I throughly enjoy the Monday Movie feature on your great online magazine.  Very insightful and full of very useful information.  Looking forward to part 2 of "The good, the bad the ugly".  Our train club has been using LENZ DCC for several years and we are going through a transition from a mix of DC/DCC to strictly DCC.  For some members this has been a difficult transition.  To assist our staunch DC members in the transition, we created a DCC SIG and we give DCC demos during the monthly meeting and assist members with the installation of DCC in their locos.  Joe, your comment in the video regarding the cost of converting one's entire fleet to DCC is well taken.  You don't run your entire fleet at any one time.  We all have our favorite loco/s that we run 90% of the time.  That's the philosophy we use at the club.  And for members that are on a fixed income.  The club will sometimes financially assist them in buying decoders to help the club reach our 100% DCC goal.  Keep on the great work on the magazine.  We all appreciate your hard work and devotion to the hobby we all enjoy.

Bob Brockel, UP Fan

Once again, I thoroughly enjoyed part two and have now decided on going with an NCE wireless system
Joe, your movies have really helped, I will be watching for part 3, come on next Monday get here!!!

My layout is  6 feet wide by 24 feet long, and compltely walkaround, so wireless is reallythe way to go.
I was going to used tehered until Joe pointed out the move-plug-in acquire train, then do it again and again.
Wireless will also prevent accidentally snagging a tether wire and ripping a cord loose, not a fun thing to do.

Thanks again Joe, what a great video series!

TheK4Kid

aka  Ed

Another great Monday Night Theatre!

I'm following along too and can't wait for next Monday!

I liked both parts so far. Joe really explains his reasoning as why he chose what he chose. For me it wasn't as complicated since the only consideration I had to take into account was that the club I belonged used Digitrax and i had no layout at the time I joined, that Digitrax was the system I would go with. Had I joined a club with NCE I would probabl;y have picked that but system.

Having about 6 month's of experience running Digitrax I find thatthe ability to use 4 digit addresses is a very appealing feature. Why? well at some point It will be easy to run out of two digit addresses, not that I anbticipate that in the near future. For another, it is more likely that conflicts will arise because two different locomotives will have the same last two digits, especially if friends and other club members bring their own locomotives to run on my layouts. Having 4 digits available allows 9,999 diferent number combinations and decreases (but does not eliminate) the possibility number conflicts.

It is a bit disappointing not to see much of an evaluation of Digitrax in these two parts but Joe did say that one has to be plugged in to acquire a locomotive using the Digitrax system and that is quite true. What he didn't say is that the system also tends to go to sleep if you let your train run at a constant speed for a while without touching the speed control periodically. It also sometimes loses the train and when that happens you need to reconnect to reaquire it. I haven't figure why that happens but my thought is that it happens when someone "steals" your locomotive which can easily happen someone puts another locomotive on the tracks with a similar number to yours.

I look forward to upgrading my Digitrax system to one tha does not reauire plugging in at all.

Irv

 Thanks for sharing these with us ,Joe . I just got to watch the 2nd video & enjoyed it as I found Your presentation enlightening ,unbiased  and easy to comprehend . Looking forward to next weeks installment. Randy

Thanks for sharing these with us ,Joe . I just got to watch the 2nd video & enjoyed it as I found Your presentation enlightening ,unbiased  and easy to comprehend . Looking forward to next weeks installment. Randy

Randy can I borrow that line?  I want to review the videos I got from Model-Trains-Video.com on my blog and that describes what I want to say about Joe's delivery of the material presented even better than I have so far. :o)

Thanks.

feldman718 said:  "... It also sometimes loses the train and when that happens you need to reconnect to reaquire it. I haven't figure why that happens ..."

Irv,

Your UR-91 should have come with its own 12v "wall wart" power supply.  I at first didn't bother to use mine, because it was getting power thru the LocoNet.  But it did the same thing you described - became unresponsive and forced me to plug into a loconet jack to regain control.  I found out it was because I wasn't using the power supply that came with it; I plugged that in, and I haven't had any problems ever since!

Also make sure your 9v throttle battery is somewaht fresh.

-ken

That used to happen at the club. Until my layout gets to the point where I can lay some track, I won't be able to run anything and that probably won't be before the summer the way things are going right now. Now that the club has lost iuts club room, train running just isn't going to happen unless I get to the next club show which may not be until the middle of March at the Greenberg Show in New Jersey which is at least a two hour drive from where I live. I am not sure if I'll go.

In any case, the problem of losing your train isn't one that occurs regularly. And I am not the only club member that had the problem.

Irv

Kudos once again for part three of DCC the Good, the Bad and the Ugly

TheK4Kid

Just finished part 3 of this series and it is very good because it makes clear the need for power districts and how to protect those power districts from the mayhem that can be caused by shorts. Gapping and automobile tail light bulbs work great. I do have one question that needs to be answered though. Will the 1156 bulb so the same job on an N-Scale layout with 5 amp boosters work the same way?

Irv