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Is anybody operating their HO Layout this way

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  • Member since
    September 2007
  • From: Kelowna, B.C. Canada
  • 3 posts
Is anybody operating their HO Layout this way
Posted by Windstorm on Saturday, November 1, 2008 4:13 PM

I am thinking of changing to a complete wireless system and am wondering if anyone has used LOCOLINC for ho. If so ,I would be interested to hear your comments both pro and con thank you

  • Member since
    July 2003
  • From: Sierra Vista, Arizona
  • 13,757 posts
Posted by cacole on Saturday, November 1, 2008 5:53 PM

Assuming you're referring to the Locolinc product line by Keithco, Inc. of Lake Oswego, Oregon, they now concentrate their marketing to the G-scale crowd.  It's a very proprietary system, meaning that ONLY Locolinc receivers will work with it, whereas with DCC you have a choice of decoder manufacturers.

There have been a couple of discussions on the Garden Railways Magazine Battery Power / Radio Control / Live Steam Forum that didn't have much good to say about it.  One person complained that Keithco charges $25 to repair a Locolinc receiver even if it's dead on arrival fresh out of the package, and that he received many defective units.  The word over there seems to be, "Buyer Beware!"

If you haven't been to their web site it's at http://www.locolinc.com

In all my years of HO and G scale modeling, I've never known of anyone who uses Locolinc.

Here's the discussion over on the Garden Railways Magazine forum:  http://cs.trains.com/trccs/forums/t/81103.aspx 

Have you looked at their price list?  $75 to $162 for a locomotive receiver.  I can buy anywhere from 5 to 9 DCC decoders at those prices.

If you decide to try it on an HO scale layout, come back in six months or so and let us know of your experiences with it. 

You want to go completely wireless?  The NCE ProCab Radio will do that, as will EasyDCC Radio control and others, and you still have the option of using any brand of decoder in your engines instead of being stuck with a proprietary system of expensive receivers.

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