> James Prowting:
> fyi, I did not take 227 min to complete…
In a similar vein, my course time was not 645 minutes, which would have been a bit excessive even by my standards. It seems that my EMIT brick quietly passed away during the 2+ years since I last used it. However I was a still bit surprised to be told this at download*, having seen the LEDs on the base units flash at every control.
Oh well, long live SI.
* And unfortunately not thinking fast enough to reply “45 minutes” when asked “well what was your time” by the download people.
From: tvoc-m...@googlegroups.com <tvoc-m...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of James Prowting
Sent: 31 October 2021 20:07
To: Members <tvoc-m...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: [TVOC] Club Champs Pamber: fyi, I did not take 227 min to complete the Short Green Course today. I have an alibi; I was at home talking to a friend on the phone when allegedly still on the course! Alan Farrington says my Emit brick did not 'wake up' until
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Hi Mark
Sorry to disagree, but ...
The 99 is nothing to do with the battery in the card. It's related to the battery in a control unit. When those batteries are weak, they write not just the control code and time, but also a 99 code to the card. By interrogating the software after an event, the results person can then identify if any controls have weak batteries. In fact, Michael Napier updated his software to produce a warning of any 99 codes.
As regards failing batteries in EMIT cards, sadly there is no real warning of failure. The only safe approach is to replace the batteries as a matter of course after 5 years. And my understanding is that, once the battery has failed, there is no way to download the card. Even if you have back-up pin punches, there is no way to tell the time taken by someone nor whether they had been to the controls before the card failed. Having said that, I am surprised at what happened to Jim - his card appeared not to start initially, nor at the first four controls, but did then spring to life. And presumably did not stop at the finish. Indeed looking at the splits, he appears to have taken 19,425 hours for his course!
SI dibbers do NOT fail. SIAC dibbers have a battery which will fail in time, at which point they will not work in Air mode. They will then act just like an ordinary SI dibber. Non-SIAC SI dibbers do not have a battery in them and therefore last 'for ever'. But the SI control stations do have a battery, which fails with time - and rather sooner than EMIT control stations. SI stations do not produce 99 codes either, so the only way of identifying failing batteries is by looking at their voltage, a job which the Equipment Officer will have to do periodically. We have no experience yet as to how reliable this is.
Actually my statement that SI dibbers do not fail is not quite true. I have heard of someone breaking the tip off their SI dibber before now - no names mentioned.
Alun
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Just to be clear, the warning you get on the
SIAC battery is basically how old the battery is: battery poor
= over 3 years old. Despite appearances it is not really a test
of the battery condition. There is no actual warning of
imminent battery failure.
As mentioned earlier, SIAC battery failure is annoying (no Air) but not disastrous - you just have to punch rather than waive at controls. And as Chris says, it's not expensive - £15. If you give Sportident a couple of weeks notice that you need to change battery they will have a replacement card to send back as soon as yours reaches them.
Have to say, I was horrified by the price of an EMIT card. Has the £ really fallen that much against the norwegian krone? Though I can see them for £66 on Allan's website, or £70 if you want one with a flashing light. Or £39 + £2 postage for battery replacement. Or are these prices out-of-date?
Alun
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I too had used a backup card because of the length of time since I last used the brick. This of course only proves that I visited all my controls at some time, not when and in which order. To give the BADO team their due, if I had given them a believable start to finish time then I think they might have taken my word for it before checking the backup and posting it to the results page (probably with a non-comp disclaimer).
But (a) my time guesstimate could have been +/- 10 minutes (no Garmin) and (b) it wasn’t going to be winning me any awards anyway, so I was OK to leave it as it was.
And I really enjoyed my run in a sunlit (but very damp) forest and that’s the main thing isn’t it?
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There appears to be some confusion around regarding the price of SIACs.
SIACs are £62.86, or £65.36 if you want a
personalised number (people often want them to be their date of
birth), from Sportident
UK. And you can get £3 off if you have an old Si or
EMIT card (even if it is dead) to trade in.
Alun