Wondering if anyone has measured how far the farmtek gear can reliabily reach? I regularly do about 400 ft shots from T/S to our finish gate using the 5dBi omni about 10ft off the ground to a yagi on the finish and never have issues even in rain.
A potential new venue (local racetrack) would require T/S to be located a minimum 800ft from BOTH the start and finish gates ... 1000ft would be better.
I'll go do actual field testing once weather warms up, but before I do just wondering if anyone else is doing really long shots with their farmtek gear. I did also email Mike @ farmtek.
Of course, if it rains it's going to be very detrimental to the signal, but I'll worry about that later.

@JasonPowell We use the yogi connected to the transmitting finish, and have ran on an airport that had a VERY long distance to the finish. I would say it was around 1200 ft, maybe a little more. Never tested those distances with rain, as it rarely does rain around here…

@JC sweet! Thanks for the encouraging info!

With the omni that high and yagis at the gates I don't think you'll have any problem at all with 1000 ft. I get 600-800 ft no problem with my omni more or less at eye level (stupid me ordered one with too short a cord).

Last season from speaking with Mike I received the following information.

The console itself has a range of 300ft in ideal conditions but anything around 250ft things start to get hairy. They sell Yagi antennas for $75 USD (includes cable) and advised that with two (one on each end) you can time a 1/4 mile drag race so that's an easy 1320 feet right there.

I don't know exactly what Farmtek includes in their $75. However, you can get the same yagi Farmtek sells a little cheaper from L-com:

HG909YE-NF ANT, YAGI 824-960MHz 9dBi $38.43

I also bought an extension cable:

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

With shipping it was about $66 all together.

The Yaggi kit from us (SPS) or Farmtek includes the parts you show above and the extension cable.

We started bundling the stand as well just to make it easier...http://www.soloperformance.com/Yaggi-Style-Directional-Antenna-for-Farmtek-Timer-Electronic-Eyes-with-Stand_p_12255.html

It all depends on each person or clubs piece it together versus save a few bucks limit is. The end result is the same.

The important part is to get the antenna's on both ends up off the ground quite a bit. If it is too low, the signal scatters off the ground. I suspect that this is sometimes the issues with range on setups without external antennas.

DaveW

@DaveW said:

The Yaggi kit from us (SPS) or Farmtek includes the parts you show above and the extension cable.

Then it sounds like a good deal for a one-stop package.

I spoke to Mike Weds. He strongly recommended getting another yagi and attaching it to the polaris timer at T/S ... the catch is the other 2 yagis need to be within 10deg off the axis of the yagi at T/S. If I position the T/S trailer on midway between I should be able to make that happen and the distance would only be 700' to each. http://take.ms/X35sj
Of course at 700 the omni and yagi's on the ends should also work. Will be a fun experiment :)