Page 25 - NMRA Roundhouse November-December 2018

Next up is ‘Sound’: This page has lots of options, most of which aren’t listed in the manual that came with the model. We can change the Engine Notching Speed (the realistic sound as a heavy load behind the loco would require more revs from the engine to get underway), Engine Auto Start (whether the engine fires up as soon as track power is enabled or only when we select speed step 1), Dynamic Brakes, Radiator Fan and Air Compressor. I want the radia- tor fan and air compressor sounds to be enabled automat- ically (as there aren’t enough spare decoder functions to map these sounds to). Clicking on the triangle to the right of each box gives the options available for that sound. Choose the options you want and click on ‘Write changes to sheet’. Photo 6
On the sound page we can also change the Airhorn type, set the Bell Ring Rate and Quiet Mode Timeout Period. This last option is how long it will take, when idling at speed step zero, for the sounds to temporarily mute themselves (A very useful feature as far as I’m concerned - I can only take hearing the sounds of every loco on my layout for so long, before wanting to hit the mute button. So something that does this automatically for me is a blessing in disguise!).
The ‘Sound Levels’ page is where we can set all the sound volumes. This loco’s master volume was set at the default maximum by the manufacturer and as such drowned out my other sound locos. Using the slider we can set it to
a more realistic level (in this case 150 - a bit more than 50%), similarly I want to be able to hear the air compressor since we enabled it on the Sound page. Making the chang- es turns the background of each orange. Click on ‘Write changes on sheet’ and watch the backgrounds turn briefly red then go clear as each change is successfully pro- grammed to the decoder. Photo 7 and Photo 8
Putting the locomotive on my layout gives a pleasing result. And all from a stress free process with clear graphics. Such a difference from writing down CV numbers and known val- ues on a bit of paper (for the operation you want to change and in case things need to go back to what they were), then pressing the handheld controller (of your DCC system of choice) a number of times just to set that one operation. I for one don’t miss those days at all. But if you really want
to know which CV has which value assigned to, it there is a page on DecoderPro that tells you just that.
Ian Watton
December 2018 - ROUNDHOUSE 25