Actually Chris, it's not all bad news for me, I did do a couple of things very right. One of them I knew would work, and the other was easy and cheap to do and I thought it was worth a shot, but I never knew why it worked, until now!
I started building my layout 13 years ago, and signal issues started as soon as I put power to the track. The layout is huge and consists of 3 distinct levels. These aren't the kind of levels that 3 railers typically talk about either, they have substantial vertical separation. From the lowest to the middle is 18" and from the middle to the upper is 30". These levels are connected by two helixes.
So, where did I go wrong?
- I bundled my power and ground wires tightly together.
- I ran them directly below the track following the route very closely.
- I introduced a major source of earth ground when I ran a series of electrical outlets around the edge of the layout. These outlets are all in metal boxes, connected by metal conduit.
Here's what I did right:
- When I built the second helix, I glued aluminum foil to the bottom of the of the plywood, then tied it to earth ground. This gave me a perfect ground plane, and I have zero signal problems there.
- The upper deck was built entirely within the last 3 years. I decided to lay down a blanket of chicken wire on top of the 1x4 frame work before screwing down the plywood deck. When the layout lighting was installed, again in metal boxes and conduit, it created another perfect ground plane out of the chicken wire. As a result I have almost no signal issues on the entire upper deck. The answer must be that the ground plane is shielding the track from the effects of the power and ground wires below.
I now have a few ideas on how to retrofit the middle level where most of the problems are. The key ingredient will be 3M foil tape. I'll report back after some testing. I'm excited about possibly getting to the bottom of this.
