The AMB Timing system

The chips can be worn on the shoelaces, as they were at the Athens Olympics. I'm not sure why they favor the other method.

I was helping at a ChampionChip-timed race today and the appeal of winding up a few yards of wire versus lugging big mats into a van was obvious. Apparently ChampionChip is working feverishly to get their own powered-chip system ready.

AMB system is a very accurate system and easy to lay down. Why we still use the other system is very easy. With Championchips we are able to set up a back up system, computers can fail. Championchip has been proved for more than 4000 events a year. Economics, AMB chip is a battery power chip that last for 3 years compared to a Championchip wich is passive(no Batteries to replace) at at 40 dollars per chip without an option to rent them, Championchip does not riquire to change the battery and they can be rented for a minimal cost.

As a timer, wich system would would prefeer, if you have to carry heavy nats, get a team of volunteers.

Pedro

True, although according to AMB, it's not that you CAN lay down a second, backup mat w/ ChampionChip, but MUST, since there are a fair amount of missed reads by the first mat. At the RRTC meeting presentation in August, the AMB rep claimed a 100 per cent capture rate with their system (assuming the chips are worn correctly). If it works in bike and auto races, where the finish speed is far faster than running, it should be reliable, I would think,

Bike and car events are high speed low density events meaning not many people going at the same time thru a reading point. The Olympics were very very low density events.

What would be your excuse to a Race Director if your system crash and you didn't place a back-up system?

I do like the two cable system for the antenna and the ease of the lay down but all comes down to a financial decision. Figure yourself buying 15000 chips at 40 dollars that with a claimed usefull life of 3 years only. What kind of a price you would have to put for your services to have a return on the investment on three years, time that you must referbish the chips again.

I have ask this question to AMB guys at Atlanta, still waiting for the answer. How much a Race Director is willing to pay for his results?

Pedro

I hope to have some more insight into the system after talking to some timers who have used it.

There a couple timers here in Upstate NY that have the AMB system. I have seen it in action and of course, it is very good technology.

From what I understand from talking to those AMB timers in my area, is that the chip return isn't a problem. I think it is a function of having the ankle strap and only using race day distribution of chips. As a ChampionChip timer, I can live with a chip loss of 1% from my each event I time (which is what I normally expect to see) - its just the cost of doing business, but if I were using AMB, that would be too much of a risk.

It will be interesting to see what develops in the next year or so with all of these competing systems. There are many established timers in the ChampionChip network that are heavily invested in the ChampionChip "Classic" system (as it is now called) that I wonder how immediate the penetration of new systems (the CC active and CC high frequency) will be. For that reason, there may not be so much an incentive to buy into the new technologies right now.

However, for someone that wants to get into the timing business without much expenditure in equipment, purchasing an active system might be just the right option. AMB does allow its timers to rent chips from each other and that could be a significant advantage in the marketplace in the years to come.


However, I don't think there is a definite advantage of using one system over the other with regards to timing and accomplishing the task of producing results. Sure, with active chips, the read efficiency approaches 100% with just one system. Sounds good, except that even with passive cheaper chips used by the CC Classic system, the read efficiency is 99.8 % to 99.9% on the primary system (the first set of mats). So figure 1 or 2 misses per 1000 finishers on the set of mats. Using the secondary system, of course, you approach 100%.

Here are some stupid questions and observations:

When the three years comes around do the chips just stop, do they get flakey like heart rate transponders, or do they send out a help change my battery tansmission.
What would happen in a race when the chips get to flakey age ? Can you change the battries?

The transponder in a champion chip chip is just a TI RF chip that came out many years ago. They are dirt cheep. You can get them by the barrel full. I am not sure why people are still paying so much for them. All it is is a dirt cheep transponder that has been embeded in a plastic blob with wings. It seems that the only thing that could possibly be paintented by CC is the mats and the blob because TI owns the chip. So get some chips and make your own plastic blobs. Would reduce the cost of chips no end.

The parking structure by the start of one of our races uses the same IT chip in its parking token system. Go in, machine spits out a chip embedied in mini hocky puck. Check out, it eats the puck and calculates the time diffrence.
Run a race with hocky puck in pocket and the timing man about has a heart attack because there are hundreds of finish times with no runner name attached to that chip ID !

According to the AMB rep who gave the presentation to the RRTC meeting, when the battery begins to go it sends a signal when the chip is pre-scanned (i.e. at race expo). And it can be replaced, but by the AMB technicians.

We had the AMB timing system as a demo at the 2002 and 2003 Bolder Boulder Elite races (I was the doing primary scoring using traditional methods) Both years there were errors in order of finish as well as missed runners in relatively small fields (60 or less runners). It maybe they have gotten the bugs out, but for the price of the chips, I would hard pressed to cost justify them.

If you have some transponder turned off because of the low or empty battery, you can send it to us, we can repare it.
Contact us if you have any problem with your Prochip transponders, we can solve it for you.

repairtransponders@gmail.com

quote:

Originally posted by JamesM:
Here are some stupid questions and observations:

When the three years comes around do the chips just stop, do they get flakey like heart rate transponders, or do they send out a help change my battery tansmission.
What would happen in a race when the chips get to flakey age ? Can you change the battries?

The transponder in a champion chip chip is just a TI RF chip that came out many years ago. They are dirt cheep. You can get them by the barrel full. I am not sure why people are still paying so much for them. All it is is a dirt cheep transponder that has been embeded in a plastic blob with wings. It seems that the only thing that could possibly be paintented by CC is the mats and the blob because TI owns the chip. So get some chips and make your own plastic blobs. Would reduce the cost of chips no end.

The parking structure by the start of one of our races uses the same IT chip in its parking token system. Go in, machine spits out a chip embedied in mini hocky puck. Check out, it eats the puck and calculates the time diffrence.
Run a race with hocky puck in pocket and the timing man about has a heart attack because there are hundreds of finish times with no runner name attached to that chip ID !

Have you ever seen a box of these ankle straps that have been used previously? You wouldn't need to see it, because you would smell it way before you could see it. Maybe this is just for the timer I worked with.

Are these straps capable of being laundered or otherwise cleaned?

The straps are usually some thickness of neoprene with a cloth cover and a velcro strap sewed onto it. I wash mine after every race they are used in, using liquid dish detergent and water.

This from my friend Stephen DeSilva, who does most of the timing in Bermuda:
"We have those chips, they are great! We wash straps all the time (with Dettol to disinfect)"