But they don’t last decades. Many of them “go bad” before too long without any sort of warning. In the middle of your race the announcer will let you know you’re skipping laps, and by the next heat it doesn’t pick up laps at all. I hear it all the time at races, maybe not every race weekend, but it’s quite common to hear people having transponder issues. It might not be a faulty transponder every time but my point is you shouldn’t assume they last a decade.