cjack posted:The engine will run just fine with an exposed R2LC board. The antenna trace on the board to the connector, thru the trace on the mother board is several inches. I'm guessing that it doesn't matter where you ground the antenna since the wavelength of the signal is over two thousand feet.
As for the ungrounded antenna, I once had an engine with a cut in the trace on the R2LC board and it ran without the boiler in place. In that condition, the antenna was about an inch long.
Good points. While I was worrying about having a proposed wire from board to switch act as an always present antenna, I forgot to account for the traces on the board itself. Ooops!
I wasn't trying to go into wavelengths when I suggested the end being a better point to have the proposed switch, I was just forgetting that no matter what was done, the board would still have a bit of an antenna present no matter what(unless significantly modified).
I think by discussing this we are validating that there is quite a difference between optimizing positive operation (i.e., having a TMCC engine respond reliably when the signal is present - which is aided by the antenna included), and guaranteeing negative operation (i.e., it's a lot harder to make the electronics NEVER see the command signal without seriously modifying them - removing the item labeled as antenna is probably not enough)
-Dave
