I've been asked to time a cycling time trial next year. No big deal, I've done a few of these. But this one has a challenge: start-to-finish communications and data transfer. It's a road hillclimb event with the start 10 km (6 miles) away from and 600m (2000 ft) lower than the finish. The finish is in a ski resort village and has cell coverage, but the start is way down in a narrow canyon and has no wireless service. There is substantial terrain between the two and I would not expect VHF radios or wireless ski timing to work, although I'll check over the winter. There is a landline near-ish to the start, at a ranch. I haven't approached the owner yet, but it might be possible that we could have access to that phone line.
Obviously I need start-to-finish communications, and data must be transmitted somehow as well. I have sought quotes for chip timing, although with only around 100-120 athletes expected, this will be expensive. And it doesn't solve the issues of communications either.
I have cycling specific software that accepts data from SRT timers connected to photocells, and it can be set up to use hand-entered start and/or finish TODs, so I guess I could keep a voice line open for the whole event and transmit data that way, but I'm wondering if there is a better way. Over to you guys.
Wally
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