[NSRCA-dist8] Scoring system

[Patrick Harris]

OK, now that the contest season is over, I wanted to get your thoughts on
potentially moving to Peter Vogel's electronic scoring system. We had the
pleasure of using Peter's system at our Medford contest so many of you are
already familiar with it. Personally, I believe it to be an exceptional
system, but I am just one of the group.

A couple of key points about the system is not having to take your eyes off
the plane which we all know is a major issue with paper scoring. Another
plus is the system starts all maneuvers with a score of 10, so if you see
an error, you deduct for it, which helps reduce impression judging. At the
scorers table a computer monitor is facing out so you can quickly see where
you are in the standings.

At Medford we had a couple of minor issues. Peter was having a bit of
difficulty uploading the scores from the handheld units to the scoring
computer due to a long distance from the flight line. Once he added his
second antenna, that issue was resolved. One other issue, is the handheld
units do occasionally shut down to over heating, but again, this was a
minor issue and can be reduced with proper handling of the hand held units.

In my case, Medford was the second time I had  used the system and picked
up on it right away. Trust me, it's very intuitive and easy to use.

OK, here is the long and short of it. The system comes with eight hand held
controllers, all software, antennas, computer monitor and heavy duty
carrying case. The only additional items needed is a laptop computer and
possibly an add on Uninterrupted Power Supply (UPS) Our current computer
may be a bit light for the new system. A laptop in the 400 to $500 range is
all we would need. A UPS can be had for around $40. Peter's system runs
$2,500. So we would be looking at a total cost of around $3,000.

In District 7, they have one system up and running and have a fund raiser
to purchase their second. Of course the major issue is, "how do we fund
it"? D7 is currently using a raffle to fund their second unit. The problem
with this method in D8 is it could take a long, long time to come up with
the money. D7 has the advantage of many times the flyer's we have.

Here is a link to Peter's site. Take a look at the video if you are not
familiar with the system.

https://www.patternscoring.com/home

OK, there you go. Let's get lots of feedback going.
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