> Recently, I organised an annual cross country week at DDSC (Jondaryan, > Qld). I was armed to use a camera and barograph but was keen to use one of > the newly purchased DDSC Colibri loggers, as it was set up to be used in the > Ventus and Richard Hoskings had used it at the Qld comps the w/e before. > Therefore I read the manual and was not impressed. For those who have not > seen them, the loggers are a little black box the size of a cigarette packet > with one telephone type plug coming out of them. The only controls on it > are seven buttons which are: up, down, left and right arrows, and event > button in the centre and a tick (enter) and a cross (escape key) and a hard > to read two line, 10 character LCD screen. All the screens were cryptic. I > said to myself "B*gger the manual, ask someone and use a computer to program > it" No one in the club house could help and the DDSC computer was no help > as it did not have LXE program installed as mentioned in the manual so I > phoned a friend (RH)! Richard Hoskings who had given me the connection > wires to the computer suggested I ring Shane McCaffrey. Shane said he had > the LXE CDROM and delivered it very promptly whilst we were downloading a > DOS version from the net. > > So we were in business of learning to use the little devil at last, once we > had installed LXE. We plugged her in and she started to beep and beep > continuously, driving the whole club house crazy, so we put in a little > carton to reduce the noise a bit. LXE interrogated her and she shut up but > started again as soon as that was finished. Previous flights were still the > box, and we spied on Richard's flights at Warwick. Also, more importantly > were the usual turnpoints which were uploaded from the logger to the program > but not kept by the program. (Why I wonder?) > > By trial error , I managed to work out a task and downloaded it to the box > (it does not move quickly by character entry to turnpoints and you have to > scroll down), but had great difficulty in declaring a course till I found > that you had to high-light the task and right click to declare the task. It > does not automatically change the pilot either which has it's own tab > (flight info). However, it usefully calculates what distance the task > covers. > > Once you have finished, it continually asks you to up load again, which I > did, just to check that all the info was correct, but that was a bit > confusing. It could become a never ending "looping" action, but at least > the box is quiet whilst that occurs :-)). > > Well, I used it to plan a local multi-turnpoint task as the countryside was > so wet which I changed at the last minute to the Gold task (Miles-Condamine > Airfield-Chinchilla) because it looked such a good day and Allan Latemore > thought that I was unlikely to land out like last time I tried. :-) Anyway, > when I used it, the task did not commence and I had to use my GPS. However, > when I went around Miles-Condamine Airfield, it beeped something like 10 > times which was reassuring and it did the same each time I rounded DDSC on > my way down on my arrival at DDSC. Why did it not do the same around > Chinchilla airfield?. Something beeped once, probably my GPS as I was > aiming for the airfield! I later found out that the turn point was 5klms > further on Chinchilla Silos which was why it did not beep, loosing my claim > on a Gold task. :-((. > > This sad fact I found later when It tried to print out my log for Allan > Latemore, my OO. LXE would not print, just giving a useless windows error > message. However, all was not lost. I had uploaded a trial copy of "See > You" onto the Club computer and you could look at your flight on it via LXE > (right click on the high lighted flight), and print it out from there. As > we were in too much of a hurry to get to the pub, I only found after we > got back that I had not gone through the turnpoint properly. I had gone > within 1 klm of the correct turnpoint as I remembered that I was chasing > good thermals in that area! > > Further analysis of the logger manual was that I had not pressed the down > arrow when I had gone over DDSC when I took off on task. I would have > thought pressing the event button would have been more logical. Through my > trial and error and from what it said in the manual, it automatically starts > recording when you reach 35 kph, and the reason why the task does not > commence as well, is because you could be going through the starting gate a > few times during a comp. What worries me is that you have to have your eyes > in the cockpit groping for the down button during a start which sounds > dangerous to me in a congested airspace. I think the task should also start > automatically as soon as you have left the start area (say 5klms radius?) > The two line LCD screen is pretty hard to read too, and always cryptic. > > And that infernal beeping whilst you are programing it? > > DDSC is going to have to purchase a copy of See You unless the print error > problem can be fixed. > > So now you know how to use a Colibri data logger the easy way!. > > PeterS > > You are subscribed to the cgclist mailing list. > To Unsubscribe: send an email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] > with unsubscribe cgclist in the body of the message > or with help in the body of the message for more information.
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