Paragon 3 sound decoders

[Cajonpassfan]

I acquired a new BLI Pennsy M1, along with its Paragon 3 steam decoder. I posted a question about the locomotive's mechanical traits in another thread, but my questions here are about the decoder. The range of the Paragon 3 sounds is amazing, but for an apparently sophisticated decoder, I'm perplexed by a couple of things.

1. I can't figure out the choice of whistles. The only thing I can find is CV 224 "Horn Select" and the choices are 0, 1, and 2. 0 is factory default, 1 is a high pitched squeal, and 2 seems identical to 0. Exactly two choices. What am I missing? There should be other choices, right?

2. F8 turns the sound off. But every time the engine stumbles or loses contact (which happens a lot) the sound resets and defaults to ON. Stupid. Is there a way to set the sound to be off until called upon? (I have the same issue with my old BLI E units with the early decoders, and I'm told there's no way to fix that. I would have thought BLI would have fixed this annoyance by now?)

3. The headlight (and dynamo) keep coming on once the engine starts accelerating, even in OFF position, what gives?


I hope I'm just missing something here.
Help appreciated!
Otto K.

[reinhardtjh]

1. I can't figure out the choice of whistles. The only thing I can find is CV 224 "Horn Select" and the choices are 0, 1, and 2. 0 is factory default, 1 is a high pitched squeal, and 2 seems identical to 0. Exactly two choices. What am I missing? There should be other choices, right?

This is an easy answer for an SPF.  The PRR M1a/b was fitted with the PRR 3-chime passenger whistle like the K4s as built.  This is the default whistle programmed into the BLI decoder.  CV 224=1 is the PRR freight whistle otherwise known as the "Banshee whistle".  The reason should be obvious.  BLI included it because as time when on and locos were shopped, there may ahve been some that ended up with the Banshee since the M1/a/b was mostly a freight engine.  It was designed as dual purpose and there were times when it hauled passenger trains.

So, no there aren't any other choices because the PRR basically had two whistles and the BLI decoder is programmed for only them since it's in a PRR loco.

Questions 2 and 3 I have no idea about.  Sorry.

[Cajonpassfan]

Well, John, thanks, but that's not the answer I was looking for
Not being a PRR modeler, my intent was to use the sound decoder in another loco ((ATSF 2900). It never occurred to me that BLI could produce a decoder with just two whistles....everyone else has bunches of choices. Dang
This has not been a good experience so far...
Otto K.

[Cajonpassfan]

Okay, I discovered the BLI Paragon 3 has at least two more whistles (that I could find). They are beyond the specified range of 0 through 2; 3 and 4 provide two more choices. Beyond that, it all seems the same..

[reinhardtjh]

I didn't think you would like the answer.  But it's the only one I had.

It's interesting you found more whistles but the CV value wasn't consecutive.  Not sure what's up with that.

The whistle situation may not make sense in general but as BLI does not produce decoders for the general public, only for their own consumption, and all the other sounds are going to be specific to the intended locomotive, then it does make sense to only include whistles for that were used on that locomotive.  If they need a decoder for another engine, say an ATSF 2-8-2, then they would load the sounds and whistles for that locomotive in the decoder.

Remember, sounds take up space in memory storage on the decoder so they have to budget what gets what sounds.

[Cajonpassfan]

Hmm, that's a shame about the whistle, I guess I'll have to go with the more generic whistle No.3.
Thanks John!

As to the dynamo and headlight coming on upon acceleration even when in OFF position, I've discovered it's related to conductivity. Even the most minute cutout that doesn't affect sound or movement will reset the dynamo/headlight function, and its default position is apparently ON. (When upside down in a cradle and hardwired, the dynamo/headlight combo remains OFF once turned off).

This really bugs me about this otherwise excellent decoder package; one should be able to set the defaults to off for both sound and light functions and turn them on when desired. Or maybe there is a way and I just can't find it?
With all these engines out there, I would hope someone would have figured this out already 
Otto K.