Hello, all of you experienced truck campers.
I am a new member with some experience in a borrowed fairly luxurious Coachman Ranger 11.5 ft. camper. Now it's time for one of my own. Circumstances indicate a pop up camper as a good choice. If I could afford it, I would consider a Hallmark or Outfitter. but I can't: so I am looking at the Palomino Bronco 1500LB. It has some features my wife and I like,especially shower and toilet. The weight is fine for our 3/4 ton truck and the cab over is alright for our standard cab, and it is affordable.
My questions: do any of you have experience and opinions about this unit, and can I camp in it off the truck without using additional supports other than the standard jacks? This last is very important for an annual extended fishing trip that keeps me vaguely sane. I know that Palomino says the unit has steel floor supports, but I'd like to hear from those with first hand experience.
Thank you all.
Gary F.

My friend and camping buddy John had a Palimino. He liked it. He had one problem with it and that was that the shower/bathroom wall kept seperating from the main wall. But, we camp very remote and some of the roads we travel are pretty rough so all in all it was a pretty good unit. As far camping in it while off the truck, I would not advise it. I mean you could walk around in it and use everything but I would not attempt to crawl up into the bed as it will tip over. (it almost happened to me). I have a Pine Mountain StarCraft Starmate 9.5 and I love it. This is my 4th one and I really believe in Pine Mountain.
http://starcraftrv.com/pine_mountain/index.html
Gary

Spanky:
Thanks for your quick response. Not only am I somewhat new to truck camping, I am brand new to chat rooms (is that what this is?): so I did not know what to expect.
I have looked at Pine Mountains and thought they might work. However, they don't seem to offer an a.c. option (my wife wants one, I don't care that much). Maybe more importantly, they don't have a front slider window that our dog could stick her head through into the cab, especially since I just spent a fair chunk of change to have the solid rear window in the truck replaced with a slider. I don't think they offer electric jacks either (not sure about this) which I really want. It also seems that your Starmate model is no longer made.
Your experience of a tipping problem with the Palomino is somewhat alarming, to say the least. I assume the jacks were lowered as much as possible. Since the 1500LB has a listed dry weight of 1577#, I wouldn't think my not so svelte 210# would tip it, but... Thanks for mentioning the wall separation problem, even though my truck is 2 wheel drive I've been known to push the rough road envelope.
I guess my choice is going to require more thought.
Gary F.
P.S. My mistake Spanky(Gary), just checked and saw that Pine Mt. does indeed offer A.C.

Look at these. Somewhat expensive. This is the type that my friend John traded for. They have electric EVERYTHING. I have got to calling John "push button" because just about everything in his camper is push button including the top.
Gary

http://www.hallmarkrv.com/page/home.html

PS Welcome to the forum. The "chat room" that you mentioned is a place where you can talk with someone online live. This is known as a "forum" where you post and then members can read and answer your questions or you can post info pretaining to truck camping.