Payment at last! Now to spend it ;-)

This week I finally received the payment from Peco Publications for the Continental Modeller article I wrote which appeared in the August edition of this magazine. By the time the various banks between the UK and Australia took their cut of the international funds transfer I was only slightly in front of the UK payment once converted into Aus dollars. Now I had the last piece in the finances to procure the NCE SB3a booster system. My esteemed mate and fellow club member PK was also going to fossick around for the USB interface he had somewhere at home. This would allow me to connect a laptop to the layout to use Decoder Pro, etc as well as try my new Android smartphone's Engine Driver app which allows the smartphone to function as a wireless hand controller when it uses the laptop's wi-fi capabilities.

Friday evening came and didn't look pretty. Both boys had come down with some sort of nasty virus. The younger son had reached 39 degrees plus, which was a concern. I had grave doubts as to having a reasonable sleep this night! As Saturday came, the previous night hadn't been too bad, could have been a lot worse! However I spent the morning looking after the boys and taking the youngest to the doctor as his fevers where still quite high. Throat infection. Just lovely, there goes Saturday! I was hoping to get to Austral Modelcraft to buy said SB3a but it wasn't looking good. After a snooze with the youngest son, I thought I might have a chance to duck across town. Time was possibly an issue, so I made a phone call. Closing time was rapidly approaching and I probably was just going to miss it unless they waited for me. It didn't matter as they had sold the last SB3a in the store Friday afternoon. A week or two before new stock arrives from down south.

Sunday was very busy out and about in the morning, then spraying the weeds in the arvo, as well as playing with the boys (kids just don't want to stay in bed when they are sick!!) in the yard. I did manage to get to the shed and do some quick work on Illavearf's electrics. I wired up the second MRC to the programming track, programmed its board ID which then set all the accessory decoders outputs automatically, and did some LED tests. All worked first go. I then mounted the board under the layout but didn't get to install the power to it from the track. Maybe throught the week.

Tonight I received an email from PK advising he couldn't find the USB interface and he vaguely remembers selling it.

So in the end I will have to wait a couple of weeks before I get a chance to make the trip to the other side of town to pick up a new SB3a AND USB interface. No rush as I am still sorting out the wiring under the layout when I get a chance. Now that the evening temperatures are getting warmer I might be able to spend time in the shed at night. Winter was very cold (as Brisbane winters go!) this year and the shed isn't heated!

Also this week I joined the social networking set and joined Twitter. A link (of sorts) is on my website but you can directly find me on @GBsShed. I have already sent three tweets into the Twitterverse, mainly to some guys in the UK involved with Model Rail Live.