After spending what seemed to be, and probably was, far too much time trying to find a problem in timing wire, I decided that we would try wireless. The weird thing about the wire is that on all 6 pairs, we had very good to fair communication from start to finish, and at least two of the pairs toned fine with a meter. However I was unable to get an impulse from the start to my Timer (Tag or Alge). Enough about that, the following is what happened and what I learned.
First, the equipment we were using: System A was an Alge TDC 8000 plus, System B was a Tag Heuer Chronoprinter 520. The start timers were Tag Huerer 505’s inside the heater (semi) start house. The Primary timer was inside the specially designed heated case that uses 12 D batteries to warm the timer. Start gate was an almost brand new Tag Heuer Hl7 and for the finish I used four Tag Heuer Hl2-31’s set-up as Through Beams.
We mounted posts on the portable start and portable timing buildings we were using to get the Alge Ted’s mounted as high as possible. We had to use duct tape to secure the one at the start, as the Velcro would not hold the transmitter at the top of the 2x2 in the wind. The tone we got when we hit the test button was good, but not great. The distance is about 4800ft. Everything tested (start impulses) fine. We plugged the transmitter and the System A start timer into one switch of the start wand, and the System B start timer into the other switch. The set-up at the timing building was normal from the finish line. We synched both timers from the one transmitter, and thankfully left the System B timer plugged into the receiver (I will get to that latter). Synched plus one did not work (the transmission was not received at the receiver) on the first try, but worked on the second try, and on a subsequent test. We pushed on, because we did have start timers in place.
We had four SG races scheduled for the day. JIII Women and Men in the morning, and Scored races in the PM. This gave us an opportunity to get the kinks out early.
We had our first problem when the start referee, who is familiar with the timers found the paper of the Primary Chronoprinter out. If you know this timer, it was no small feet to get the paper in, so we actually switch the timers, and ran with the printer off until I could get there and load the paper. The problem was, no one turned the printer off, so we did not have back-up start times for the JIII race. This printer continued be a problem all day. We ran the timer anyway, just in case, because I could (if it is not turned off) download the times to a computer.
We ran all of the JIII women with out a problem. We missed two impulses during the JIII men. I compared the times that were received from System A and System B with the times from the one tape I had from the start. The greatest difference in times between System A start and finisher for the 10 closest timers was .005 and the average was .004. We adjusted the times from the start timer, and calculated the net times.
We re-synched for the afternoon race, and started with the women. I did not get a finish impulse from the primary photocell, but I kept running (only 12 scored women), and used all times from System B. We did miss the last finish impulse on System B, so I had to use a Hand Time. Turn out the Batteries were not replaced as the should have been in the photocells. Everything else was new, but because we were worrying about the wireless so much, no one bothered to check the Photocells. Lesson learned is…when you are running wireless, use ALL new batteries because one little glitch becomes a large glitch.
With new batteries (and a short delay), we started the men. We missed the first scored man’s start impulse from the wireless transmission system,, so I had to use a start timer from the System A start timer and do the same corrections (funny thing is, the numbers were the same, .004 average, .005 max difference).
All in all, it worked okay, though I would not want to do it often. If I did it again, I would prefer to use timers with more reliable printers, better memory functions, and less susceptible to the weather at the start.
Finally, I would just add, don’t try this at home, you are watching a trained professional.
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