New Editor for MR

I'm just starting to get my feet wet in DCC, and it is going to be a learning experience for sure. I didn't enjoy all the control panel gymnastics required to run two tains on the old layout, so the new one is being built for DCC. DCC can greatly simplify the wiring involved, and allow you to run trains rather than spend your time flipping switches. There are a lot of reasons why people don't switch overe from DC, expense being of prime concern. How many engines are there to convert? Of course, like I'm doing, just convert a few at a time. You'll get there eventually. Also a lot of us are old farts are technophobes that don't like to change something that works.

Back to the manual, fl@liner

snipped-for-privacy@webtv.net wrote: [...]

Actually, the first DCC system was Keith Guiterrez's home built one. There was an analog command control system, Astrac (made by GE) that worked reasonably well, and was succeeded by another one whose name I forget.

And prices have come down, in terms of actual dollars, and even more so in terms of price/quality ratio. A sound decoder nowadays costs about as much as four function decoder cost 10-15 years ago.

[...] There are a lot of reasons why people

I looked at my stash of locomotives the other day, most 20+, many 30+ years old.

And I realised that almost all have sentimental value only. They just aren't up to today's standards. A couple of brass ones might be worth converting, but they need remotoring first. Ancient Athearns, repainted in my fictitious RR's colours, look nice if you don't get too close. Their motors draw 1/2 amp and up. Some, eg a Rivarossi Dockside, are just plain worn out, but remotoring and regearing them just isn't worth the cash, and still less the effort. Some are weird bashes conforming to no known prototype, cobbled together to "salvage" the usable parts of two or more junkers. And so on.

IOW, realistically, how many of those old locos are good enough to be candidates for conversion to DCC? 1 in 10, maybe?

-- Wolf

"Don't believe everything you think." (Maxine)

CNJ999 wrote::

Unfortunately, the only polls that I know of that asks about DCC ownership are in MR. And MR subscribers are more likely to be the older, well established crowd with DC layouts. These are also the type that would be reluctant to even own a computer let alone get into DCC (and I'm talking generalities here). IMHO, using only MR's poll would show an anti-DCC bias...just like using only an online poll would show a pro-DCC bias as the generally younger crowd that is online (and therefore own a computer) wouldn't have much problem going DCC. I'm not saying that DCC is more than 25% of the hobby. What I am saying is that we just don't know.

Just like there used to be a majority of O scalers that had no intention of switching to HO, back in the day. But as HO quality & selection improved, so did the number of HO modelers. I don't think it's out of line to say that DCC will probably follow that same path...but it will probably take longer than HO's ascension to the majority scale.

That's not an unreasonable assumption. But, I think as time goes by and DCC gets better and cheaper, you'll find more older modelers converting, especially as they tear down old layouts and start anew. Heck, if Jim Six can change his mind and go DCC, anyone can. :-)

Paul A. Cutler III

****************** Weather Or No Go New Haven ******************

It is cheaper, just not to the extent of other consumer electronics. Four function decoders (DH140's, for example) used to be $40. Now you can get six function decoders for $30. And two function decoders can be had for $16 or less. A Digitrax starter set used to be $250, and now the Zephyr can be had for only $160 (and does far more than the old Genesis set). The reason why it isn't cheaper is because DCC is still small potatoes compared to the cell phone, PC, or DVD market. These devices get cheaper because of the economies of scale. DCC just doesn't have that. According to Lenz, they've sold over 1 million decoders. Now think how many cell phones have been sold over the last 15 years, and you'll see why cell phones get cheaper and cheaper while DCC prices come down slowly. As for the age of DCC, Bernard Lenz invented it in 1988 while working for Marklin. He introduced DCC in 1991 as his Digital Plus system. All this is on his website,

Paul A. Cutler III

************* Weather Or No Go New Haven *************

I guess it's really funny, but, I would worry that any MR poll might be biased in the opposite direction. There's more to be gained in advertizing revenues if we all go over to DCC today and then, in a few short years, convert to the next panacea. It may be ancient history, but IMHO, MR gave a disproportionate amount of print to ASTRAC when it first appearred.

In a sense, though, Paul may be very much correct as regards the possibe results of a non self-serving poll. Perhaps that is why no such poll has been forthcoming.

To be completely honest; My operation is DC and I probably will not change. Thank you.

Jerry

Rewind your calender by a decade!

Lenz invented DCC pre 1978 - it was patented in Germany in 1978. Maerklin announced their Lenz based system in 1984, both for AC compatibility (pulse reversing of analogue) and DC compatible in conjunction with Arnold the following year. That system was DCC. Lenz decided to hold the rights in Germany but to make his system open for the rest of the World. Had he been working for Maerklin at the time of his invention it would have belonged to Ma, not Lenz.

Regards, Greg.P. NZ.

Until actually using DCC gets simplified to the point of using a TV remote, it will be a non-starter for many folks.< In some clinics I used to joke, Can you change the time on your VCR? If you can't then _maybe_ DCC is not for you.

Actually, I'd think that it's *harder* to set the time on a lot of VCRs than it is to set up DCC.

The same reason you had to cross post to several, totally unrelated, groups? Uh ... you're stupid.

Paul

-- Excuse me, I'll be right back. I have to log onto a server in Romania and verify all of my EBay, PayPal, bank and Social Security information before they suspend my accounts.

Working the rockie road of the G&PX

Paul Newhouse spake thus:

No, not stupid; at least not in the way you're implying.

The crossposting, the off-topic-ness, the cant, all that is totally intentional. These folks know what they're doing. *Why* they're doing it is beyond me, and reveals the real underlying stupidity. But life's too damned short to waste any time trying to psychoanalyze them.

I don't think so. I got an email from him in response to a query I sent to MR on Feb 9th 2007.

CNJ999 wrote:

"...Hediger supposedly retired a while ago).

This take on things is a bit humorous in my opinion, since the exact opposite is true! Whereas MR was indeed once the advanced hobbyist's magazine, over the past dozen years or so its content has dramatically altered. Particularly under its most recent editor, it has become little more than a newbie and eye-candy publication, almost totally lacking in the useful content it offered to the more skilled and advanced hobbyist in years gone by.

Clearly, MR is aimed toward the largely unskilled, RTR crowd these days, who desire mainly to purchase their way into the hobby, rather than to learn the skills and develop the talents that have always been considered as basic to model railroading. Even when MR seems to offer a more advanced construction article, it generally lacks the full details essential to replicate the project.

It is this change in direction that is partly responsible for MR's dramatic decline in circulation over the past dozen years, as many serious, older and longtime hobbyists drop their subscriptions and switch to more serious publications.

With regard to MR's outlook on DCC and its polls, the magazine has been a primary booster of that technology for years (as it was for failed Astrac), even to the point where, about 2000, it went a full year only publishing articles about DCC-equipped layouts! Only after this fiasco, when the editors began to appreciate they were alienating a good part of their already rapidly declining readership, did they relent and once again include DC layouts in its pages.

So, if anything, expect any spin from MR polls to show a pro DCC bias, not the otherway round.

CNJ999

I got my information direct from

written by Bernard Lenz himself. What he defines as DCC started in 1988 according to the above link.

Paul A. Cutler III

************* Weather Or No Go New Haven *************

For which, as usual, you offer no proof.

Yet it's still the No. 1 model railroading hobby magazine. Funny, eh?

God, you sound like such an old fart. "Back in *my* day, we walked 5 miles to school...up hill...both ways...through 10 feet of snow...with only newspapers wrapped around our feet...but that's the way it was and we liked it." Do you know you sound just like those old letters to the editor in MR from the 1940's and 1950's, railing against the new technologies of the era? After all, every one knows that _real_ model railroaders build everything from scratch (like they did before the war)...NO KITS. They wind their own motors, they cast their own smokebox fronts, they only use O scale, and they never, never, NEVER would ever use that cheap crap called "plastic". Metal or wood only. You, of course, don't use plastic, do you? You make your own detail parts, right? You don't use pre-made decals, or buy scenery materials like ground foam, correct? After all, _real_ model railroaders make all that stuff themselves. Just like they did before WWII. Newsflash: The hobby is changing, just like it always has and always will. It's getting easier to be a model railroader...and that just bugs you to no end, doesn't it?

As usual, you are full of it. If that were true, we'd be seeing a big increase in RMC's circulation. And if anything, their's has dropped just as bad as MR. The reason is called "The Internet"...you know, the one that you have claimed in the past that has zero effect on publications? And those more serious pubs...how many are left? Didn't Mainline Modeler just go under? I know Model Railroading did. So what "serious" model railroading mags are seeing this new influx of subscribers???

OMG. You can't be serious. Imagine...a whole year of nothing by DCC controlled layouts? My god, the horror! You are out of touch with reality if you find that a "fiasco". For example, if you went to all the local railroad clubs in the Boston area, all but one have gone DCC (the MIT club...and that's expected because they *like* building their own system). North Shore, South Shore, Roslindale, Providence, Worcester, Taunton, Cape Cod, Nashua, etc. Should I expect to see you picketing in front of each of these clubs the next time each one has a show? Ranting about how horrible it is that these clubs have gone DCC? Get a grip. Did you go on these kinds of rants when they were publishing the multi-year CTC-16 articles in the 1980's?

Another newsflash: The average subscriber to MR isn't necessarily the same as the people that submit articles.

Paul A. Cutler III

****************** Weather Or No Go New Haven ******************

To counter your point, MRC has been a full back page advertiser in MR and RMC for years and years. Don't you think that their revenue from that one page is worth more than all the Digitrax, Lenz, and NCE ads together? And MRC, even tho' they keep screwing up DCC, is still a DC power supply leader. BTW, I seriously doubt that DCC will be replaced anytime soon. It's been around for almost 20 years already, and has been an NMRA Standard for over 15 years. I think it's grown too popular to be replaced...unless someone invents free energy transmission and thought control throttles. LOL

To each their own.

Paul A. Cutler III

************* Weather Or No Go New Haven *************

One of the common perks of retirement is to retain the e-mail account paid for by one's employer.