Discussion: Sport Ident - new club

For a US club 'getting into' purchasing and using a Sport Ident system, what 'words of advice/warning' do you have?

We have used the system once (Sprint course) with a borrowed set of units - things went well.

Issues:
Hardware needs: computer, printer
Control stands: options; source
Expertise required:
Sources of info (USOF site has good contacts):

Impact on global warming?
(I couldn't resist :) )

Well, we've had some experience with Sport Ident (10 years now) and what can I tell you?

Hardware : Any laptop will do, even an old one. Any printer will do, even an old one.
Stands - easy to make, easier to buy I would imagine.
Expertise will come with use. It's really not very difficult.
Source : www.sportident.de

Global warming - no idea!

There is a Yahoo Sportident group that would be good to check out. This question was posed there last fall. For a simple foolproof (normally) system, you just need the control boxes, which can be hung from the control bag strings and a small battery-powered printer, available from SI as the printer kit. Some fiddling helps when you get home to download splits etc on a PC, but the runner gets his splits as he finishes through the printer kit setup.

I agree with Richi, but, having used SI since the first A meet in North America to do so, I'll add:

Computer: a very light laptop (2-3 lbs) with a screen that does well in bright sunlight is a joy. We bought a Sony that we love.
Printer: here in Britain everyone uses small printers that zip out little slips of paper with splits. Very fast...faster than people can download, meaning no queues. But you'd then want a different printer for posting results I suspect.
Power source: I've used a heavy marine battery (a hefty nuisance), my vehicle's battery (which the results person drained...needing a jump start) and I've seen it done with a generator (just site it far enough away). Parks with power are nice.
Stands...go light and easy to carry. This is probably the best investment you can make. I like the Allan Stradeski stands...aluminum rod with a plastic (ABS I think) clip up top, which the SI unit slides into horizontally. With short sections of 2"-ish PVC pipe as carriers, it's easy to carry 30 stands, plus controls, units and map.
Units: I prefer the smaller, lighter SI 8's. The 7's aren't bad to carry, but once I carried the 8's I never wanted to go back. If on a budget, see if some club wants to sell old units. (We sold some old units to another club because the economics were better for both clubs than upgrading the units.)
Rental SI cards: FWOC has rarely rented more than a small fraction of the 100 rental cards it bought. (On the other hand, my new club, SO, comments that everyone wants to rent rather than buy.) Unless you host school events or such, you may not need many rental cards.

SI's printer kit: Ours broke. It is a lot easier, but surprisingly few used it (before it broke).

Overall, try to get stuff that people will use a lot. It's pretty expensive if it only gets dragged out once or twice a year. SO uses it every event, and seems to like it.

Impact on global warming?

After all those issues we have had last year with it, thinking of SI still kind of overheats my blood. Maybe that's one reason why winter came so late to Scandinavia, actually winter didn't came until I travelled to Spain.

And in Spain we tried to race with SI again. Three out of four attempts were unsuccesfull (had to pin punch at some controls - dead units). Last time it worked as it should was back 2005 or 2004, but I am sure we will break the spell this year.

I agree with Jim Baker. Get the Series 8 units. They are small, about the size of a cell phone, which make them very easy to carry around and set up. They have a lithium battery which is much lighter than the 3 AA batteries in the older units and MUCH more reliable. We have not had a single failuter with a unit not functioning since we converted to the series 7 and 8 units. (The 7 units have the same insides as the 8, but the older larger case.) The marine battery with an inverter, although heavy, is very convenient source of power, and does not generate the noise and pollution of a gas generator. We use an Epson C88 printer, with paper precut (8.5 x 11 inch paper cut in thirds) for splits, and then put in the full size paper for results.

Also, use EP for all courses if you have enough equipment. The beginners love it, and at the end of the event, the results are all done, which saves the event director the hassle of generating the results for the web page/bulletin. It is not that much more work entering new people into the database at the time of entry.

Then get your webmaster or other interested person to put Route Gadget on your web page, and with the SI splits, people can draw in their routes, and then the optimal route choice is made much simpler to figure out.

Evan

If anything, use e-punching for the beginner courses, where the juniors love it.