On Thursday, we agreed to video the complete 2008 Digitrax Users Forum - an almost two hour event. You can watch the video for free here in MRH Theater.

 Zana Ireland, President of Digitrax, first spoke of some noteworthy Digitrax news: they're moving from Atlanta, Georgia to Panama City, Florida in the next few months. Zana gave lots of reasons, not the least of which is they're growing and the Florida Panhandle has a better quality of life, along with a more business-friendly environment than the Atlanta area. (Click on the left hand photo to enlarge.)

Next Zana moved into new product announcements, at which point she handed the mike to AJ Ireland, the engineering mastermind behind Digitrax. AJ described the new PR3 programmer, some new Z-scale decoders, and the big new item - their partnership with SoundTraxx that uses transponding to make the new SurroundTraxx layout sound system work. AJ invited Nancy Workman of SoundTraxx to come up and briefly describe how the new SurroundTraxx system works.

Using speakers under the layout and Digitraxx transponding, the sound follows the trains around the layout, fading realistically from one speaker to the next. Up to six simultaneous trains are supported. Nancy said, "Six should be enough for most people, once you get more than six, the noise level in the room can become overwhelming."

 With SurroundTraxx, N and Z scale modelers can easily enjoy high-quality loco and train sounds, and all scales can enjoy high-fidelity sound with great base. AJ pointed out that steam sounds tend to be more in the high frequency bands, so they don't suffer as much from the tiny speakers in model locos, but diesel sound demands deep base to get the realistic rumble. SurroundTraxx and Digitrax transponding makes it all possible. (Click on the left hand photo to enlarge.)

AJ also discussed their new duplex wireless throttles that use the higher 2 GHz band and no longer need to be plugged in to acquire locos. He said the product is still in development, so stay tuned for the final product announcement.

After the new product announcements, AJ and Zana took questions for about 45 minutes, helping a number of Digitrax users (mostly club users) work through issues they've been seeing with their Digitrax systems. Model Railroad Hobbyist magazine captured the entire session on video, and will be posting it in the MRH Theater area for free viewing, hopefully in the next week.

Tomorrow: A report from the floor of the 2008 National Train Show!