We are starting to see the athearn n-scale challengers hit the shelves. I thought these were going to have tsunami dcc sound decoders installed, but there’s nothing on the athearn web page that says if these are tsunamis or if they are still using the MRC decoders. Does anyone know for sure?
I checked the manual for the n-scale Challenger on Athearn´s web page and it is stated there, that you can change the starting voltage for slow speed operation. Now that is a clue that this loco might be equipped with a Soundtraxx Tsunami instead of the MRC decoders Athearn formerly used. Slow speed performance used to be a tremendous issue with those MRC decoders.
To be sure, why don´t you contact Athearn directly?
Look at the box in comes in – if it has the Tsunami there should be a sticker to that effect on one end of the box – at least their HO scale models have it prominently marked as such.
Unfortunately we’re looking at an online store, so we can’t see the box…an d no email responses yet. Thanks
I found the manual on the Athearn web site in .PDF format – it is an MRC decoder – the one that so many people have had problems with.
http://www.athearn.com/ProdInfo/Files/N_4-6-6-4_Challenger_Manual.pdf
This is stated in the very last paragraph at the bottom of page 6 of the manual.
The first clue to this was the listing of sounds that includes “Conductor Talk” – only MRC has the conductor yelling “All Aboard” for a freight train.
I emailed Athearn about the new N scale Challenger and the reply said it was a Tsunami. I don’t know about the conductor yell, but maybe that is an old pdf.
Athearn should know.
CZ
Just got a note from athearn too…they said they stopped using mrc last April…all products, including the challenger use tsunami. The link to the old manual is really goofy… They said it’s to the older model and will keep it up for information purposes. Bad marketing…no promotion or even mention it’s a tsunami and a pointer to old (and invalid) documentation… We almost decided to skip this one since we have an older challenger
I am so glad the new models do not use the MRC electronics any longer. It was the biggest fault with any of their products.
I looked at the link and saw the pdf is the old one with the DC controller. That gave me the clue that that was probably the old MRC pdf.
CZ
It seems to me that Athearn is shooting themselves in the foot, having an outdated document on their web site to describe the features of a new locomotive. I model in HO scale but if I were in the market for the N scale Challenger and thought it still had the MRC decoder I wouldn’t even consider buying one.
How difficult can it be for them to upload a new .PDF document?
Last week, I purchased an Athearn HO scale switcher from an Ace Hardware in Tucson, Arizona, but I made sure it had the Tsunami decoder by asking to see the box and documentation first.