Fast punching at WOC

[Gross]

ut noting I did get a flash and beep I made a specific note of the control with this thread in mind. V5).

Top coaching tip.... you perform better if you ignore 'outside' . Not really very clever to go round a course thinking... oh.. must remember this code so I can post on Nopesport

[Adventure Racer]

I was having a rubbish run and it was near the end anyway - unusually for me the nav was fine but I was suffering physically, so was after anything to distract me at that point!

[Rich R]

If you hear the bleep you have definately registered at the unit.

A number of times with my old V5 SI card I started running from the unit before hearing a beep and had to turn to re register it. On every occasion I did this I found on my splits print out that it had registed on my card but the signalled had not been recieved back at the unit to say that the process was complete. I don't have the problem with my V6 SI card.

[stodge]

si card 6s take considerably longer to download.
Just leave it in longer as there is lots more data to download.

[Adventure Racer]

si card 6s take considerably longer to download.
Just leave it in longer as there is lots more data to download.

There was more to it than that - not the first time I've used a V6 card and it's usually a lot quicker than that.

[HOCOLITE]

Stodge the induction loop in the new master station seemed to be too low to pick up the data from the V 6 cards. They have a higher shoulder than the old cards. The problems was not the cards but the new reader. Eventually they managed to read them by complex wriggling around. Not good though as in the end they couldn't use the check competitors software as they didn't know how many V 6 cards hadn't been read as once they'd failed people wandered off and may not have returned. IT may be just this one reader, they wanted an alun key to either tighten the reader further or undo the box to try and read the cards.

[Adventure Racer]

they wanted an alun key to either tighten the reader further or undo the box to try and read the cards.

Did they find one? Unsurprisingly I had a set in my car!

[HOCOLITE]

I suggested you had one but by the time you finished they'd managed to perfect the wiggle

[King Penguin]

Finally did some digging on this (been busy...). Found the bit in the SI programmer's manual that I couldn't find before (RTFM):

Please note that uncompleted punches are not stored in the control card. .

I have another instance from yesterday which contradicts "...uncompleted punches are not stored..."
In the wee small hours I was test-running sections of the Peter Palmers, along with others, as a final unit check. Whenever I visited a control with multiple units I punched all of them. When I downloaded, it showed multiple punches of the same code with a time against each - apart from one.

From control 75 (control 1 on one of the red gaffles), my download clearly shows the control code and time on one line, then on the next just the control code, with no time. I was not in competition at the time, was not rushing and as I was doing it specifically to check the units I was at pains to make absolutely sure that I punched successfully at each unit and did both hear the "beep" and see the flash, which I am absolutely certain I did in all cases.

Having downloaded and seen the problem I cleared my card, went back to the control and punched both units again. When I downloaded again, both units had been successfully recorded.

I spent the rest of the morning on download and can confirm that there were no other problems and no mis-punches from that control.

Two further points -
(a) I am convinced I did not punch both units within the same second (just in case identical time might affect it, which I doubt)
(b) first time round, the first 75 I punched was a new unit and the second was an old. The first punch was number 30 on my card, the second was the 31st (and last).


Any ideas, anyone ?

[Ed]

sounds like an old (v5) SI card - from memory they had a capacity of 30+3 controls - 30 with code+time plus 3 with just code. seems the most likely explanation.

[SIman]

A version 5 card can indeed only hold 30 control numbers and times, but it can hold an additional 6 control numbers.

[King Penguin]

Thanks, Ed and SIman for the quick response. I thought the v5 limit was 32 controls; thanks for putting me right and solving the riddle.

[johnloguk]

Indeed, the Lincolnshire Bomber 2006 Long-O had over 30 controls, so splits were only available for the first 30, but it still registered a few more. You just have to be aware of it in advance. Personally I wasn't too bothered about my later splits as I wasn't at my quickest by that point!