Have you considered adding an outdoor wifi access point to the garden?

Hi Chris,
In the garden I use a 60215 CS2 with a 60101 100W power supply for my 1:32 trains and/or a CS1 Reloaded (two separate track loops).To control the trains with mobil phones I did as PeFu suggest and toke out an access point.
This summer I added an ESU 8A booster. I had the LGB 55017 and 55057 on order, but since the delivery was postponed, I bought a LGB 50113. That has its own network and don't need an access point. The software is for ESU controllers (like my CS1 Reloaded) but you can buy a program for CS2. I did.

I would suggest that using JMRI running on a raspberry Pi would fix your problem with using phones as controllers, for minimal cost.

See Steve Todds page on setting up an RPi.

Note that his setup will not auto-detect a cs2 or cs3. You will need to set that up once you have JMRI loaded, but his system sets up the RPi to use Engine Driver (for Android) or WiThrottle (for iOS) 'straight out of the box' once you have JMRI up and running. It can be run 'headless' so you don't need a screen attached to the RPi once it is set up. You can still do maintenance operations on JMRI by using another PC to access the RPi by VPN.

Thanks to everybody for your replies, I will certainly try what has been suggested.

Perhaps a little clarification from my side would help:

Initially I had an LGB Red Box setup which worked fine but to buy any more LGB controllers would be good money after bad so..........

I swapped the old system for a CS1 which failed to work at all with remoted so .........

I swapped the CS1 to a CS2 which works when it feels like it so.......

Fed up with looking at a Mallet failing to stop and the hand of god just making it in time !!!

I propose to use the CS2 indoors on an O Gauge layout and just forgetting remote (phone) control and then buying a new system with all walkabout control (3 #).

The current system has a dedicated router linked via (reliable) plug through the network. Annoyingly this worked well once or twice ! I have thought about extending the wireless range but any permanent change could be very difficult due to the garden environment. Maybe I have done something wrong, comms are no my strong point.

I have used both the Marklin software (hopeless) and Remote CS2 (With a lot of help from the Author) but only CS2 works and then only intermittently.

Thanks again everbody.

Chris M

Ah, which bit ...
A Raspberry Pi is a small computer, there are various versions around now, and if you do go ahead with idea then a version 3 or (preferably) 4 would be the one to go for. The base model version 4 is around £35 (GBP).

It runs a Linux operating system, but don't let that put you off if you haven't used it. The download image at the link I gave above has a complete download that you put onto a micro-SD card using the method he describes. The image includes the JMRI software.

JMRI stands for Java Model Railroad Interface, is a free software package that can run on any computer that can run Java, and currently has Linux, Mac and Windows distributions. It was originally developed by a guy in California to simplify programming CVs in decoders. These days it can interface to any major model railway control hardware that you may come across, including Marklin CS1, 2 and 3.

It provides a much more user friendly interface by using names for the CVs, and where things require dealing with individual bits within one CV register it separates these out and you don't need to deal with calculating the bit number and risk getting it wrong. From its original concept almost 20 years ago it has been vastly improved so that decoders which have index CVs to access the huge number of CV registers (such as the ESU version 4 and 5 decoders) have a lot of the hassle of dealing with the index CVs taken away, thereby saving a lot of mistakes.

JMRI also has been developed to automate a model railroad with computer control automation, and also repeater screens such as are used in control rooms and signal boxes to show positions of trains around a layout, and being able to set points and control routes. The automation capabilities would match what Train Controller (a commercial package) is capable of, and in some cases are better.

Hi Chris,
Thanks for your question. I meant how is your CS2 set up, in particular how is the router connected to the CS? The router should be connected to the LAN socket and not the USB.
Regards
Martin