Thanks to the web team at Janousek who have put up their online shop including a link to our shop for anyone wanting spares for wiring looms, speakers and other Coxmate products.
The final HC video set is showing how to use the Coxmate GPS system to calibrate your HC. When Peter Hodson was specifying the design, he asked us at Rowperfect UK whether we thought a 500m distance was appropriate as the shortest distance over which to measure speed for calibration purposes.
Now many of you know we are located in Cambridge, UK. This has oen of the most bendy rivers in the UK and we were adamant that our river only allowed 300m in a straight line maximum. And so we influenced the specification of the HC GPS - it now calibrates over 250m.
Phew.
You can hire an HC GPS calibration unit from us for one week at a time. Please ask.
And now the second part of that video.
Now for some fun while training. Setting up a pace boat function.
This sets a fixed speed as if you had a pace boat running along side you. The HC then displays a + or - speed against the stated pace so you can see if you are going faster or slower than your stated aim. This is perfect for long UT2 winter outings so you can see the effect tiredness or technical changes have on your boat speed.
There are two videos - one has the pace speed set at meters per second and the second at 500m splits. You need to have first set up the display to the speed measurement of your choice.
Onwards and upwards. Got the basic display settings showing what you want? You can turn on the backlight, display your distance moved per stroke (as advocated by British Rowing - the most important speed measurement to track).
Now onto accuracy and calibration: The HC allows you to use either a coxmate micro impeller or the NK impeller. You can set the display to accommodate this. Because the micro-impeller spins faster than the NK you'll get hugely fast or slow speed readings if you fail to set this up.
And to calibrate the HC manually (assuming you've done two pieces on flat water over a marked distance and have recorded the offset error from the device reading against the actual disatnce).
The Coxmate HC is really catching on with customers as they find its range of functions useful to their training.
When Peter Hodson, the inventor of Coxmate, visited us recently we took some video of him showing off some of its key features.
We'll be showing them off in a series of posts over the next week. Come back regularly to find out
Here's the first one. How to set the display options.
We received an email from Hull University Boat Club who own two Coxmate SRT units about what they should be doing to keep them in good working order.
Here's our reply
- Regarding charging the batteries - since the Coxmate has a power management system, I’d suggest you keep them plugged in when not in use. Or give them to someone to charge up once a month during the holidays when the University isn't rowing.
- You clearly row in a muddy tidal estuary – buy a big bag of baby wipes from the supermarket and use them to wipe the Coxmate down after each outing is probably good practice to prevent build-up of dirt.
- Keep the magnetic contacts clean on the base of the box and the boat mounting plate.
- Put a little silicone grease into the Mic socket monthly there is a syringe full in the blue carry boxes.
Eton College has had great success in school rowing over recent years, winning all before them in 2009– including UK Schools Head, the National Schools Regatta, Henley Royal and Head of the Charles (Boston USA).
Alex Henshilwood, who coached these crews, used the Coxmate SCT and has written the following article about his experience:
“Eton’s top crews have used the Coxmate system in training and competition since 2006. I take it for granted that the system will amplify the coxswain’s voice, and provide generic time and stroke rate data like other units do.
However, where the Coxmate excels is in its ability to provide accurate boat speed from GPS, and to log the information for download to a PC.
This has a number of advantages.
Firstly, I can extrapolate prognostic times to provide boat speeds for various training rates and intensities. This is a very good way of measuring progress throughout the training period, and for keeping school athletes honest should they fail to generate the right boat speed. This idea is nothing new, but by using the real time speed function on the Coxmate the coxswain can inform the crew immediately, stroke by stroke if need be, if the right times are not being generated.
It doesn’t take long to see an improvement in boat speed. Provided your prognostics are accurate, when the crew hits the right speeds in training then confidence levels increase.
One of our training locations is un-buoyed, still water. Being able to measure distance pieces and get accurate speeds over these distances is excellent.
Working to boat speed as a key measurement also teaches the athlete about their own physical limits leading onto the second key function of the Coxmate: helping to establish a race plan and seeing if the crew can execute it effectively. Training data provides key information about boat speeds, but measuring an entire race puts the coach right inside the boat. Rather than subjectively guessing when the boat slowed or increased in pace, the coach can show the athletes and reinforce what went well whilst pinpointing when things went awry.
Furthermore, this can often be linked to a specific period in the race when the rowing was better/worse (the Coxmate can show you this too). When faced with objective data it is hard to argue against it which then provides a greater clarity of purpose for all in the crew.
I often download data from my Coxmates to my laptop in order to evaluate heats prior to tweaking the strategy for finals. Key questions like “did the rate stay too high for too long?”, or “did the sprint finish actually increase boat speed”? can be answered accurately and addressed in the next race.
When a plan is successful and the race won, printing out the data, displaying it at the boatshed for all to see how a particular crew triumphed is a great way to praise, motivate and encourage the whole club.
Eton College’s first eight had a perfect season this year. The crew recorded consecutive wins at the Head of the Charles (Boston, USA), the Schools’ Head, National Schools’ Regatta and Henley Royal Regatta in the 2009 season. The Coxmate systems used in training and racing provided an advantage that nobody could match, and we will use them again in the new season.”
Peter Hodson is visiting the UK and we took the opportunity to catch up on some of the finer details of his Coxmate range of products.
To be released by early July 2009, the improved Coxmate SRT+ plus has the features of the SRT Coxmate and improved the screen size and added new functions.
A few facts about it:
The Rowperfect shop will start selling the SRT+ Plus on 1 July 2009.
There will be two options for the mounting into the boat - an articlated bracket with a NK cup adapter with manual plug-in for the speaker wiring loom OR a magnetic connection on the articulated bracket.
The pricing will be released on 1 July but we expect them to remain around £270 - £300 including VAT for a full kit including microphone, carry case and charger.
We got an enquiry from Simon Janes at Oxford about trying out the Coxmate HC. He wanted to test it on his NK wiring loom that is already in his boat.
I've tried the HC unit with my NK speedcoach mount- it fits fine but
the readings don't seem towork, the rate says "99" during the drive
& a more accurate number during the recovery, also the speed
reading says I'm doing 5 or 6 minutes per 500 (I hope it is the machine
and not me!)
I noticed on the back of the HC there are 6 pins but the NK holder only
has receptors for 4 pins- my NK unit works with speed coah.gold.XL
series, so have i done something wrong with the set up?
Cheers
Simon
This is a really iimportant question for us to answer in full. The Coxmate HC is designed to work on the NK wiring loom. Interchangeability is really important and so we thought we'd publish the full answer we gave Simon.
About the speed measurement.
The HC is designed to be used with the Coxmate micro-impeller. This spins much faster than your NK impeller and so when used with the NK impeller it gives very far out readings. You need to calibrate the HC against the NK impeller - you can set the HC unit up for "NK impeller" and use your Speedcoach K value. Do you have a marked distance you can scull and get a reading off? Then adjust the calibration as indicated in the manual.
About the number of connection pins.
The number of pins (6) on the HC is for the HC wiring loom which has a start / stop switch. This is in addition to the four on your NK loom. These four record and measure the same things on Coxmate as HC. Nothing wrong with your set-up.
About the rating. It suggests you are not getting a connection on seat sensor. Make sure HC is fully seated in mount. The seat sensor is the first and second pins from right - as you look down on mount.
Rowperfect (UK) Ltd, Sales and Service: +44 (0) 7939 584140
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