I have two diesels with sound decoders (all factory installed) and they act like the F2 button is sticking and the horn blows for a long time before stopping. I can't get a short blast on the BLI SD9 and the Genesis F3 sometimes does this and sometimes allows a short blast. I have two other BLI steamers and they work fine all the time. Is there something in the CV's that needs to be reset or could it be something else. I also noticed that the BLI SD9 has a very low volume and I have tried using the F8 button to increase the sound. It does go through a series of volume levels (8 according to the BLI manual) but the loudest level is still very low. This engine is a Blueline and I installed a DH123 decoder myself but I wouldn't think that should affect the sound decoder. I am new to DCC (about 3-4 weeks) and don't know how a lot of this works yet but I am getting a crash (no pun intended) course on it so far.
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Sounds like dirty track or wheels. Do you have feeder wires coming off of a bus wire about every 36" going to your track. Do the lights flicker on the deisels when they run on layout? The steamers have alot more wheels picking up current, so they may not act up as much as the deisels.
You can download the tech manual from BLIs web site for the Blueline SD9. It will give you the CV listing for master volume and all the other sound volumes.
What DCC system are you using? Is the horn button on and off or momentary? What is the track voltage? The bluelines decoder will blow the horn constantly if the track voltage goes above 20 volts. This may not be the case. Clean track and wheels are another item as posted above. Lots of feeders to the track buss will give you a more reliable signal. This is a case where you can't have too many but too few is very bad.
Pete
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farrellaathe Genesis F3 sometimes does this and sometimes allows a short blast.
The Genesis model, if it is fairly recently release, say within the past 8 months, is sure to have a Tsunami decoder. For that decoder, F2 is the long horn blast and F3 is the short toot. Or, so it works on all my steam locomotives and the one Genesis SD-75 that has a Tsunami.
All my QSI-equipped steamers and a single diesel (an SD-75 with the Revolution series in it) have just the F2 button pressable for the horn, and the length of the press determines the length of the blast.
-Crandell