I checked my emails before I turned in, and here I sit. So many good questions, so much good advice, so where do I start.
RJR - I have 19 switches, 6 locomotives, 4 I can run at one time if I stay on my toes. I won't go into how I can run 4 because you would need to see the layout in order to get the full picture. I have One TIU hooked to two AIU's, one piggy backed off the other, and one set of wires running from the Fixed out 1 port to the track. 12 gauge bus wires with twenty two 16 gauge feeders. My F5 button is going south on me so when I first begin a session, opening a switch consists of me holding down the F5 button for up to 10 seconds and finally the switch in question opens. As I open more switches throughout the session, it warms up and begins to get with the program. As long as I keep track of who is open and who isn't, running four trains is merely a task of putting one train on the outer most track, a second train on track 2, and using track 3/the yard track, I can open a series of switches that let two more trains exit their respective parking track onto the yard track and then immediately exit the yard track onto someone elses parking track, which in this case would be the two trains running safely opposite each other on the main lines, and with the southern and northern switches open, you get a small oval within an oval and you can run two more trains, while the other two sit and wait. Because my F5 is hinky at first, I have to think ahead before I act so I don't accidentally have one of the inner oval trains suddenly exiting onto an occupied track 2. Oh, thanks for the great info on how your cell phone changes wifi connections without warning. Sound like a tablet with no phone ability is the better way to go if you go this route. Larger screen too.
H1000- Didn't know you could do that. Do now. I will keep that in mind if my dedicated remote gathers even more maintenance issues and I do switch to WIFI operation. Thanks for the tip. In regards to my Why, Why, Why article. You make a great point. You may have touched on this but just in case, apps can be edited, redistributed to the app store or google play in a heartbeat, and as long as MTH lets us know this, we can delete or uninstall our old app then install the new one with the updates/changes. Red wheel on the cab remote? Not clear on that one, my whiz wheel is gray. Oh well. I forgot the part about your friend with Parkinson's. Another big pro on the list of pros and cons. I have said this before and stand by it, voice activated. Has its issues like WIFI, but hands free would be nice. Maybe not 100 percent voice, keep some on screen stuff to handle settings issues, but who knows. "START ENGINE one" or "START 7700", i'll go as far as START Big Boy Denver, if you can rename the engine.
I looked at my wife's phone, Samsung 8, and looked at the wifi connections settings, but couldn't find where it let me change the phone connection to metered connection. I know where it is on my laptop, but didn't see it on the phone. Any suggestion or guidance?
Gunrunner John - Hughes Net only has packages that cost a lot, a lot more, and hideously way too much for what we need out here. We discussed AT&T as an alternative, but when I looked into it, it's nothing more than what our cell phones do now, and do not so great. Rely on a tower to send a signal to, in this case, an antenna attached to your house. The place already looks like NORAD what with Hughes, Directv, and the Antenna tower we never use but keep. We already have sketchy cell service that provides us dropped calls and the ever wonderful spinning circle as we try to watch Disney and console our impatient grandson. We have unlimited data on our cell service, but Hughes doesn't provide unlimited in the since it is unlimited, but the ever foofy OMG package that costs over $100 and still forces you to watch your usage, hoping you will think you have gallons of gigs, when you really only have a bathtub full versus the sink full we have now. I have no idea what her phone latched onto but it was a hangry little cuss and it ate a bunch of bytes.
