Page 9 - November December 2014

REGIONCALENDAR
DEcEmbER 2014 9
One-day Freemo meet
in Exeter on Saturday 3 Jan – more info to
follow. Contact Martyn Read for details:
administrator@nmrabr.org.uk
WestonRail
NMRA-BR Spring Meet 2015 – The American Modular Meet
Fri 17 April – 12 pm to 7 pm, mostly setting up; Sat 18 April – 10 pm to 6 pm; Sun 19 April – 10 am to 4 pm
Ukrainian Centre, off Swarkstone Road. ‘Tarasivka’, Bridge Lane, Weston on Trent, Derbyshire DE72 2BU. Just off A50 (J3; A514 junction); easy reach from M1 (J24).
Modular layouts in HO, N and On30 plus other layouts. Traders will include SCC, N Scale American Trains, Neal’s N Gauging Trains, Malc’s Models, Linda Tinker Railway Books.
£4 for NMRA members, £5 for non-members. For more information contact Steve Dennison, 07834 718651 or Jim Dickinson, 07746 730914.
Armitage Freemo meet
has been set – 26 and 27 Sept 2015. If you are interested in bringing a module/s contact Martyn Read: administrator@ nmrabr.org.uk
More info: www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/ 88497-freemo-2015/
Alton Ltd
Sat 18 July – more details later.
NMRA BRITISH REGION ANNUAL CONVENTION 2015
23 to 25 October The Black Diamonds Group will be running the convention at the old LMS signalling school in Derby.
incurring the costs and “hurdles of officialdom” of non-EU travel. Without such articles, we could end up with a very dull, technical (and smaller!) Roundhouse magazine.
From Rod Welch
“Fabulous Service”
Snake Bend (Worcs N gauge Group) members will know of the problems I and another group member have had with botched work by a well-known and supposedly reputable DCC company. However, may I now sing the praises of another company, Digitrax.
For some time my 7-year-old Digitrax DT400 had shown some symptoms of not working properly. The problems were, when entering a loco’s number (addressing) into the throttle, it would read locos as having only 28 speed steps when the loco had been set for 128. Also when using the short horn/whistle on a Bachmann loco (F3) the function sounded twice instead of once. I could generally cope with this by reprogramming. Then the throttle suddenly developed the symptoms of what I can only describe as “Electronic Alzheimer’s”. When reducing speed with the right-hand knob of the DT400 and decelerating, the numbers would start to go down but then go back up! Thus a loco would decelerate then accelerate! However, if one used the left-hand knob or the buttons to control deceleration the operation was fine.
I decided to email Digitrax direct. It was 13 September 2014. Later that day (bear in mind this was a Sunday!) I had a reply
We already have a good selection of traders lined up together with some layouts. If anyone would like to bring a layout, especially if it hasn’t been seen often in the Midlands, please contact Steve Dennison, stevedennison46@yahoo.com, 07834 718651.
As this is our 70th anniversary, we are hoping to put on some extra events, watch this space and the website, www. nmraconvention.org.uk, for more details as they are arranged. We hope to be offering convention polo shirts etc, more details to follow.
For those who would like to see other, even non-railroad, attractions locally to the area, www.visitderbyshire.co.uk/ places_to_visit.ihtml is a good place to start.
NMRA’s next National Convention
Portland Oregon 2015, Portland Daylight Express
Information will be updated; website: www.nmra2015portland. org/
New Group Forming in Surrey
Stephen Black is working on organising a new NMRA-BR local group for the Surrey area. He lives in Weybridge and suggests that interested members contact him for details of what he has in mind. Tel: 01932 845243. stephenblack2@mac.com
New Group Forming on Isle of Wight
Similarly Neil Blue has decided to set up an Isle of Wight group, working title “The 51st State”, with members visiting each other’s layouts at home to encourage interest on the island. For more details contact Neil at njb249@yahoo.co.uk and if “The 51st State” could be put in the subject line it would help me sort my emails.
suggesting a possible fix and saying if the fix didn’t work to contact them again. I was impressed; however, the fix didn’t work, so on the Monday I emailed Digitrax again. Next day (Tuesday the 15th) came an email reply with a form to fill in to describe the symptoms of the fault(s) and advising that if I would like to return the unit to Florida, for a set charge of $31 they would effect a repair. I promptly packed and posted the unit. A few days later I had an email from Digitrax to say the unit had arrived safely and that repairs and return would be effected within 30 days! I was impressed again.
The DT400 unit arrived back here on the 2nd of October, in just 18 days. It is now working fine. It also has a 90-day warranty, not bad for a 7-year-old unit.
When I first started dabbling with DCC I bought a Lenz starter set because I had a German PIKO model with the German Uhlenbrock* sound system! – which seemed to favour the Lenz system. However I didn’t like its “layered” system. In fact, having used both Dynamis, Digitrax and NCE at NMRA meets, ergonomically I had at first favoured the latter. In the end I chose Digitrax but only because I was an active member of the Worcs N gauge group** and this was what they all used.
Thank you, Digitrax, you are the tops! If only all manufacturers/ suppliers in our hobby offered such good service.
* Uhlenbrock by the way are superb for generic steam loco sounds. I have their “American” chips installed in Bachmann’s 4-4-0, 4-8-2 and 2-10-0 locos.
** www.worcsngauge.co.uk