Thanks so much to all of you. Some of the commentary is over my head, but I am glad I am not alone in encountering these problems. For many years, one of the favorite crowd pleasers for visitors to my layout were the tiny TV cameras available for our trains a few years ago. I had one camera in a Santa Fe F unit and a second in a rear end observation car . Receivers connected to two flatscreen TV's delighted both young and old who would wait at tunnels to see themselves as the train emerged. Signal was pretty good even over long distances. These systems got worse and worse and they no longer are sold at shows. Too much other stuff going on in my train room.
I mentioned my use of Touch Toggle switch controllers made by Barret Hill, company for creating control panels where your fingertip activates a turnout. They work 95% of the time for me but occasionally one fails to activate the relay that actually throws the switch. This product has had a following among model railroaders using the smaller scales. For our train setups they are still a work in progress as we try to isolate these devices from all the extraneous stuff going on in our train rooms.
I will mention this discussion to my friend at Barrett Hill as he may learn something from your posts.
Phil
