Hi all,
First, I want to say thank you to all who attended the DCS User Group Meeting. It was great to see more and more familiar faces returning to York as well as some first time attendees.
From this point on I intend to meet each October York. Personally, I plan to attend both the April and October shows, but the User Group Meeting will be October only.
Here's a little run down of what was discussed for those who could not attend...
We were joined by Andy Edleman of Prime Mover Communications, who is working with both MTH and Atlas. Andy gave us an update on DCS hardware production. AIU's have recently shipped to dealers and are in stock now. WIU's are currently being assembled and should show up at dealers before the end of the year. Production of the new WTIU, which integrates the TIU and WIU in one package (but eliminates the 900 MHz radio for the old remotes) is still being held up by chip shortages. The design of the WIU has been done for months, but certain chips just haven't been available. MTH R&D has explored using alternate chips, but the results in testing have not been satisfactory. Their decision has been to hold production until they can deliver a quality product with the right chips. Currently, they expect to get a shipment of chips in early 2023, which would see WTIUs arriving at dealers in April or May. Keep your fingers crossed!
Also joining us was Jarrett Haedrich, COO of Atlas. This was Jarrett's first time attending the User Group Meeting, and we hope to see him again in the future. Jarrett said how pleased Atlas has been with the reception and sales of the Atlas Premier products acquired from MTH. They are particularly pleased with the rates of production and timely deliveries from the factory in China. Atlas has already moved many of their existing product tools to the new factory. This means we can look forward to quicker and more reliable delivery times for newly cataloged Atlas locomotives and freight cars. Jarrett was asked about future production of Atlas locomotives with TMCC. he said they will continue to offer new runs of engines with TMCC that have been available with TMCC in the past. No decision has yet been made if these locomotives will also be available with Protosound 3 in 3-rail, but that possibility does exist. The 2-rail versions will be moving to Protosound 3, which supports both DCS and DCC. Offering DCC and sound is important to the 2-rail market. Atlas has been selling O-scale locomotives with factory installed DCC for decades and will continue to do so.
Jarrett also stressed that Atlas is building their own inventory of parts and electronics to support their Atlas Premier and Protosound 3 offerings into the future. If it comes in an Atlas box, they will provide repair and parts support.
I did a presentation on the DCS signal, including a little history on spread spectrum signalling. Spread Spectrum is the key technology that makes DCS work on our electrically noisy train layouts with AC track power and sometimes questionable wiring 
. I also showed some video made on a test track that demonstrates using an AM radio to "hear" the DCS signal. I included clips of the watchdog signal that is generated when track power is first applied, a locomotive being added to a remote, and the track signal test. I also demonstrated how you can hear the degradation of the DCS signal on an AM radio long before the track signal test display drops from 10 to 9. NOT ALL 10's ARE CREATED EQUAL! An AM radio can be a useful tool to augment the built in track signal test when dealing with flaky performance. I'm going to edit those clips together into a single video and post it at a future date in a separate thread.
Thanks again to all who attended. Look forward to seeing you next October. Barring any unforeseen events, our next meeting will be at Eagle's Nest on Wednesday, October 18th, 2023.
