I have a 81185 Legacy Heavy Mikado that I had been having issues with loosing the TMCC signal at places on my layout that other Legacy engines easily traversed. Now I have lost all TMCC control of this engine. I checked handrails, examined the board into which the antenna is plugged etc. When the track is powered the engine starts up and works like a conventional engine. This engine has a small circuit board that the antenna wires plug into and in turn plugs into the main large board. However, the Mikado parts diagram does not show this board as a replacement part. I opened up a 82181 Consolidation to examine how the antenna is connected on this engine, It also has a small board just like the Mikado but with a slightly different part number. Also, the female plug on this board did not match the male plug that went to the antenna on the Consolidation or I might have tried swapping them. So the here are my questions: Is it likely that the problem with the Mikado is due to failure of the small antenna board? Does Lionel not use these small antenna boards anymore? Any other ideas? Is it common for TMCC signal reception to decline gradually and finally fail like happened to me? Or does it usually fail all at once? Phil
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