Talk:DCC versus Radio Control

Since this is a DCC forum, you would expect all articles to have a bias towards DCC. DCC vs radio control is no exception....unfortunately. If the NMRA were to devise a radio control standard, then the arguments presented against radio control would largely disappear...including the silly remark that the power source would have to come from on-board batteries. The major difficulty with DCC is that a carrier wave is propagated along the track and is picked up by a decoder generally thru wheel contacts. Dirt or oxidation on the track or the contact wheels often results in signal dropout. This will always be a constant problem with DCC. Keeping the track and (loco) wheels clean is therefore a top priority. Radio on the other hand makes sense in that the signal is freely progated thru the air. If the signal is of sufficient strength, little or no interference/degradation would be encountered in the train room. (Your portable phone is a good example.) This would truly be hassle free "DCC".

The Statement in the above introduction is False

"This also means, that you will need to carry you own power source on the train, such as (typically expensive) batteries. " (Anon user)

Please provide additional examples for power sources and correct the article instead of just saying that it's wrong. Lets share other methods of of power and make this article more accurate. TazzyTazzy 19:06, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Hi Tazzy,

I did not "Just say that it's wrong"

I could not find a way to remove the statement, therefore it needed to be reported as false.

Battery Power is an option, but not a requirement.

If you had reread the whole section, you would have seen that I qualified the statement:

Radio Control Operations allow you the option of taking power from the rails, an on board battery pack or a combination. This means that the Control signal from the throttle is never interrupted by interference due to dirty or dead rail segments like unpowered frogs in a turnout.

Just like DCC, Radio Control may utilize a capacitor to energize the decoder/transceiver during momentary power interruptions when using power from the rails. It is sometimes called an "electronic flywheel".

Ron Wm. Hurlbut <[email protected]>

P.S.: I figured out how to remove the erroneous statement and all is well.

Great!!! Thanks for cleaning up the article and glad you figured it out. TazzyTazzy 21:33, 17 June 2010 (UTC)