Cal Course Identified on Certificate

Seems like an easy task to do - add a line for the cal course cert number. But, do we also add a box to check for when it was a one-off calibration course?

I have done some measurements a long way from home, some in State Parks, and have set up a temporary course. These must also be noted, somehow, on the cert, if we were to include cal course number on certs.

Idea seems good but a hefty proportion of courses I measure involve 2 calibration courses; the annotations could get kind of long.

Cost vs benefit.

Effort is required to do what's proposed, by both the certifier and the registrar (if the list is to also contain the new info).

Our customers, the race directors and measurers, are thunderingly indifferent to this information.

Adding work to little benefit is inefficient and should be avoided.

Tangential to this discussion - I would like to see the address of at least one end point of all cal courses listed on the calibration course map. When I travel out of my region to measure, I am sometimes challenged locating the cal course just from the map.

Pro, con, "meh" comments welcome.

Either an address, cross-street, or GPS coordinates.

Cross-streets work well, when there is an intersection. Addresses work well when there is a mailbox or building entrance there, but not near a cross-street. GPS coordinates when not near cross-street or building marker (and, in addition to other references). I have had all three scenarios, and would not want to recommend only one reference type.

Good point, Duane. Any of these would be a help.

Finding one particular cal course in southern Maryland a couple of years drove me nuts. When I got to what appeared to be the right place on the map, I found no paint marks or nails. The descriptions of the end points left me wondering if I was on the wrong stretch of the particular road in question, which was more than a mile long. After searching this road for half an hour, I found what I believed to be the remnants of a nail for one end point, but nothing else. I decided that this particular cal course was therefore unusable, though still current in our database.

The time I spent attempting to verify the location could have been saved with a simple address, cross street, or GPS coordinates. Same for anyone else who finds this cal course in our listings and then has the same experience I did.

It is also handy when driving to a cal course you have never used before to have an address of some type to put in your navigation system. I have not had great difficulty locating cal courses after a search, but why search when all we need is an address, cross street, or GPS coordinates?

Therefore: I recommend to the RRTC PTB that we require at least 2 of these kinds of location identifiers on all cal course maps.

Comments?

I don't accept cal course maps if they don't have at least one easily-identified description. Don't know as requiring two is necessary.

It is one thing to encourage more info, when one good description should get anyone to the course. It is another to require, as some people don't have GPS devices that are accurate (don't tell me "everyone has a phone", as 1) not everyone does, and 2) if they don't turn on the GPS aspect, their location is an extrapolation based on cell towers, and nowhere close enough to find an endpoint. If there is no house/address nearby, they can't put two meaningful descriptions down, just a single intersection.