My first DCC session at home.

After I got home from work today, I wired up the SPROGII to my laptop and layout, and after 10 minutes or so of experimenting (I don't find the manuals of either JMRI and SPROG very clear, but a bit of common sense prevailed) I had JMRI talking to SPROG and saw communication messages flying by on the screen of my laptop. I also got my iPod to talk to JMRI and had Withrottle working. Then I got my only DCC equiped loco ( a Bachman GP35) out and see if I could run/control it, using default address 3. Indeed, I could switch the headlight on off etc but had no movement, doing this from either a JMRI on-screen throttle, and also from the iPod. Then I realised that the last time I used this loco on DC, it didn't run very well. I took off the shell and turned the drive shafts with my fingers while the loco was on the track, and off she went. Controlled by the Withrottle I could run it fwd reverse, and turn the lights off /on etc. Slow speed operation was not brilliant , but I read that these simple Bachmann decoders are not very good for that anyway. However, this loco keeps being tempramental, after 10 minutes or so, it stalled again, and when going to reverse direction, the headlights/rear lights flickered erratically and independent, in fwd direction the fwd headlight is on, but no movement. Until the motor was encouraged again. It looks like I need to take that loco apart do some maintenance (even though it's brand new) and see why the stalling happens etc. unfortunately, I have no other DCC loco yet to continue experimenting and getting used to operating in DCC. I'll keep you posted...