I clearly understand the difference between the two, and am suggesting it's not as simple or seamless as some would like to believe. Our experience has been that even some of the hybrids are not being picked up by the new decoder. So I stand by my previous statements..

I called them a few months back and couldn't get a straight answer, so due to them dodging the question my belief is YES.

I dont see it happening.

We have house transponders from 2001. They get picked up every single time, and they are older than the hybrid. If a hybrid (or any other transponder) is not being picked up, its usually from transponder placement within the vehicle, loop placement.

That is not what your earlier statement was. The following is:

In one you are talking about RC3, in the other RC4. Which statement are you trying to make?

I have seen ZERO issues with RC4 Hybrids working with RC3. We all know that RC4 Pure or purcy or whatever the hell it is doesn't work with RC3. No one is arguing that. That is why ROAR and many tracks are having to upgrade.

Every single time???
Wasn't that but one of the reasons we went away from them?

Please clarify, I dont understand what you are getting at..

That the handout transponders were far from reliable.

Usually they have a stronger signal than the original AMB personals, nothing wrong with them at all, other than the odd failure and dying battery.

Never heard of them being unreliable.... they were just expensive.. about $113 in the end., & about $80 + shipping to get the batteries replaced from AMB... (yes I know there are other options)

From MyLaps's stand point,... systems that read personals had been out about 11 years... most people had personals... no need for them.


My feelings on them... they're a pain in the a$$. When they first came out it was like the old AMB20 system... the racers would help you police them as they needed them for the next race. Now with most racers having a personal you can have 5 - 6 classes and maybe need 2 - 3 house transponders. You don't pay attention to them... racers brake and leave.. stop running a class... next thing you know they are gone... Plus I have to maintain them.

But I still have a few... don't want to turn anyone away..

I love house transponders and would never give them up. I debated this on the phone with MyLaps this past year. We have ALOT of new racers, rookies/beginners, that are getting into the hobby. If a parent is buying a r/c car for the kids to play with in the yard, and then they try racing, adding a expensive (in their eyes) transponder is not a option, so house transponders come in. The kids get to run, have fun, and parents dont have to spend the extra money so their kids laps get counted. We dont charge extra for transponder use, just the simple entry fee. If we didnt have the house transponders, we wouldnt have a beginner class.
Now, going back to my point with MyLaps. What it came down to was, they understood my point, agreed with me, but basically, the system is for the racer.. They are not going to spend the resources on the house transponders due to the sales of them have dropped significantly. If the beginners like racing enough, then they will go and get a PT when the time comes.

As far as the house transponders being unreliable.. never. They have always counted, never have failed. The only issue we ever had was the loop was broken. That was causing intermittent lap counts across all transponders.

The only problem I ever knew of with the AMB RC house transponders was in the very first batch, musta been 1999. It was due to cold solder joints at the battery. And this was just a few isolated case but they did the right thing and recalled the whole batch. Chances are if anyone had one of the recalls the battery would of been replaced at least once.

Also have some house transponders and as a race director seen hundreds used at many different tracks. only problem I ever witnessed was battery failure.

A couple of years later they came out with the PT's. After the first run they did increase the signal strength slightly. I still use mine from the first run and never missed a lap!

Over the last several years I have seen the PT's not count in some 1/8th E-Buggies. This was mostly due to loop location. I found that if the loop was placed right after a turn where the car was under hard acceleration the amp draw of these motors was robbing power from the PT. Problem was solved by moving the loop or using a small receiver battery pack for the PT alone.

Must've just been the tracks I went to.

My point being in my previous post is nothing is perfect! But with my experience in directing races, 99.9999% of the time the AMB/MyLaps transponder works perfectly in a perfect senario!

And my point being, in directing hundreds of races and having attended probably thousands elsewhere - that nothing is perfect, and suggesting anything close to 99.9999999999% accuracy considering all the imperfect scenarios is ridiculous.

But anyways................ have a great week.