Yes. DCC puts an AC power signal in the track. I can adjust my system, usually I put about 16-17 VAC out of my booster.
Remember, the DCC command signals are low voltage digital waves sent out on the rails in conjunction with the AC power wave, as if they were signal wires.
Everything ignores them on the rails except for the address of the engine receiving the signal. LionChief is an over air system, uses Bluetooth I believe. They don't use the rails for train control. All you need for LionChief is a 16v+ DC or AC voltage on the track, which DCC provides. I've run 2 DCC engines and 1 LionChief many times in my smaller layout.
Ted
On another thread Ed Rappe said that DCC was not AC. Like you I always thought it was AC but when I researched it I found that Ed Rappe was correct. I could not find one official place where it states that DCC is AC.
Your second sentence seems to indicate that the command signals are "low voltage" and separate from the power. With DCC the power and the command signals are one and the same. This I am sure of. This is why if a locomotive is touching the rails it is impossible for it to receive power and not the command signals or bit/data or the data/commands without the power. It could hit some dirty track and get nothing so with DCC it is either all or nothing. I have found it to be much more reliable in getting the signal/instructions to the locomotive than either of the proprietary systems.
I think that it is really cool that you can run LionChief locomotives on a track powered by the DCC signal. I assume the LionChief locomotive's electronics are rectifying the DCC signal and turning it into power and then getting their command instructions via the Bluetooth or however Lionel has the remote talk to the locomotive.
The thread I am talking about can be found here:
https://ogrforum.com/...3#172048746214097773
Here are some highlights from that other thread so you don't have to read the whole thing. (From DCC Wiki)
NMRA Digital Command Control, unlike other analog and digital Command Control systems, puts a 100% digital signal onto the rails, delivering both power and data in the same signal. The digital information is encoded in the time domain by pulse width, not amplitude. It is not superimposed on a DC or AC waveform, nor does it use a high frequency carrier, unlike past and current command control systems. Since the rails are alternately energized or held to zero, there are no issues with polarity.
Since the signal is completely digital, the NMRA Digital Command Control [1] waveform is a square wave. The nature of a square wave results in more demanding requirements for wiring to avoid voltage losses and signal distortion compared to analog control methods.
and...(from NMRA.org)
"The baseline method for providing the power to operate locomotives and accessories, which shall be
supported by all Digital Command Stations and Digital Decoders, is by full-wave rectification of
the bipolar NMRA digital signal within the Digital Decoder. In order to maintain power to the
Digital Decoders, gaps in bit transmission are only allowed at specified times (see S-9.2, Section C)."
From DCC Wiki:
Digital Command Control has no concept of polarity. Binary signals do not have the concept of negative. A negative voltage would be considered an Undefined Value.
The track voltage on an oscilloscope's display indicates the presence of a plus/minus signal. It "sees" a negative voltage when the booster flips the rails, as the reference point is floating. There is no common reference point held to a zero potential. Another way to look at this is how the current is flowing: It will flow from A to B, then B to A. The scope trace will display this.