Al Babinsky, Photos by Chip

MMR Gene Swanson opened the on time as always with 38 modelers including 3 newcomers attending.

Under announcements Mike Highsmith talked about welcoming new NMRA members to the 4D. One of the things that he was doing was to call or e-mail them and thank them for joining. He also informed them about clinics and other programs in the areas where they lived. In the spirit of this idea the Tacoma Clinic, under Wain Miller’s guidance, started a program in which the clinic attendees would introduce themselves and their layout and add phone numbers and e-mail so that they could be contacted by another member to arrange a visit. Al Babinsky volunteered to be the first to introduce himself and his layout. This will be about a 10 minute talk each clinic and a folder will be available with all the information given by the layout owners.

The TNW will have their swap-meet May 31 – June1.

What’s new at the hobby shop presented by Tacoma Train had a number of goodies from ready to use service station in O scale by Woodland Scenics, rolling stock, locomotives, vehicles in HO, N, and O scale. Of local interest would be the Sounder version of an FP59 and the Sounder passenger cars.

tacoma clinic photo

In the Bring and Brag (model of the month) category we had numerous entries; Chris Clancy with 2-6-0 weathered and decalled OSL (Oregon Short Line) a heavily weathered Milwaukee Road boxcar and a tank car, Dennis Reeves with an Eagle River Mine a laser kit weathered with cosmetic eye shadow colors, Dale Kraus with a tunnel made from Faller stone paper along with a Roco 0-6-0 narrow gauge loco and short passenger car, Walt Huston with a couple of covered hoppers one weathered and the other as is out of the box, Peter with a Chooch model kit of a mining machinery building and John Miller with an English loco that seemed to need a recharge on the magnet. The winner of this month was Dennis Reeves with the N scale Eagle River Mine.

This month’s clinic was on DCC programming with JMRI and SPROG and presented by Al Babinsky. As sometimes happens MR. Murphy presented his ugly head and made things difficult. Al could not do the actual programming but proceeded to go through with programming steps on the computer which was connected to the overhead projector so that the others could see what he was doing. He also had a handout for the group with the information on the how and where to download the program and obtain the SPROG. He also showed an app for the smart phone called Engine Driver that allowed the smart phone to act as a throttle and run the locomotive.

Now I want to apologize for that mishap at the clinic and tell you that I did not follow my own instruction and forgot to check a couple of items. I didn’t check to see which COM port the SPROG was using and in the program I didn’t check that the programmer was in PAGED mode.

Next month clinic will be given by Jim Sabol and is called Seven easy steps to soldering; the date is February 13th at 7:30 PM at the Pierce County Library Admin. Bldg. the corner of 112Th Street and Waller Road. We hope to see you there and bring a friend, modeler or your better half.