Finding room for the AirWire900 Receiver is not as much a problem as finding room for the batteries. If you want to run for any period of time at all you will need a fairly substantial battery pack, for which there is not much room at all in the locos you want to run.
I run all of my locos with the AirWire900 and have to use a trailing battery car in all but a Hartland Doozie Rail Bus. I'm currently running a Hartland Big John Dunkirk locomotive, a Bachmann Spectrum 2-8-0 narrow guage Consolidation, a Bachmann Specturm 2-6-0 narrow guage Mogul, a Bachmann Spectrum narrow guage two-truck Shay, and a scratch built narrow guage Dunkirk. The AirWire receiver and sound decoder and speaker fit into the boilers or tenders on all of these, but there was no room for on-board batteries.
I use AirWire and install them for others. I think the performance is great. Compared to several other choices, the receiver is relatively small but provides good power handling and simplifies the addition of other functions since it has a DCC output. ALso, for small installation spaces, the receiver can be cut in half.
I am fairly new to garden rr and planning on going rc battery power-- since i have a small radius area availably, was thinking about either a aristocraft rogers (2-4-0) or a aristocraft switcher(0-4-0) and having the airwire receiver installed in it, is this a very wise choice for the amount of money , and what kind of performance might i expect to get. I havent bought anything yet.
Budd
Get the Garden Railways newsletter delivered to your inbox twice a month