Emit or SportIdent?

[denzil53]

Which electronic punching system do you prefer? Si SI Card or Emit brick?
Am I giving away my own preference here?

I have outlined the pro's and con's (as I see them) at:
http://dennismews.blogspot.com/

[Big Jon]

Yawn, yawn, heard it all before. Lets just get on and use them both - the competition is good, both have improved since their introduction.

[DaveK]

As someone who goes to a fair number of SCOA events (including Army), I've yet to be sufficiently attracted to invest £58 in an EMIT brick.

[Mrs H]

Looks like we had our first poll on this back in Feb 2004 and probably several since.

I love touch free Emit - if only all events were like that - but it seems a long time coming

[EddieH]

Touch free EMIT is great, BUT should not be used in urban style events with controls on uncrossable features as it records people on the wrong side.

Also at one event the finish control was collected and walked past the queue waiting to download. Everyone got a new finish time. My final 100m took about 10 minutes

[LesS]

The thing that has bothered me recently is the increasing reports of Emit failures as the battery runs out presumably as the earlier brikkes are reaching the end of their lives. At some time or another we are all going to meet this, hopefully at an unimportant event and not a Championship or Relay. At least with SI, if the finish control fails, you can use the one at the start of the run-in.

In particular, I've worried about the equipment being used at schools/junior events where the child, whether as an individual or part of a little team, becomes a DNF through no fault of their own with all the misery that that entails.

It would not seem much of a technical problem to have some sort of test box at Emit events for people to check the remaining life of their brikke - there may be one but I've never seen one.

[graeme]

Emit failures as the battery runs out presumably as the earlier brikkes are reaching the end of their lives

So the new BOF rules sort-of cover this:

The underlying principle (for DQing incomplete cards) is that if competitors use the system in the approved manner then it works correctly.

(at least, when I'm controlling they'll cover it!)

So if you can show that the system used in the approved manner does not work correctly (which is pretty easy to check), you can reinstate. There may be some difficulty with start and finish times in emit, but not e.g. in a relay.

[andypat]

Is all Emit touch free these days? I must admit I prefer SI mainly because its such faff trying to get the Emit block to fit on the unit the right way round to mark the back up card - of course since I always have a battered old hired emit, the back up card never last the whole way round anyway - littering up whatever forest I am in.

SI for me - especially now I have a fancy new extra fast one! (tested this taking the kids round a white - one had my previous SI 5 and one a new SI 6 - remarkable difference in speed of reacting)

[graeme]

Is all Emit touch free these days?

Probably.
But the "approved manner" is to put the brikke into the base, so if you try to save a couple of seconds per control and get unlucky with your touch-free swipe (which you can check with the new brikkes, but not the old ones) then you're DQ'ed.

[andypat]

Is all Emit touch free these days?

Probably.
But the "approved manner" is to put the brikke into the base, so if you try to save a couple of seconds per control and get unlucky with your touch-free swipe (which you can check with the new brikkes, but not the old ones) then you're DQ'ed.

Which ambiguous answer is, in a nutshell, why I prefer SI........

[Big Jon]

"Which ambiguous answer is, in a nutshell, why I prefer SI........"

There is no ambiguity - if you want to risk being disqualified then don't try to wave the emit brikke over the top of the forest unit, place it in the forest unit and get a pin mark in the back-up card.

[andypat]

"Which ambiguous answer is, in a nutshell, why I prefer SI........"

There is no ambiguity - if you want to risk being disqualified then don't try to wave the emit brikke over the top of the forest unit, place it in the forest unit and get a pin mark in the back-up card.

Well - its ambiguous in that it doesnt explain why people keep referring to "touch free" emit. Is it or isnt it? Are there two types? Youre not selling it to me.....

Touch free EMIT is great, BUT should not be used in urban style events with controls on uncrossable features as it records people on the wrong side.

Also at one event the finish control was collected and walked past the queue waiting to download. Everyone got a new finish time. My final 100m took about 10 minutes

[dch]

Well - its ambiguous in that it doesnt explain why people keep referring to "touch free" emit. Is it or isnt it? Are there two types? Youre not selling it to me.....

Yes. There are (at least) two types of Emit control unit - the standard type (with a recess for the brick, the back-up pin and a red LED to show when the punch has been registered) and the "touch/contact free" type (without recess, pin or LED).

Whereas the standard type needs the brick to be within a few centimetres of it to register a punch, the range of the touch free type is much further; probably a metre or two. Hence, as has previously mentioned, a punch can be recorded from the wrong side of an uncrossible fence. Also, you need to use a newer type brick with display to be able to see that the punch has been registered.

Another issue with the touch free (but not standard) Emit controls is that a punch can be registered simply by running past the control. I don't know how many punches can be stored, but there would potentially be a risk that the available memory could be filled with such spurious punches.

[andypat]

Thanks DCH - I think i understand it better now. By the sounds of it touch free would be an improvement on the version I have used (mainly up north) with the proviso given about the wrong side of fences etc. But that would mean the original question should really have three options (the two types of EMiT and SI).

[binman]

Yawn, yawn, heard it all before.

Didn't stop you getting dragged though, Big Jon!

Both systems work well but have their quirks. As a rare SI-user I find the tiny little hole in the SI Unit and the annoying beep irritating but I shan't be spending much time arguing the toss. Let's celebrate how much better life is with e-timing.

And if anyone tries to tell me things aren't the same now the computer does all the work and that sitting in a cold, wet tent trying to spot whether pin-punches were correct and within the box was 'good for team bonding', I'll just refer you to Terry Waite and what's-his-name McCarthy - they bonded well but only because they were locked in a cell together for years.