OK guys, Dale's meter showed up yesterday. I just tried it out. The numbers on the TMCC base look pretty good. The Legacy base seemed to have nothing. I can't imagine how I got it to work at all, based on those numbers.
As I mentioned recently, I was wondering if the the ring lug used to connect the layout wasn't making contact with the post on the Legacy base. I'm now convinced that this is not the case, however, there may still be an issue with the post and an intermittent connection to the electronics inside.
The entire post was coming unscrewed from the base. I fiddled with it, trying to get it screwed on tight, and as I did, I noticed some near normal values flash by on the meter. When I finally got it screwed in all the way, the readings were back to near zero. I finally think this thing is ready for a "vacation" at Lionel.
In the meantime, I have no problem getting by on TMCC. I've been doing that forever, no big deal. Even with just TMCC, the track signal debugging can proceed.
Here's a question: When the TMCC and Legacy bases are both in use via the "Y" cable, is it possible that only the TMCC base is doing the work and the signal is just passing through? This might explain some of the results if that was possible. If it's not, then the Legacy base was working at some capacity, but far from full. Or, maybe I just got lucky and hit a sweet spot during the test.
I did one other test, an earth ground network quality test. I just measured the resistance of the conduit over about a 100' length. It measured .3Ω. That's probably close enough to zero to say that any ground plane wires tied to it will have about the same potential. Ie, it's a 100' terminal strip and I can tie to it anywhere with confidence.
