u/swake3

On September 11th 2001 I was driving to work listening to the Elevation CD. My favorite track on the album was/is "New York", I used to always listen to the track a couple of times when I played the CD including on that day.

I still had the CD on as I pulled into my office complex parking lot. I changed to the radio while I parked and the news said a plane had hit one of the World Trade Center towers. In my head I assumed a Cessna or something. Sad, but no big deal.

When I walked in my office building the conference room by my entrance was packed with people standing around the big screen TV. I went in to see what was going on just in time to see the second plane hit and the world change.

Now I cry every time the song comes on.

What is going on with them?

I have had "issues". I fried a LokPilot in my Kato Kato ES44AC when I was just starting out, my fault. I bought a replacement LokSound and it worked fine, for awhile. It died after several months so I sent it in for replacement. During that time I was wanting to install sound in most of my non-sound locomotives and was reading about decoders and everyone saying that ESU is the best.

Based on that I decided to go with ESU as my main decoder brand. I ordered a second LokSound for my Kato GWR 800, it's a dead simple EM-13 ESU dupe with sound. It was dead on arrival. The decoder wasn't recognized by my EX-CSB at all. I had other the replacement already coming and it wasn't going to have any sound files loaded so I went ahead and bought a LokProgrammer. At the same time I ordered another LokSound for my Kato ALC-42.

When the third decoder and programmer arrived I was very disappointed in the Programmer. No manual from this decade and a frigging serial port. This is seriously 20th century technology we have here and a manual I kid you not, from 2007. That is really terrible support. Really terrible.

I connected the programmer and installed my third LokSound. It was dead too! No decoder recognized. When I got the replacement decoder back for my ES44AC and since it was the same as the dead one for the ALC-42 I installed this new decoder in the ALC and it worked just fine. I put the EM-13 back in my GWR 800 and it still runs fine

So I have now bought three LokSound decoders, two bad out of the box and one failed after several month, the only working LokSound is the replacement for the first one.

Is this great decoder company selling crap or am I profoundly unlucky? These two new DOA decoders have never been on any track but a programming track. CV8 won't write in either case. I certainly know how to install them as I have done it successfully before.

I have the loco on the Kato EM-13, another on a Digitrax non-sound and two BLI Paragon 4s, none have ever had any issues.

Are others having these problems? I don't know if I should attempt to return everything as a lemon for refund and go another way, or try one last time with the replacement for my Digitraks.

I have some storm damage to a tree in my side yard. Nothing huge but more than I can handle. Can anyone recommend anyone for the work? I would like a reasonable price and good cleanup.