Paperlad

Ahhh, I think that I understand now. The Trix system is (or was?) ‘Selectrix’ or DCC so essentially I’d be disabling the Selectrix bit? PL.

Will do. Until this point I’d never heard of you but I’ve just looked up your website and I’ll take a look at some of your videos. PL

Thank you to all for the tips and advice but I’ve now given up on the decoder. I’ve gone through each individual CV to check values and done multiple resets but I can’t get it to do anything. I’ll call Rails tomorrow and ask if they have the facilities to test the decoder and if so I’ll have a day out to visit them (about two hour drive each way) if not I’ll post it back for an exchange. Best regards to all. PL.

Thinking again about your post and you’re spot on as the symptoms would suggest that the wrong address is set or the controller doesn’t recognise it, irrespective of what I set. Others have suggested similar but I do keep checking it, honest

I’ll check CV29. I didn’t do the power break after the CV 8 reset so I’ll do it again. Thanks for the tip. Digital format: I’m not sure that I understand that one? It’s interesting that you mention speed steps, the steps listed for the decoder are (from memory) 14, 28 and 128 but my controller display indicates 14, 28 and 126…..possibly because it’s an older Trix device? However, none of my other decoders seem to mind but this is the first V5 that I’ve used. PL.

Thanks, that’s one that I was aware of.

Once gain thanks for the information. I’ve just done a CV8 reset (twice:)) but sadly still nothing. What I don’t understand is that I can see and change all the CV values and the decoder accepts them with the motor doing its little ‘jiggle’ thing which suggests to me that the decoder retains some functions but when I try to run it there’s just nothing? I even tried the decoder in a different loco with the same result. Anyroad, thank you for the help, it is appreciated, and I’ll have another try later before returning it. PL.

Thanks for the tip but wouldn’t doing a factory reset (CV8) erase the sound file? Sorry if this is a dumb question. PL.

Yesterday I bought a Loksound V5 sound decoder for a Bachman 37. After insulating the three ‘power pack’ (stay alive) wires and fitting the decoder to the loco I placed it on the programming track to set the address. I can read and change the CV’s and there is the usual, slight, motor judder when setting a new CV value but when I try to run the loco nothing at all happens. No movement, no sound or lights. The loco runs fine on DC and also with a different (non sound) decoder. I’ve read that some others have difficulty with a V5 but before I return it I thought I’d ask if I was just being dim and missing something obvious? My controller is an older Trix Mobile Station. Any advice appreciated. PL. Edit: the decoder is from Rails and I believe that it’s a South West Digital sound project.

Lovely stuff. I’ve pre-ordered (from Hattons) the 30 and I’ll also upgrade should a DCC sound version of it become available. Alternatively, should a 31 become available in BR green but with small yellow warning panels I’ll have that instead. I’m quite excited about this, must be an age thing.

Local GP surgery called me today to arrange Covid booster and annual flu jab, both booked for 12th Nov. The call came pretty much exactly 6 months after my second Covid jab. I’m not convinced that further ‘lockdowns’ or mask wearing will be of much benefit now. I would suggest that virtually all adults who are prepared to be vaccinated have been and there will always be a number who cannot or will not have the vaccine or the booster. Any more national (or even local) restriction will only cause fear and resentment in the population along with continuing economic harm. It’s my opinion that we should take whatever personal protection is appropriate to the individual and get on with life, after all, and like it or not, Covid is here to stay. PL. PS. I would modify the above if a new, more lethal variant appears.

May I suggest that another option is to install an ad-blocker (as suggested previously) on your chosen device, there is lots of choice and many are free. I was moved to install a blocker when the pop up video boxes started appearing, which I thought were very intrusive, and it was either that or stop using RMweb. The blocker that I installed works a treat and once operating is effective on all sites that you may visit, not only this one. PL.

Replacement copy received today and I’m pleased to say that it’s complete. Many thanks. PL

For information: My copy of the magazine has just dropped through the letter box and when I picked it up it did feel a little thin. Upon opening, the first page is numbered 35 so there’s a large proportion of it missing. I guess that it’s some sort of printing error and it could be a one off or possibly effecting all printed copies? PL.

Spotted yesterday in North Bolton. I don’t know why they would need a ‘mobile cctv unit’ or quite what was going on but it looked interesting. The driver was quite happy to chat until I asked for a go

If that was a Q for me, I’ve got to wait until Sept for delivery but in view of circumstances I may need to be patient. I’ve also read similar about ‘chip’ production, only 18% of them are produced in the U.S. all the others are from Asia, primarily Taiwan, as you say. I’m also told that they’re difficult to manufacture and it takes some time to ramp up production after a slowdown. PL.

With the above in mind it’s possibly not a good time to be buying a used car but if selling its a different story. I recently decided to get rid of my present, daily user (it’s a diesel and I don’t ruddy like ‘em) and I was thinking about the best way to get shut of it before ordering summat else. Cards on the table, I’m a car enthusiast and fairly familiar with how trading cars works, having been ‘in the trade’ - although it was 30+ years ago - but the current market took me by surprise. Here’s a summary of what happened to the prices for mine over a few weeks: The car: ‘18 plate Volvo S90. 18300 miles. Almost mint with proper service history. Early April, £16100 - manufactures on-line valuation tool. Mid April, £16900 - manufacturers on-line valuation tool. Early May £17000 - dealer p/x price. Mid May £18100 - Webuyanycar. Mid May £18050 - wewantanycar. Mid May £18000 - my mate offered to sell it from his pitch on consession. Late May £18715 - Webuyanycar revaluation. Late May £19700 - Motorway (estimated price) I decided to list it with Motorway (a bit of a faff with all the pictures they want) in one of their one day auctions and it sold for £20505 to a London Volvo dealer. After a short inspection with no last minute haggling the money was transferred and the car is gone....hurrah! There’s a bit of background to all this and that’s the world shortage of silicon chips. Apparently there aren’t many makers of the pesky things and due to Covid lockdowns, factory fires (I kid you not), end users lack of orders and a myriad of other reasons there’s not enough to go around. There are lots of them in cars (pretty much everything else too) and, due to the shortage, many car manufacturers have reduced production and in some case stopped building certain models completely, which is extending delivery times by a large amount. Because there a fewer new cars there’s less bing traded in which is forcing prices up, especially for late model desirable ones but also further down the chain. I’ve never heard of used cars going up in price (with a few exceptions) but there you go, it’s bonkers! Please don’t tell me I should have waited longer ‘cos the bubble will burst and I’m delighted the oil burner is gone Anyroad, just a bit of interest for the petrol heads on here. PL.

Well, I’ll put an early post on, maybe get things going? I’m feeling quite optimistic about the coming year, we’ve all got an idea about the plans to ease ‘lockdown’ (I now detest that word!), the vaccine programme appears to be going spectacularly well (I had my first dose {Pfizer} last week) and it generally seems that infections, hospital admissions and deaths are all markedly reducing. Spring and summer is just around the corner so it’s looking much better than this time last year. All simply my opinion. Best wishes to all. PL.

I’ve got to agree with Neil here, the U.K. has just surpassed a dreadful milestone of more than 100 000 deaths from or infected with Covid. What an appalling statistic! All this nonsense of people demanding to know a plan to reopen schools, roadmaps out of lockdown and every other petty, foot stamping tantrum achieves nothing. The only thing to really do it’s to get the infection rate way lower, significantly reduce hospital admissions and get rid of this virus by any means humanly possible, then, and only then can we genuinely begin to plan for the future. I’ve had a crappy day at a local vaccination centre so rant over. PL.

Here’s mine, I did post the pic some time ago in another thread. Not been used since I stopped instructing in 1990 but it’s a nice thing to keep and maybe I can show the grand children what we used before the ‘digital age’

Oops, What happens when a student pilot gets it a bit wrong. I didn’t write any notes on the photo but it will have been late ‘80s at Barton, just outside Manchester. To be fair this was a regular event at Barton where the grass runways are short and very bumpy! It was easy to bounce the aircraft on landing and subsequently land nose-wheel first trying to recover - or - hold the nose-wheel on the ground during the takeoff roll and it just ‘digs in’ and breaks. Most of this type of event resulted in nothing more than a bit of a shock, red faces at the club house and a damaged ‘plane. Happy days (not for the student tho).

Another slightly unusual cargo: a Datsun summat or other that we picked up in Chennai, India and going all way to a motor show in California by air. Oct 2015. I seem to recall that it was an electric or hybrid, built at a factory in India but sending a supposed environmentally friendly car halfway around the world by air seems a bit odd.

Mate, we all (well, most of us) started the same way. Me, hour building in the US, using the most beat up, bucket of junk ever. More years ago than I care to remember.

Unloading a very special cargo in Bander Abbas, Iran. 1000 breading goats brought from Barcelona where they were reared. Oct 2016.

Proper ‘plane.