It sounds like a way to phase out small clubs as well. AMB does not have the racers' best interests in mind. New racers will not buy a personal transponder for their first few races. They will need to be able to borrow a house transponder initially. The RC racing community really needs to deploy an open source counting system.

THIS IS ABOUT THE DECODER NOT TRANSPONDERS
OK we are wanting to switch from the rc2 decoder to the new rc4.
For tracks that have upgraded from the RC2 DECODER to the NEW RC4 DECODER was it a easy change over, things like software, hooking up wires are there any snags we need to know about.
Thanks in advance

Everything works the same, just the loop field strength is alot more, so there is a setting on the box to adjust it (squelch).
With the new functions of the decoder and the transponders, your software manufacturer may tell you to use ethernet vs the serial port. They have to make changes to the software to read the decoders extra functions, and may only supoport the ethernet port vs the serial port.. Check with them on which one they recommend. I have used either, and everything works fine with the software I use.

The book says to make the loop 2ft wide, RC2 book said 1 ft wide, we kept it 1ft wide and havent had any issues at all, and MyLaps said that was ok.

I figured as much and thats why I am holding off buying new Hybrid transponders now. Currently I have 1 AMB and 3 MRT transponders and they work fine with our clubs system. The owner says he has no plans of changing to the new RC4 system because there is absolutely no benifit to the club or racetrack to change. The only benificary is Mylaps getting $$ from the track and the racers. I was going to buy 4 new Hybrids but I was worried that they too would be fazed out soon and force everybody to the RC4 pure.

+1, Amen Brother!!

The problem is now and will always be that bigger organized national type races will use a lap counting system partner. Right now that partner is Mylaps and will probably be for some time, at least until somebody gets bigger and supports the RC racing community better. Maybe if somebody else made a nice system that was affordable and worked good all the tracks would switch over.

Sorry JimmG your loop is not 12" its over 24".. its more like 30"

Oh I don't know about that.. I only had my first race tonight and I've owned transponder for a few weeks.

I dont know who you are, but its obvious, you have no clue what you are talking about. Come down to the hall, and Ill show you the loop.

do you know if part of the deal of getting the decoder at the lower price included a requirement to upload results to mylaps online?

If so does that require you to use their timing system exclusively?

That is a smart track owner. There is NO advantage with the rc4.
The argument to upgrade because it's a deal is actually the perfect argument to NOT upgrade. Clearly Mylaps is taking a loss on the decoder boxes to speed up the demise of clones and they know they will make that money back later when we are all FORCED to buy new transponders.

Well, playing devil's advocate... the new system doubles the data rate - improving the pickup of the transponder signal (especially in carbon based setups). This is also good for track owners since they don't always have to put the loop in the slowest corner for best results. It helps with flexibility in track design and where to place the starting line.

It also lets you set the same transponder number for all of your vehicles. You also get some telemetry (temp and voltage) that some racers might find useful. To say there are no advantages isn't entirely true. Maybe none that apply for you.... but that doesn't mean there aren't benefits.

Does anybody use the MYlaps sports timing system (formerly SPARC). Seem like the real time upload of results and practice would be kinda cool.

I work in the electronics industry... Mylaps is not taking a loss on anything.

I would bet next year's salary that the transponders cost <$10 to make and the decoder boxes <$200


The Temp might be useful for the futaba guy's that have RXs that overheat. Voltage is completely useless...


I can set my MRTs to ANY ### that I want.


I've never seen a loop have issues when placed in high speed sections...

Again, devils advocate here... (I don't really care either way since I don't have an MRT, my own stuff works and will continue to work) but.... the MRT folks just picking their own number out of thin air has caused problems at the snowbirds in the past where it conflicted with a real AMB number.

And since the "bonus 20" numbers available on the MRT's are always the same on every single unit, we've had MRT's conflict with other MRT's at our track. Heard from the local guys that it happened at snowbirds in the past too.

Going with a real AMB solves that problem. Another potential advantage to using the real thing....

Why would this be any kind of advantage? The only use for it is if someone at a race had the same PT number as you.

With a MyLaps PT no one will ever have the same number!

haha....cdwilliams is as confused (or as realistic) as I!

Read
You can sent your own custom ## in the MRTs... + the stock 20. They ship with a random ## that can be changed.

A transponder ## conflict takes 2s to sort out in most racing programs.

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