Jtim3032

@503Kento@whitem71 If it still works on your phone, see if there is an "About" section which might say who the developer was and a contact. Long shot I know 😏 @503Kento @whitem71 Found the developer's name but no contact info.... Paul Santangelo

@101driver We may be interested at the Rickmansworth Club. Have wanted to get a jump back on the lake for many years but funds have never allowed. A "free" one would be fantastic but we would have to check out insurance as well.

I should also point out that both Android and iOS are making developers jump through more and more hoops to be allowed to provide apps via their online stores, mainly to do with data and user's privacy. It may well be that the latest iOS requirements were deemed too much by the developer and the decision was taken to discontinue the app.

@skialex @whitem71 If the the developer does not keep up his/her annual subscription to the Apple Developer program, then their apps are removed from the AppStore. However, apps already installed on users devices should continue to work as normal. If the developer's membership was part of an Enterprise Program, then users apps will only continue to work for 90 days after expiration. It is possible also that users data is stored in the cloud using Apple services but I would have thought that unlikely. Your best shot at retrieving your app is to contact the developer.

@tjm I have thought the same for quite a while. Hardshell shapes (rollerblades) are designed for when feet are "side by side" whereas in water skiing, feet are one in front of the other and already our shins/legs are no longer directly above and inline with the boot but are offset to the outside. Yet there is no adjustment for this which means there is a built in bias against the offside (assuming the skier weight is sufficiently over the front foot). I did hear that Fogman bindings (who comes from a snow skiing background) had some way of adjusting for "cant" but do not know for certain.

I worked on the Sydney Olympics as part of the broadcasting effort and so made some contacts within the IOC hierarchy. I heard that one of the main reasons for non inclusion of water skiing was that the IOC made a policy decision at the time to actually reduce the number pf sports overall. That meant the only demonstration sport at Athens was wheelchair racing and this was done as a joint Olympic/Paralympic event, with the view to opening up the event to able bodied athletes in the future. I gather that the involvement of a boat and driver had very little to do with anything even though it was given as a convenient excuse for dropping water skiing. One thing I learned during that period was that it is mostly "politics" that drives policy and also that there is still serious amounts of corruption going on in the tiers below the main IOC Committee.

@MISkier sorry for late reply... Yes, Sure-Path will work as an island since in its base form it only relies on the Sure-Path server to receive correction data from a Sure-Path base (or a CORS server if getting corrections from a CORS network such as in Florida). However, the link between Sure-Path and any Scoring software (and the Sure-Path Judging application) goes via another server (WaterskiConnect). So I believe once WSTIMS (or the Lion Scoring program) have set up a tournament and added athletes etc, whether via the USAWS server, EMS server or manually, then all should be fine so long as WaterskiConnect and Sure-Path servers are online.

This has happened a lot on 200s in the UK. We have just taken delivery of a new 200 and we noticed that our dealer had carved a circular recess into the underside of the engine hood to give the filler cap a little more room. If this is not done, apparently there can be contact between cap and foam insulation which in turn creates pressure on the hot coolant tank which eventually cracks, usually at a seam. The problem does not seem to happen to the same engine in a wakeboard boat that has a different engine hood.

@dchristman I didn't but have done some looking. The best accuracy I have seen quoted is 10-30cm which would not be good enough for buoy scoring but in terms of training analysis, it's certainly worth keeping an eye on. Another tech to watch is LiDAR. The detectors are coming down in price and up in performance.

I was very interested in this and was also surprised that there wasn't more response on this forum. From my point of view, it was interesting that they seemed to have managed to do RTK GPS on a ski although it's not clear how successful or reliable it was. It's also an expensive receiver to lose if it comes off! They also seem to be using it in so called "moving base" mode and so it only gives a relative position between ski and the base (which they have in the boat) and therefore no info relative to where the slalom course is. The data you can get from this has been done before using rope angle and a tension metre on the rope (LISA) and to my mind this combination is probably more useful (from a coaching point of view) than just plotting skier position relative to the boat. Again, I am surprised there isn't a system out there commercially available. If there was no interest at the time, maybe it was because no-one appreciated at the time the possible importance of skier path variance at crazy short line lengths? I was talking with a camera operator from one of the webcasters who said that initially it was difficult to track Nate with the camera as he was noticeably quicker through the wakes than any other pro, and yet to watch him visually, this is not obvious as his progress from buoy to first wake is soooo smooth. An analysis of his speed/path/line tension and a comparison with other pros would be hugely interesting. @dchristman A system for detecting whether a ski has rounded the buoy has been suggested to me quite a few times but unfortunately there are huge problems in terms of cost and reliability.

@paul This is an example of possible cross tethering using inverted Vs to provide some lateral stability. Additional inverted Vs could be added along the length of the course. Note that any adjustment for varying lake depths would best be done at the buoy tethers since adjusting the inverted Vs could be more difficult. If the underwater course structure is made quite buoyant, then that would keep the tension on the inverted V wires quite high and thus provide more stability.

@paul This is a course design courtesy of Nigel Talamo which as can be seen is not simply a set of straight wires (which can bow under lateral pressure). Rather there are a series of spacers and tethers which introduce elements of triangulation into the structure without vastly increasing the amount of stainless cable required. This could be further modified especially in the middle of the course if required.

@BraceMaker At sites that have a long term installation, there are always ways you can improve the lateral stability of the course. We may not have developed them yet but now people are seeing a need, I suspect people are going to put the time in to find ways of doing so. At sites where you can only install a temporary course, I would have thought that being "optically correct" is sufficient, ie Sure-Path is not going to give you much in terms of an investment return other than the knowledge that your course moves 🙂

@BraceMaker@paul bracemaker has it spot on here and this applies to both floating and fixed anchor courses. If we can achieve effective anchor points 4'-6' below the surface which are themselves stable, then a lot of problems go away at a stroke. In the case of a floating course, sideways stability can be achieved by the sub point being anchored to two points on the lake bed via an upside down V arrangement. Diagrams to follow....

@BraceMaker Do you mean for correcting the overall position of the course after it has been mapped by GPS in the usual way? If so, then I suppose it might well be possible to monitor a reflector mounted on a buoy or two. That said, to get changes in bearing and distance you would need a Total Station (or two) which is expensive....but at least the amount of kit lost when hit by a boat/skier would be less 🙂 Regarding course straightness, if the cable(s) are basically straight lines then as you say, there is always the propensity for the course to bow. However, there are designs out there where a series of "spreaders" and "tethers" going between the longitudinal wires effectively introduce an element of triangulation into the structure in much the same way that such members increase strength in towers (eg high tension cable towers or crane towers). This effectively makes the course more rigid at least in the horizontal plane. I will try and post some diagrams over the weekend to illustrate. If the course is fairly close to shore on both sides, then it is not hard to run cross course tope tethers to the shores and they don't need to be under much tension to work. They do this at Thorpe Park in the UK.

Unfortunately following the position of the course dynamically involves putting at least 2 more receivers (the most expensive part of the system) out on the course itself, thus pretty much at least doubling the cost of the system. Furthermore, a lot of expensive tech lost when a boat/skier hits it 😕. I hope to publish a few ideas on cross tethering methods over the next few weeks but I think the advent of GPS based BPMS has just highlighted that we have a lot to learn about how to better anchor floating courses going forward. Incidentally, wind induced problems can be seen on fixed anchor courses as well if the anchors are significantly deeper than about 10'. I know of at least one course in a 20+' depth lake where sub buoys are positioned 4' below the surface specifically to alleviate this problem. Also torpedo style boat guide buoys can be more prone to wind action if set too high in the water.

@Bruce_Butterfield Bruce, drop me an email (james@ppcphoenix.com). I am sure we can find out why you are experiencing unreliability. Just a note for other users, it is important when problem solving to understand that "connectivity", ie cell or WiFi connections, should be considered separately from GPS signal quality/strength. As a rule of thumb, if the rover always achieves at least DGPS/Float but is not reliably achieving Fix, then the problem is quality/strength of GPS signal and not a connectivity issue. Another indicator is the "Age" value. If this consistently stays under about 5 seconds, then connectivity is fine. Things to look at are all antenna leads (kinking or compression, connectors) and siting of antennas (need clear view of the sky, especially the base antenna). Also camera mounts on top of the pylon can cause significant problems. If however the rover falls back to "GPS" (as opposed to DGPS/Float/Fix), then the rover is NOT receiving error data from the base station and all the connectivity links (base and rover) should be looked at. A step by step troubleshooting guide is here https://www.sure-path.com/troubleshooting.html

@hammerski Sorry to hear you never managed to transfer your mapping files. I've sent you an email...

@Gloersen the one new bit of tech that will hopefully come down in price sooner rather than later are so called triple band receivers and antennas. At present they are double or triple the price of the SP dual band receivers, but offer millimetre level accuracy. Maybe overkill for our purposes but kinda cool ?

@Gloersen ... thank you ? @bojans although in theory vertical movement (of the floating jetty) shouldn't affect the boat lane tracking, I would avoid anything moving for the base antenna as such a scenario hasn't been tested. My guess is that at the very least the base receiver would have more work to do in generating corrections and the results may be unpredictable.

@Gloersen ... and yes, you still need comms with the scoring/judging applications. I still think setting up a decent WiFi LAN has a lot going for it but getting the IT right is not trivial.

@Gloersen ... combinations of ppp and rtk are advancing it seems but very much at a price. A ppp-rtk receiver has recently become available which receives correction data directly from satellites instead of DOT NTRIP servers but at over $1000 a pop and $30/month subscription, it's pretty expensive. And then it may not produce centimetre level accuracy either. That said, if your site has absolutely no cell coverage, then it may be an option. I may get one of these to evaluate later this year.

Sorry guys, I missed this thread when it started but all comments are spot on. Some states in the USA provide free access to the CORS network but many don't. If in doubt, contact me first. Incidentally, the US is way ahead of the rest of the world in providing free access to live RTK data corrections. James

@lpskier Aah! Sorry I missed you! That visit turned into quite a heavy conversation regarding Rules :s

@lpskier very interesting! Left foot forward?