astronaut has the least everyday mobile broadcast van. It's unbelievable! Good luck to your whole team and all those making your dream become a reality for all of us too!

It’s a mobile MOCR! I’d add an SCE to AUX switch in a corner and it will be complete. Jokes aside, this is an impressive functional arrangement, plus it looks so good. Congrats on your technical and visual prowess.

Hey TD. Man you've come a long way since you first got started. It's been a pleasure following you. Your channel has matured and grown a great deal. Keep it up buddy

I follow several van lifers on RU-vid, but that's the most unique vanlife video I've watched in a long time.

People know what's in the van now, Tim. Guard it well. Insure it even better.

Can't wait to see how you wrap the outside of the van, needs a custom Luna wrap, don't think MSNBC are going the be too happy if you run around filming news out of one of their vans.

When the mast is fully extended any movement in the Van would cause enormous swings at the top of the mast. To counter this use RV stabilizer Jacks. The mast on it's own will have alot of swing in the wind. To counter that use 4 small winches mounted on hard points at each corner of the roof of the van. Have them on freewheel during extension then tighten. Also get a compressor mounted to the vans engine with a high idle switch. Mount an underbelly propane tank rated for vehicles and then plumb the two together. The high volume of compressed air will raise the mast quickly.

The before is giving me ghostbusters vibes in only the best way. Lol. So exciting!

Love it Todd... As a Comms Tech, the main bit of advice is, make sure you have LOTS of power, as in DC batteries and AC mains supply when stationary...! You have LOTS of power hungry sub rack comms equipment... ! LOVE it LOVE it...! Keep on going mate ...! Love your content...!

Looks amazing! Keep it up! Just as a word of earning, please be careful with the mast! People often break them by driving with them raised, and do not raise the mast near power lines!!! Lots of injuries and deaths have occurred from masts hitting power lines.

Amazing way to reuse an old news van! I recommend getting some strong padlocks for all the double doors like you see on contractor vans. i'm not sure if your cellular transmitters have an external antenna, but one on top of the mast could help when in remote areas... Also, if you do ever need parts or advice on fixing the mast and such, the company that built the van, Frontline, is in Clearwater/Pinellas Park, FL. Nice guys, neat place!

A cool trick is to rotate the upper screen in the gamer station upsidedown to make the bezel between the two screens smaller

As a Broadcast Tech/Director who has worked many mobiles for sporting events, THIS is top notch and absolutely comparable to the HD trucks that I’ve worked on.

So glad to see someone finally do this. Great work guys! I can’t wait to see what comes out of the van. Only thing that could be better would be the Spaceballs Winnebago.

Could look into swivel mounts for the front captain chairs. Might be useful.

Wow! There are some great suggestions in the comments, it would be beneficial for TD to take note. My suggestions 👇 Additional suggestions: Power system Keep it ‘green’ where practical. Fold out Solar while stationary + Auxiliary charging power source from the alternator while in transit. Environmental Control System AC functionality and reliability will be a priority to maintain temperature of cabin and equipment during hotter months. This is where a suitably sized power system comes into play. Safety Outriggers to add stability while mast is up. Vehicle immobilizer while mast is up. Obstruction light for top of mast. Mast lightning protection system. Investigate vehicle loading, particularly suspension with load equipment mass.

Programs like Dante are absolutely insane. When I started getting into the A/V industry, Dante was gaining traction and it was absolutely incredible to witness the transition in real time. This is seriously an A/V nerd’s ultimate dream to make a rig like this. Cool stuff

Me watching this at 144p... Interesting. Also, when you said the 70 foot tall mast was going to give a "stable" view I laughed... any and all footage from the mast will have to be stabilized within an inch of its life.

Best of luck with broadcast #1 in LUNA! I truly hope that you "patch" the van with some indication of each launch or broadcast location for cool space stuff... Find a company that can promote their wrap through providing you mission patches?

An everyday astronaut wrap would be the cherry on top of the van!!!

As someone who has used Dante for years and holds a level 2 certification in it (before it was online!), you've made a great choice in using Dante, absolute fantastic method of routing digital audio

Tim, I hope you don't forget to mount a Starlink on the top of your boom. Add a fan on the boom to cool your Starlink dish and the cameras below the Starlink dish. keep the cameras coo

You should mount a star link terminal on the top of that Pole as well To get it up as high as possible to avoid any interference. If you're using star link that is

having been subscribed for almost 3 years, It's like watching a friend succeed. Congratulations Tim!

I am a ham (Amateur radio) and that mast is awesome! A 70' mast with several wires running up it would give you a multi-band ham antenna probably from 2m up to 80m (See DX Commander as an example). Nice! :D

Congrats on the van, looking forward to see it in use and maybe covered with a custom wrap! For sure it's a dream come true, I hope it will be properly secured because there is some serious hardware in this!

Thanks for all the hard work you and your team have put in to bringing all of us space fans such awesome content!

Never heard someone so passionate about their vast number of STIs

It's always awesome to see all you photonic memory collecting space nerds collaborating and working together to bring the rest of us all the best possible footage. Can't wait to see LUNA in action.

Absolutely love this! Independent media such as this is amazing! Keep up the great work!

Glad to see some behind the scenes stuff with your production. Let's hope LUNA will shoot the quality of streams to the Moon!

Patreon well spent. What vinyl wrap are going to put on it? Ice Cream truck? Ghostbusters? I am not a ninja?

I am so happy for you. Everyone can see your true excitement. But I would recommend, you integrate some possibilities to upgrade your truck. Maybe you want a second truck in the future to outsource some of ur production jobs. For example a truck just for remote controlling your cameras.

I’m so proud of you, Tim. This was awesome!

Great job. Would’ve liked to know more about your communication setup and contingency plan. Doing 4K streaming needs at least 25Mbps uplink bandwidth, which isn’t a big deal normally. But when everyone around you is also trying to do that, could it cause a problem?

Love it but don't go anywhere without a Everyday Astronaut wrap on that exterior!!

Get ready for crystal clear views without any heat waves! Loving this!

Do you need access to the server rack during the livestream (assuming nothing goes wrong?) If not, how about putting a door in front of it and closing it off to the inside with a direct air connection to the outside so you do not heat up your van as much.

this is sick. I'll be at the launch tomorrow, hopefully I'll see your van around haha

Love how constructive all the comments are. What an awesome community this is!

I drive by the NBC Connecticut studio multiple times a week and see these vans on the road all the time. It’s awesome to see one end up in your hands to bring your live streams up multiple levels! Looking forward to it!

Congrats to you and your team on this spectacular achievement!!!

Congrats on the van. Is that exterior panel switch board rain proof? Also I recommend dust covers for the ethernet and hdmi ports you're not using

What I love about so many RU-vid channels is that when they start going full-time, hiring people and building professional setups like this, it always reminds me that this is the same amount of work than any other "serious" media production. Too often you just think that someone is filming stuff with their phone and making hundreds of thousands, or millions off of a RU-vid (and surely some do it with that little, but most of the time there's huge investments and a lot of people behind the content we watch here). Great to see so many space industry focused channels really investing into the quality of videos.

Nice setup Tim. Couldn’t see the fridge though…..maybe you’ve tucked that in the front! Looking forward to tomorrow

Love that you've got to the point you can do this, well done Tim & team. Looking forward to seeing Luna in the field! Have NBC Conneticut been in touch??

All the tech is cool of course, but I was watching expecting you to show off an epic paint job for the outside! 😅

Just add an Everyday Astronaut wrap on that van and you are in business! After the innards and electronics are installed/updated, that is.

LUNA: First Alert Weather, for when it's raining rocket parts....well done, Everyday Astronaut crew!

"If the van's a-rocketing don't come a-knocketing!" Thank you, please hold your applause.

Tim...the determination you have to bring us good content amazes me. you deserve all the best.

That's incredible!! I'm speechless! Four thumbs up, Tim!

Incroyable. When we watched the Apollo 11 launch on our fuzzy B/W TV, Uncle Walter and a few others were our "experts." At the time, I thought we shouldn't venture out into space again until it was relatively easy. I'm not sure SLS is that, but I think Starship might be. The other vast improvement is you, NSF, TMRW, and all the other full-time space journalists who together will give us a much more complete and nuanced version of what is happening and what it means.

The question remains how fast the van can go with the pole fully extended.

Loads of respect from the uk - Leicester England calling...I mean you could have spent the T-shirt money on beer - and instead we get real life Ghostbuster vehicle content, awesome, thanks to Tom and your amazing team👍😀

Man you've come a long way. Now you need a really cool branded wrap around this vehicle so people can see you cruising the highways. Bravo!!

Awning for sun and rain will be a real bonus. . Zip Dee makes custom ones. Keep up the great work. The interviews are terrific.

You need a super sweet van wrap. I vote for a silly theme such as a unicorn riding a V-2 rocket over a rainbow.

A donation for the cause! Thanks for all you do, Tim! This is tremendous and should be a great asset for your coverage! So cool! Hope to catch you out in the field some day! One thought would be (if time permitted) for you to travel to a major high-power rocket launch (LDRS, Team America Rocketry Challenge, etc.) and show amateur rocketeers doing their thing...

Appreciate you and your friends being the conduit for us all getting closer to the stars!

Tim - this is why I watch your channel and buy your merch; you are so into your work and your passion and that of the team comes through. Please alarm that baby and get a nice wrap. News vans are a target for thieves as they are full of expensive gear. Keep up the awesome content.

this is honestly insane, there is nobody else on youtube who does it quite like Tim and the team - very excited to see the content being made from this!

HOLY CRAP!!! This is epic!!!!! You need just a small photo on the wall or something of the spacesuit. Just a quiet shoutout/reminder of how it all started

Those friends of you'rs are my idols. Next, I want a tour of the kitchen.

Absolutely fantastic! Everyday Astronaut was already amongst the best out there, but this all hardwired inside will eliminate a ton of hard to find problems when setting up for live broadcast. Long time fan, and I must say Tim and team never disappoint! (although equipment sometimes does...er, did.)

I just love how every video he puts out proves how all-in Tim is on team space. it really does seem like his goal of being "the walter Cronkite of space" is the most important thing to him. as always, I hope his videos are used in universities to teach my kids about rocketry.

The Everyday Rocket Van. Coming to a launch near you. Or, far from you. 'Cause it just doesn't matter anymore! You may want to see about a drain kit for the mast. If it's full of water, and it freezes up in Iowa, well....you know what happens. I think it's just 1/4" fittings that fit a weep hole near the bottom and 1/4" clear tubing to run overboard. And I think they make canvas mast covers for them to keep some of the weather out when not in use. Neither should be very expensive at all. And if a section starts whizzing water out, stop raising it until it quits whizzing. It can build up too much pressure if you just keep going up with it. Good luck with the van!

I think you should really give it an everday astronaut paintjob on the outside, patches logos a splash of orange from the old suit and really make it your own!

LUNA - that's a backronym worthy of NASA! 🙂 I am very glad, Tim, that I contributed a few cents to it.

I cannot wait for it to get an Everyday Astronaut paint job 😜 black and orange baby!! 🥳

That van looks nice and cosy! I love how you placed everything, including the monitors, the STI, and the desk + chairs. Apart from this, I love your content, and I mainly learn rocket things from you in every video, so yeah. Thanks for all this!❤

Good call, but there's a lot involved in maintaining a road rig. Chances are, what you bought isn't 100% up to par. IMO, check tires (dates, not just wear) immediately. Next brakes, shocks and springs. Service all fluids/grease points regardless of what they said when you bought it. Those are the minimum things to do, IMO, but I'd service transmission and give the engine a full tune-up as well. Not cheap, but what is the cost of the shot you missed because you were sitting on the side of the road? Best of luck with the van. No clue about the additional things to think about with the mast. Could get sketchy if it isn't working right or you don't have the right training/wind speeds/accessories.

Ghostbusters ECTO-1! Brilliant job Tim :)

Awesome work. That is the step in the right direction. It reminds me to the Ghostbusters car.

Tim as someone who works in broadcasting and loves your videos and streams I am sooooooo happy you got some kind of production truck! Best of luck with the truck and the streams you will host!

Really looks very well organized. No cables dangling all over the place.

4:59 This is super cool and a great idea