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Reply to "Legacy signal problems - extending engine antennas to help the problem"

Dave in Surprise posted:

Our club layout has a 72 inch / 84 inch double track  U, and Legacy engines sometimes lose their signal and stop in the U.  The U has multiple sidings on the outside and inside of the U.  These engines have no problems on the remaining 90% of the parallel track layout.  The engines headlight blink as the engines pass through the U, another sign of a weak / interrupted signal I believe.  We have installed a grounding wire on elevated telephone poles ( 8 inches high) along the U. This has helped some.

I added an 8 to 10 inch long 32 g. wire to three of my Legacy engine's antenna by wrapping the wire around the screw that holds the metal strip antenna, then extending the wire to the back of the cab.  I secure the wire to the top of the cab with shipping tape.  This has also helped.  I have reduced the frequency of "engines stops" but not totally eliminated them.

Do these actions sound logical?  Any other ideas on why we lose the signal in the U?  Or how to strengthen the signal or block interference?

Thanks,  Dave

The grounding wire you ran, where did you tap into the ground?  We found that tapping into the same outlet as the Legacy base was plugged into made a big difference in the signal strength.  One of our members build a signal strength meter engine that allows us to see a numeric signal strength.  We saw about a 25% increase in strength when we tapped off of the same outlet.

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