Ed and others, I have found NCE to ALWAYS answer the phone and be very helpful. They were very forgiving to me when I smoked my first batch of decoders. Most manufacturers have a reasonable no questions asked exchange fee. They replaced more decoders then they should have for free. NCE products are assembled in THE USA! That is a truly novel concept.
The problem of not being able to run an engine without a decoder was and never will be an issue for me. I have my own system, as does EVERYONE in S else I know personally. Who cares about DC now? I also have enough engines (30+) with decoders to play with and keep me happy. The engines without decoders are going to get converted eventually. I also actually LIKE the large NCE handle. 1 button (pretty much) does 1 thing every time. There is no hold the shift key down and spin around 3 times contortionist moves to make something happen. I have a smaller yard handle. I just recently came really close to trading it to a friend that was just getting started. I hope to upgrade to a wireless system for this year's CJSS Get Together. I guess a major influence for most people in buying a system is what your immediate circle of friends already have. You depend on your Buds to fix you up more so then the factory or your dealer's help. My local S group was Wangro with some NCE as well. Bill was a bit ahead of his time going DCC early on. That is what pushed me to converting so I could actually RUN something instead of EVERYTHING sitting in boxes. The early Soundtraxx decoders can and did dump their programming often back to default with even the slightest flash short. Guess what happened when I brought down my first DCC converted engine to run? Many engines were removed from the layout with the second DCC engine I did. I think all those old decoders have since been replaced. The fact that there are a few big name manufacturers that are not overly interchangeable has cause great amounts of grief over at our S-Mod group. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/S-Mod Who will be crowned the official manufacturer of S-Mod? The jury is still out on that one. Thank You, Bill Lane Modeling the Mighty Pennsy & PRSL in 1957 in S Scale since 1988 See my finished models at: http://www.lanestrains.com Winner of the 2007 Josh Seltzer NASG Website Award Look at what has been made in PRR in S Scale! Importing a Brass S Scale PRR X29 & G26 http://www.pennsysmodels.com PRR Builders Photos Bought, Sold & Traded (Trading is MUCH preferred) http://www.lanestrains.com/PRRphotos.xls ***Join the PRR T&HS*** The other members are not ALL like me! http://www.prrths.com http://www.lanestrains.com/PRRTHS_Application.pdf Join the Pennsylvania Reading Seashore Lines Historical Society It's FREE (for now) http://www.prslhs.com Preserving The Memory Of The PRSL No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.516 / Virus Database: 269.19.16/1250 - Release Date: 1/29/2008 10:20 PM Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/S-Scale/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/S-Scale/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
