Saw this on the roadraceautox forum and thought I'd share...

"Make sure any cones at/near the start/finish line are spray painted a flat color. Seriously.
After what felt like YYEEAARRs of battling false trip issues, one of Houston's T&S folks spent a couple hours on the phone with Race America about their equipment. When time, sun position, running conditions, and so on were discussed it was theorized/discovered that the Race America (and I imagine others') timing lights are sensitive to reflected light and/or any dust/debris that changes that light. Houston's equipment guy plasti-dipped a couple of cones for the next event and we have rarely had problems with false trips since then."

Interesting. We seem to have much more missed starts than we have missed finishes. Considering a re-program of A and B TLinks to see if the situation reverses itself.

Any tips on the best colour to use? I would think black to minimize reflection?

We are also trying to determine the source of our finish lights not tripping with our FarmTek timing system. This weekend's event we had over 10 finishes not trip. We've never really had problems with the start line eyes, only the finish line not tripping and stopping the time. We may try painting some cones black but due to the problem occurring only at the finish I'm thinking we may need to invest in a Yagi antenna to extend the range of the eyes.

Just something to keep in mind, signal range.

There are several things with the Farmtek's to watch out for....(My company SPS sells the timers)

-Sensor Height. 10-12 inches works for everything (usually). This is lower than the "stock" tripods FYI and the stock height will give issues with karts. Too low is also a problem as only the tires of a car may trip and really low will lead into signal bounce problems off the crown on the road. Problems here almost always only show up at finish since the speed is higher.

-Batteries. Fresh batteries. New ones every day. Seriously, how much are 9v batteries? :)

-Make sure they are lined up as accurately as possible, Yeah, you can usually throw them down and they work, but I see them all the time not really lined up, or just barely, with one pointing off to the side or down.

-Antennas - I really recommend that at a minimum, you have the omni directional antenna for the base unit and Yaggi for any more than 100-150 feet away. The stuff is not expensive from Farmtek, and even cheaper if you source and build it yourself.

-Flip the eyes - sometimes the sun will get the receiver eye just right and all the sudden you will get missed or false trips. Swap the eyes side to side when this happens.

Hope this helps.

DaveW

Thanks a lot for the tips @DaveW, very helpful. We've ordered trophies form you before and had great service.

I spoke with Mike, from FarmTek, yesterday on the phone and explained our missed finish trips this weekend. Mike advised me that colour of car, amount of wax and polish and even reflections from cones have absolutely no effect on the timing sensor's light beam.

He advised to make sure the eye with the antenna is facing the timing console (not on the opposite side and shooting through the car)‎ and that we are aiming the eyes accurately at each event - going down on a knee and using the top and side crease on the eyes to align up/down, left/right (like aiming a gun). The eyes have a range of 150ft so we can have them as far apart or close together as needed.

The console itself has a range of 300ft in ideal conditions but anything around 250ft things start to get hairy. They sell a Yagi antenna for $75 USD (includes cable) and recommends picking up a speaker stand from‎ a local music store to mount it and using this on the eyes furthest away from the timing console. Our T&S station is just a table under a tent. If your timing console is located inside a trailer, he recommends the omni directional antenna mounted on the outside of it.

These are the antennas I used. All were purchased directly from www.L-com.com:

Item #: RE905U-RSP 800-900 MHz 5 dBi Mag Mount Omni RP SMA Plug Connector $25.95

Item #: HG909YE-NF ANT, YAGI 824-960MHz $38.43

Item #: CA-RSPNMA004 CA,195 RP-SMA PLUG/N-MALE 4FT $17.00

I bought the omni with a 1m / 3ft cable, but it's too short. I would get the 2m / 6ft version.

I have 2 of the Yagis - 1 for the finish light and 1 for the scoreboard. The cable shown here is 4ft long and is used for the scoreboard because the antenna mounts directly to the scoreboard tripod. I bought the same cable in an 8ft or 10ft length to use with the finish light.

I also bought a cheap 6ft equipment tripod from Amazon to mount the yagi for the finish light. That was maybe $30.

Knock on wood but I've not had any false light trips in over a year after the following...

• 5 dBi omni antenna connected to the farmtek controller. $37 purchased from Farmtek with a 12 foot cable. This is positioned a good 10 feet off the ground to give it a nice clear line of sight to the start and finish eyes. Signals don't like to penetrate stuff like cars and people :-)
• yagi antenna, also purchased from farmtek ($75-ish), for the finish line. I regularly need to place the finish a good 250+ feet from T&S.
  The combo of the omni + yagi might be overkill, but that's a small price to pay to reduce false triggers.