Jtim3032

@lpskier also "coordinates" was a term used by Steve Schnitzer to describe skiing a "minimum distance" path through the course, ie following straight lines to points approximately 6' ahead of each buoy and turning on a 10' radius. It was an interesting idea but still didn't address trying to minimise loads on the line. In nature, the most efficient path through the course (constant acceleration perpendicular to the direction of the boat and therefore minimum forces involved) would be a sine wave and we haven't yet designed a ski that could achieve this. But I digress from the subject in hand.... :smile:

Or if you have a friend who has access to an industrial 3D printer, you have a lot of options.... :smile: (thanks to Toni Beier) https://facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10219252344170666&set=pcb.10219252344690679

@skierjp I'm afraid that is very unlikely as a coaxial link from antenna to receiver is the only link efficient enough to give good reception. More likely is some way of mounting the receiver and antenna together so that they are effectively one unit. However this is still difficult as you have to include a power supply and it all adds to the weight. One or two customers have designed and built their own circular "carriers" that allow for all this and that float on the water rather than rest on the buoy. This works very well when you only have to cater for one buoy diameter. You would have a different one for cylindrical boat lane guides. Of course, with even more design, you could add buoy diameter adjustment but then you end up with something that doesn't fit in luggage very well. I built a very early prototype that was 3D printed which was essentially an inverted cone that slid up and down inside a floating cylinder. It worked...but was huge and no self respecting TC was ever going to travel with it ?. It also took 90 hours to print!!!

@jjackkrash For homologation purposes it doesn't really matter what order you map each buoy. However, I would do the entrance and exit gates first since once those have been mapped, Sure-Path will give you an indication of how far out any other buoy is as you map it. For an indication of what ID each buoy has, see this page sure-path.com/survey-data-transfer.html for a link to download the Lion homologation program which has a graphic view of the course with IDs shown. You will need this program in any case for a formal homologation.

@jjackkrash the lower down the pylon you have the antenna, the more you reduce it's view of the sky (and hence fewer satellites) and hence the harder it is to retain Fix mode. The Bimini seems to have little effect on the GPS signal as it doesn't contain water which is normally the worst culprit for absorbing and reducing GPS signal strength. It is water content which makes trees so bad for reducing GPS. Buildings are bad because their walls give rise to reflected gps signals which can confuse the receiver as well as possibly reducing view of the sky.

@jjackkrash @skiinxs Using the Sure-Path pylon mount for the white antenna it is 11cm. It is 10.7cm for the mount for the black UBlox puck style antenna.

@jjackkrash - what you have to remember is that when the course is mapped, everything is relative to the base antenna. This means that if the base antenna is moved, or the base does a "self survey" (it comes up with a different position each time you do this because the self survey accuracy is standard GPS, +/- 5 metres or even more), any previously mapped course will move as well. Hence you need to remap the course each time either of those things happen.

@Not_The_Pug @jjackkrash ... yes I think the way to do this properly is to be able to save a "Settings Profile" which would include most/all the settings on the "GPS & Network Settings" screen. Hold my beer....

@jjackkrash Unfortunately there isn't at present. It was never envisaged that the rover would be switching between sites as regularly as that. I will have a think about it as it would entail quite a change in the user interface for that.

@jjackkrash as @Not_The_Pug says, the two settings that need changing are "Sure-Path Mountpoint" and "Sure-Path Password". Make sure you note your existing settings first before changing anything.

@jjackkrash @The_MS building an antenna into the pylon would at first seem an obvious thing to do. However it is problematic in that 1) the antenna needs to incorporate a ground plane at least 10cm in diameter, so not a small item 2) in tournament there is often additional equipment mounted on the pylon which interferes with GPS reception. Hence the antenna is often mounted to one side or higher above the additional kit and an offset (from boat centre) setting applied. An alternative location I would like to explore further is the gunwale on the driver side. In this location boat yaw and rock have little impact on the antennas position relative to the boat's centre and it is a quiet area of the boat with respect to passengers moving around etc.

@jjackkrash .. haha, now that's an idea for an optional extra :D

@jjackkrash if AT&T or T-Mobile have coverage at your site, go for that. Some customers have been able to get a Verizon SIM to work but others have had problems with the Red Pocket version. Regarding hotspotting to your personal phone in the boat, you could suck it and see...nothing to lose. And if that proves problematic, get the SIM. That said, having the rover independent of your own phone certainly has its advantages.

@MDB1056 In mainstream sport, the vast majority of income required to run an event comes from broadcasting rights. In turn, the broadcasting companies get their income from a combination of sponsors/marketing and the viewers. The vast majority of this is from the viewers paying monthly subscriptions or PPV fees. I believe we are incredibly lucky that we have a company such as TWBC that is prepared to spare the viewers a mandatory fee and try and recoup all costs directly from organisers and sponsors. They also rely heavily on people providing their services at next to no cost. In my view, $10-$20 is nothing for the terrific spectacle they are now able to provide.

@disland I believe it is. Certainly SP is sending data out.

@jercrane Hammond are excellent and will do made to measure if required. They will also supply spare cuffs, ankle seals etc. Not the cheapest but you get what you pay for.

@Ali no, just in one direction as normal

@Ali ... you have to have values for G3 & G4 but instead of the usual 6 buoy exit gates, map the other end entrance gates as if they were the 6 buoy exit gates, in other words a "long" course. When mapping for boat lane tracking purposes, the distance between entrance and exit gates doesn't matter because G3/G4 are first used to calculate a bearing from the entrance gates (G1/G2) for the boat to follow. Then of course G3/G4 are also the entrance gates in the reverse direction and a reverse bearing is used.

@Ali ...it will go on the wish list :smile: . For now, you can map the "long" course and at least you will get the first 6 buoys in each direction without having to switch courses or anything.

@klindy @skierjp ... yes I think that is what @Ali is referring to. An overlapping 8 ball course is fine as @lpskier has described. For a non overlapping 8 ball course, it's the loss of data at B7 & B8 that is not dealt with at present.

@kurt yes that's definitely the best scenario! Thank you for your kind words :)

@kurt the Sure-Path receiver uses very little power (we are talking maybe 300mA of current). The dropout you have experienced is almost certainly the boat cutting power to the USB outlet after a certain time period after the engine ignition has been turned off.

@skiinxs @Rpc29 Not quite true. For a continuity switch to be detected when closed, a voltage is applied to one side of the switch. The problem here though is that for this type of switch there is a largish resistor put in series to limit the "closed" current to the minimum required for detection. Hence it can rarely act as a supply to any other device.

@Bruce_Butterfield There has been quite a bit of discussion behind the scenes on this subject :smile: In the early days you could switch between metric and imperial but during the approvals process for use in tournament, it was initially removed from the displays which gave measurements referred to in the Rules. That only left the stats screen and so it was decided that if that was the only place Imperial might appear, that too could be confusing, so it was removed entirely. The main thing I think to remember is that the numbers shown in the summary screen at the end of the pass directly relate to the tolerances stated in the rules. Sorry :blush: I do feel your pain. In some ways we in the UK are even weirder than the US in that we mix imperial (speed) and metric (length) and are therefore not consistently one or the other. Maybe there is a case for a little conversion chart on the dash like we used to do for boat speeds?