Hi,
I've been reading with interest the posts on battery power and beginning resources for learning DCS, but my question is much more basic. My MTH RTR set has a DCS Remote Controller that I communicate with via a line-of-sight infrared remote. Do I understand correctly that the DCS Controller passes on the 18 W track volts from the transformer and also sends digital signals to the track that go up through the pickups to a decoder in the engine, and that the decoder converts them into actions like forward, reverse, sound, and so on? If that's correct, I'm curious how the decoder knows what in that 18 V of track power is the digital signal. The only analogy I could come up with is something like a phone line that has power but also sends message packets with a header (start), a message packet (the digital data with instructions for the engine), and a footer (end of message). Is this correct? if not, what is the electronic magic at play here that separates regular old track power from data?
Thanks in advance,
Tomlinson Run RR
