about a week a go i received an MRC steam sound decoder (on sale at micro-mark at a price i couldn’t resist) . this morning i realized that i had everything i needed to test it … a bachmann spectrum 4-6-0 , some flextrack , and a digitrax challenger system (DB100a + CT4) that i bought at a train show many years ago when DCC was fairly new , and a troller DC power pack to supply power to the DB100a.
i followed the instructions , plugged everything together , pushed a few buttons and … chug chug chug CHUG CHUG CHUG , my little engine went steaming down my 3 feet of track !
i spent at least an hour running it out and back and out and back , it was great fun . showed it to my wife when she got home , and she really liked it too ! i haven’t run a train since my N scale oval back in the late 1970’s .
so i need a few things …
- a smaller speaker because the 4-6-0 tender is pretty small and the MRC speaker and enclosure won’t fit as-is
- a newer DCC setup , no function buttons on the CT4 means i couldn’t play with any of the other sounds the decoder can make . also even though there are two connectors on the front of the DB100a clearly labeled “LOCONET” and described as such in the manual , digitrax has told me by email that i can’t use the UT4 throttle with the DB100a because ‘it doesn’t have Loconet’ . they didn’t answer when i replied asking what the connectors were . any ideas ? my guess is they made changes in what Loconet does and the new definition isn’t supported by my old box . no problem really , i think i can use the DB100a as either a booster or an auto-reversing section controller
- a bigger layout than a 3 foot piece of flextrack !