Syd Schofield

4th Division, PNR, NMRA, Eastside Get Together North Branch (Redmond), 16 June, 2016 clinic

Dave Cook called the group gathering to order at 6:40 Thursday evening at the Redmond city library. About twenty people were in attendance for this last meeting of the 2015-2016 season.

The “Bring and Brag” items were a pre-fab production laser cut modular structure made in the UK, and a flat car with a specialized load. As usual, the items were of outstanding quality.

Brain Pickering gave a presentation of Digital Command and Control programming and operation with Decoder Pro from JMRI. Of the many features available with the several brands of decoders, Brian discussed and demonstrated some of the features and methods to simplify programming. The system has several hardware interface units available from different manufacturers with a common open-source (and available for free) software.

While the system is in conformance to the NMRA DCC standard, each decoder and DCC system manufacturer have unique characteristics and are generally functional with the Decoder Pro system. The system is very intuitive and greatly simplifies the process of programming the depths of each decoder to take full advantage of its features.

The group will take a summer break and re-convene in September (time and place to be announced in the Grab Iron).