[Ravenser]

Having read it, seemed like a useful booklet. One strength was that it was by no means a "only one brand" exercise - the articles on fitting decoders mentioned several brands, not including Hornby

Someone already in the hobby with no previous contact with DCC could at least get some idea of what is involved and the products , players and prices (if only from the wide range of adverts)

Interstingly the Hornby decoder is said to feature Back EMF and 4 digit addressing. At the price they are indicating , this could make it very attractive to those under financial constraints

 

[Ravenser]

There are two seperate issues here:

- What addressing the Elite unit can handle

- What addressing the Hornby decoder can support

If the Elite can only handle 254 loco addresses , this seems to imply 4 digit addressing , since as far as I know loco addressing comes only in 2 or 4 digit formats - 256 addresses exceeds 128 (the maximum possible with 2 digit addressing)

However this does not mean the Hornby decoder can't support addresses above 256.

To take a parallel example , the Bachmann EZ system will only handle single digit addresses, Lenz Lokmaus and Hornby Select will only handle 2 digit addressing. But all Lenz decoders handle 4 digit addresses - including the ones rebadged and sold by Bachmann.

So the address capacity of the system does not imply anything about that of the decoder...

(Not an academic question for me - I've recently blown a Macoder in a 20, and although the loco won't see much action until the club project is finished, I'm attracted to the idea of sticking a back EMF decoder in it for less than a tenner. But it does need 4 digit addressing as that's what the club system will use (Lenz equipt)

So Bachmann's new decoder is out , and I await details of the Hornby unit