WELCOME TO THE 28th DCS USER GROUP MEETING ***20th Anniversary of DCS***

Any chance of getting video of the presentations?

Don Merz

Whew!  Under the wire!  Have a great meeting guys. 

I will definitely attend and have dinner. Thank you so much for having this.
October's presentation was fantastic.
Rich R

Don Merz,

If someone wants to record the meeting I have no problem with that.  I won't be hauling a video camera cross country, so it won't be me.  If anyone wants to volunteer to record the event please let me know.

Thanks Marty!  One of these years we'll have to get you to a meet.

Rich R, welcome aboard!

I will be there!!! Dinner too.

I will be there and eat dinner there.

Carl

Don and Carl, welcome aboard!

I'm pretty sure I can make it, I'll get dinner if I do. Looking forward to meeting some fellow MTH enthusiasts!

Welcome aboard Ken!

Can someone stream the meeting? The stream could then be recorded.

I will be attending.  James (Jay) Sanders and bringing a guest.

There will be two of us for dinner.

Jaytrak

Jay and guest, welcome aboard!

ScoutingDad,

Again, I have no problem with someone streaming and/or recording the meeting.  I won't have the gear to do it, but if someone wants to volunteer to stream the meet just let me know and I'll try to assist.

@Dave Hikel posted:

Jay and guest, welcome aboard!

ScoutingDad,

Again, I have no problem with someone streaming and/or recording the meeting.  I won't have the gear to do it, but if someone wants to volunteer to stream the meet just let me know and I'll try to assist.

A video of the main part of the meeting would be awesome.   I will not be able to get off work in time to attend.   

Either way - have a great time everyone!

Please add two to the list Dave.

Thanks

Hi Dave. I wish you guys a great DCS meeting. I am now a FL "snowbird" and will not be attending the York event in April.

I have to say you did a great job at the October, 2021 York. I expect to attend York in October, and I will not miss this event when I am at York. I wish you safe travels and hope you have a great time at York.

Gerry

@Dave Hikel posted:

Thanks Marty!  One of these years we'll have to get you to a meet.

Dave I am penciling it in for the fall.

Zac and guest, welcome aboard!

Gerry, be well and we'll look forward to seeing you in October.

Marty, we'll save you a seat!

I will be there, also for dinner! Looking forward to hearing what is going on.

Dave,  I will attend and will be there for the dinner.

Thank You!

I hope everything went well.  Any initial feedback?

Any updates on this? How did things go?  Inquiring minds want to know.

I am sure others will chime in but Dave did a great job discussing several technical details such as the frequency spectrum and the digital message length.  Good questions resulted in some detailed discussion of star wiring and reflection of signals.  Thanks also to Andy Edelman for attending and providing insights from his perspective.  Overall, I felt it was a positive picture for continued health of the system, IMHO.  Apparently, in the future, it is going to be an annual event in October.

@hokie71 posted:

I am sure others will chime in but Dave did a great job discussing several technical details such as the frequency spectrum and the digital message length.  Good questions resulted in some detailed discussion of star wiring and reflection of signals.  Thanks also to Andy Edelman for attending and providing insights from his perspective.  Overall, I felt it was a positive picture for continued health of the system, IMHO.  Apparently, in the future, it is going to be an annual event in October.

Dave did do an excellent job. I found his presentation on the origins of the spread spectrum technology used in DCS fascinating. I've never used the names Hedy Lamarr and Nikola Tesla in the same sentence, or at all come to think of it, but next time I hit the engine start up on the DCS app, I've got a story to tell the grandkids. Very thoughtful presentation.

We'll be doing a rebuild later this year and took away a few helpful tips on DCS wiring including use stranded wire, keep terminal blocks within 8 feet of the TIU, distance of wire from terminal to the track and wires being of different lengths not an issue but stay away from kinks in the wiring. I bought a packet of Dave's terminating filters to place at the TIU and at the far end of the track as he described. I'd need to sit through the presentation again to understand why I am going to do that, but for now, I trust in Dave.

Andy's tip on keeping the communication signal strong was to keep your track clean. He also said it would be better to start with new track v used for reliability. As for that, probably the most appropriate use of a cliche I could offer..."the train left the station." Oh, well.

Did anyone record the presentation?

By any chance did anyone one record or take a transcript of the event to post? It would be very helpful for all of us who wanted to attend but could not for a variety of reasons.

@Mooner posted:

We'll be doing a rebuild later this year and took away a few helpful tips on DCS wiring including use stranded wire,

Please explain the comment about stranded wire.  While I'm well aware of the skin effect for high frequency signals, the only time there would be a significant difference between stranded wire and solid wire for signal propagation is if you were using Litz wire.

Litz wire employs a stranded wire with individually insulated conductors forming a bundle. Each thin conductor is less than a skin-depth, so an individual strand does not suffer an appreciable skin effect loss. The strands must be insulated from each other—otherwise all the wires in the bundle would short together, behave like a single large wire, and still have skin effect problems. Furthermore, the strands cannot occupy the same radial position in the bundle over long distances: the electromagnetic effects that cause the skin effect would still disrupt conduction. The weaving or twisting pattern of the wires in the bundle is designed so that the individual strands are on the outside of the bundle for a distance (where the EM field changes are smaller and the strand sees low resistance), and are on the inside of the bundle for a distance (where the EM field changes are the strongest and the resistance is higher). If strands have a comparable impedance, current is distributed equally among every strand within the cable. This allows the interior of the Litz wire to contribute to the overall conductivity of the bundle.

FWIW, I use stranded wire for a totally different reason, it's much easier to work with, especially in larger gauges.

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

Please explain the comment about stranded wire.  While I'm well aware of the skin effect for high frequency signals, the only time there would be a significant difference between stranded wire and solid wire for signal propagation is if you were using Litz wire.

Litz wire employs a stranded wire with individually insulated conductors forming a bundle. Each thin conductor is less than a skin-depth, so an individual strand does not suffer an appreciable skin effect loss. The strands must be insulated from each other—otherwise all the wires in the bundle would short together, behave like a single large wire, and still have skin effect problems. Furthermore, the strands cannot occupy the same radial position in the bundle over long distances: the electromagnetic effects that cause the skin effect would still disrupt conduction. The weaving or twisting pattern of the wires in the bundle is designed so that the individual strands are on the outside of the bundle for a distance (where the EM field changes are smaller and the strand sees low resistance), and are on the inside of the bundle for a distance (where the EM field changes are the strongest and the resistance is higher). If strands have a comparable impedance, current is distributed equally among every strand within the cable. This allows the interior of the Litz wire to contribute to the overall conductivity of the bundle.

FWIW, I use stranded wire for a totally different reason, it's much easier to work with, especially in larger gauges.

No idea, John. Just wrote down Dave's tips. Hope I got it right as I wouldn't want to sew confusion.

Can anyone elaborate on the user group meeting with some details and notes for those of us who did not attend this go around?

There was no video recording of the event, and I did not notice anyone taking notes.

Hokie71 and some others are on point with their comments, and one more thing regarding MTH - The boards that are currently being made are going into new production trains.  So if your waiting for a board to repair an engine, the wait will continue.  It appears as of now, they are only cabable of producing enough boards to meet the new production numbers.  Obviously this is very frustating for train owners waiting on replacement boards and "repair guys" who are trying to accomplish these repairs.

If the total lack of repair boards persists long enough, people will lose confidence in MTH's ability to service what they sell.  I know where there's a pile of MTH boxes with stuff that can't be repaired because of lack of parts.

@John Mitchell posted:

There was no video recording of the event, and I did not notice anyone taking notes.

Hokie71 and some others are on point with their comments, and one more thing regarding MTH - The boards that are currently being made are going into new production trains.  So if your waiting for a board to repair an engine, the wait will continue.  It appears as of now, they are only cabable of producing enough boards to meet the new production numbers.  Obviously this is very frustating for train owners waiting on replacement boards and "repair guys" who are trying to accomplish these repairs.

Yes, I do recall them saying boards are going into new production. Also remember them saying the shortage of supply is outside of their control and it is the same within other industries that would get priority over production of model train boards - mentioned cars and phones among them. No mention of when the situation might be different, but if you read any current articles about supply chain issues for the auto or computer manufacturing industries, the chip shortage is going to last through 2022.

It was also said that the low supply has really impacted pricing of anything that you can find and that the pricing on the latest trains has those cost built in. I've seen some other forum posts about the higher cost of the ex-MTH diesels produced by Atlas; this seems to rationally explain that difference.

The talk was anything but gloom and doom, but it was realistic relative to where the global supply chain stands today.