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E-Targets for F-Class

And as to the notion that frames and hardware at the target end would need to be scrapped.......

Also a load of rubbish.

At worst it would mean new mound monitors with more processing power.

I’m pretty sure your thinking Konsberg.
Yes and if you have them you cant buy just monitors if you have the early system you cant upgrade them. How do I know this because it has been tried. Suggest you talk to the club who had their targets burnt and wanted to buy more complete frames. Guess what they couldn't so they scraped the system. Know some facts before you jump in telling people they are talking RUBBISH.
By the way the name is Kongsberg.
 
I'm with Rod, when we get to the point where we are sending 22 shots in less than 90 seconds, I'm selling the toys and buying a sling and coat!

I like marksmanship games. If I wanted to play a return-to-battery game, I would already be shooting Benchrest.

With a 7 second delay, it would be reasonably possible to shoot 22 shots in just under 4 minutes (assuming flight time, and reaction time to the score appearing on the screen). I'd be happy with 20 second delays. So long as everyone has the same delay, it would be fun.
 
Yes and if you have them you cant buy just monitors if you have the early system you cant upgrade them. How do I know this because it has been tried. Suggest you talk to the club who had their targets burnt and wanted to buy more complete frames. Guess what they couldn't so they scraped the system. Know some facts before you jump in telling people they are talking RUBBISH.
By the way the name is Kongsberg.

I don’t care what the name is.

The vendors need to provide systems that cater to the sport.
We shouldn’t be changing rules to suit the targets we get.

More pressure and noise towards Konsberg (however it’s spelt) and others to reverse program their systems rather than rolling over and accepting second rate answers.

I have software engineers in my family who work at Amazon, would be a half day job for them to rewrite a bit of code.

The manufacturers don’t want to put resources into a system they have already sold is what the problem is. At the price of these systems they should be upgradeable!!

Staying blinkered, like you obviously are is another roadblock that needs to be removed. And it will eventually.

But if here in Australia we keep machine gunning while other countries implement delays or pair firing out wind reading skills as a whole will decline.
 
And on the issue of a crossfire, this is where the ET vendors need to step up to the plate and make us targets that accomodate F-class course of fire.

For the umpteenth time, there is at least ONE ET system that accommodates automatic crossfire detection. Mine. Ozscore. In Asutralia. Where you are. But this seems to fall on deaf ears. This feature is used every week - it is rare for there not to be a crossfire somewhere.

And the users of my system are predominately F class (scope).

Critical to being able to do this is the accurate detection of shots at the muzzle. Detection means detecting the shot event, the time of the event, and which firing point. Also critical is the timing of the arrival at target. The technology exists that allow for this. But only I have adopted it (silly me).

The target should give a visual (and possibly audible) confirmation upon receiving a hit. Then the screen should display perhaps (IN PIT) for the stipulated 7 or 10seconds before displaying the score.

I don't provide an audible indication. I am not sure if it would be any good in the already noisy firing line environment. But it could be done I suppose.

If the target was to receive a hit during the IN PIT stage it simply needs to advise (crossfire detected). After all you can’t crossfire on a target that’s IN PIT.

Again, Ozscore already (and has done so for some years) provides a delay option of 0 (zero) to 15 seconds. Because the system knows about fired shots, where they were fired from, at what time (to millisecond resolution), at what [intended] target, and by whom, it can also accommodate the delay in result display.

What happens when a crossfire is detected? Well, this is where I deviate from the actions on a manual target.

Whoever fired the crossfire cops a miss. They are told (on the screen) that they crossfired but not the target to which they crossfired. Whereas on a manual target two spotters may appear giving the shooter on that target the option to accept the higher of the two scores, this doesn't occur on an Ozscore system This is largely because of the multiple shooter per target feature where deliberate crossfires occur all the time.

The timing logic that is required to achieve this is rather complex and I'm surprised someone as simple as I am has managed to actually figure out how to apply it!

Also if someone crossfires on your manual target your not going to be able to fire for the 7 to 10seconds it takes to come back up, so this software tweak makes no difference to the course of fire in a match between a manual or ET

Then you could ask the vendor to program the software to either completely discount the late shot or display it when the target comes (out of pit)

It is so long since I implemented the shot delay feature that I need to confirm the following. With Ozscore, any shot fired (detected at muzzle) within a timing window is ignored. Well, not entirely - it is tracked to the target. Only the shooter is not informed of anything. Maybe a shot fired during a timing window should be treated as a miss and scored accordingly?

Instead of moaning and groaning about crossfires being such an issue we need the ET vendors to provide this extra little bit of software code.

Well, I bothered to put all this [software code] into my Ozscore system but few of you have cared about it to date. Here you are bleating on about not having delays and crossfire management when it's been out there on Ozscore for years! I have not hidden this - it's just that few of you seem to take note so I have basically given up. Convince me that you really care about all this and that the last 12 pages of this thread is not simply a jaw bashing exercise!

BTW, it's not simply an "extra little bit of software". Furthermore, without knowing about shots fired, and therefore a reliance on arrival at a target as being the only indicator that a shot was fired (from where???? and when???) I would suggest that accommodating what you people say you want regarding crossfires will be somewhat difficult to implement. Which is why I DID go that extra mile and incorporate the necessary hardware (and software) to do exactly what you all say you want. But apparently for free??? Am I wrong? Or missing something?

ET’s are great at displaying the position of the shot, the next stage in their evolution is to program them to behave as a manual target would. It’s pretty simple stuff in 2019

Really? "Pretty simple"? Have you tried doing it? Maybe myself, Dmitri, and Dan have been really simple in that it's taken us each more than ten years to get what we have together. (Read that as thirty plus man years of effort to get to what we collectively have now).

FYI, if all I wanted to do was simply replicate a manual target with a computer display, I probably wouldn't have bothered starting in the first place. There is little challenge in that! I saw the limitations of manual targets (and there were many of them in some form or another) and I figured that an electronic approach could improve on this. In addition, provide an opening for what has been a closed spectator unfriendly sport to become one the masses could view from anywhere using the internet. Yes. Simple stuff! NOT!

You guys, I put to you, are not really interested in what we producing the technology can do - unless we do it for free. I put it to you that we ET vendors could go a long way to provide you with what you want - but being simple I am having difficulty in figuring out what it actually is you want!

1) Shot interval delays can be implemented easily enough but I put it to you all that without knowing a shot has been fired (instead relying on a target event from a bullet fired from who knows where) the implementation is deficient.

2) Cross fires can be detected but the semantics of how they are dealt with is not so simple. Again, I put it to you all that without accurate shot/discharge detection and timing implementation will be deficient.

3) For those of you who want only the last shot fired spotter displayed, well, Ozscore has allowed this (as a shooter option) for years also.

Geoff.
 
I don’t care what the name is.

The vendors need to provide systems that cater to the sport.
We shouldn’t be changing rules to suit the targets we get.

I have tried. Hasn't got me very far. See earlier post.

More pressure and noise towards Konsberg (however it’s spelt) and others to reverse program their systems rather than rolling over and accepting second rate answers.

I have software engineers in my family who work at Amazon, would be a half day job for them to rewrite a bit of code.

I call BS to that!

The manufacturers don’t want to put resources into a system they have already sold is what the problem is. At the price of these systems they should be upgradeable!!

Well, I'm upgrading mine all the time. Or am trying to... it's very difficult when few want to pay for such things. So I now do it for love - call it a hobby if you like as it's the only way I can justify doing it.

Staying blinkered, like you obviously are is another roadblock that needs to be removed. And it will eventually.

But if here in Australia we keep machine gunning while other countries implement delays or pair firing out wind reading skills as a whole will decline.

If you really want the shot interval delay and crossfire detection (and management) along wit all sorts of other juicy features you probably haven't yet thought about why don't you give me a call Ben? I'm just down the road in Canberra. But it may be too late - I am now so disheartened by the lack of interest in what I have spent the last 10+ years of my life putting together that I am considering moving on to something else in my "retirement".

Geoff.
 
Shotmarker has the function option for delay and last shot fired...
 

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GeoffR

I am already shooting on your system in Lockhart and we love it!! As you know it’s working great. And I have been using it for about 4 years I think now.

We don’t need delay at Lockhart because conditions are usually too fickle to shoot fast anyway, plus in club shooting I make the point of firing as if I were on a manual target.

But other mass produced bigger name vendors should be offering the same features that you already do.

And simply saying they can’t and too bad is not good enough!!!

I’m not talking about Ozscore in my gripe. It’s more the attitude of associations to not demand these features (which are programming specific)

Yes ozscore removes the crossfire issue, unfortunately ozscore is not used at ACT queens or any other queens prizes that I know of.
I wish it was.

Perhaps Bindi over in Western Australia should be getting his club to call you and have some targets with upgrade ability installed rather than constantly saying CANT.
 
Geoff.[/QUOTE]
If more ranges here used your targets and actually implemented the things it can do, then I would start thinking about shooting on ETs again.
 
GeoffR

I am already shooting on your system in Lockhart and we love it!! As you know it’s working great. And I have been using it for about 4 years I think now.

We don’t need delay at Lockhart because conditions are usually too fickle to shoot fast anyway, plus in club shooting I make the point of firing as if I were on a manual target.

But other mass produced bigger name vendors should be offering the same features that you already do.

And simply saying they can’t and too bad is not good enough!!!

I’m not talking about Ozscore in my gripe. It’s more the attitude of associations to not demand these features (which are programming specific)

Yes ozscore removes the crossfire issue, unfortunately ozscore is not used at ACT queens or any other queens prizes that I know of.
I wish it was.

Perhaps Bindi over in Western Australia should be getting his club to call you and have some targets with upgrade ability installed rather than constantly saying CANT.
Yes, Ben. Now I know who you are!

Lockhart is a classic example of me performing upgrades both in hardware and software. There are more coming - in fact instead of me looking at this forum this afternoon I should be out in my office working on a new GUI based utility for you! (But I'm inside looking instead after my convalescing dog).

For anyone interested, if it were not for the ongoing support and interest the shooters at Lockhart (Ben's club) and that of some others who use my system I would have given up years ago. Had I treated this as a proper business (instead of a hobby) I also would have given up years ago - as it is I stopped selling new systems some time back as I knew that even operating as a hobby, I could not compete against the cheap open target Canadian systems that use dim and arguably defficient display and networking technology on the mound. (Lockhart BTW utilises a wired LAN - the wifi was discarded some months ago).

There is scope to come out with a much cheaper system compared to what they did cost some years ago. Moving to plastic instead of expensive wooden frames would be a good start. My view is open targets, or any target requiring a terminal velocity in order to compute impact point, are not an option if you are serious. For many reasons. At least one other vendor will back me up on this assertion. (The reasons have been posted on this forum before but have been either [conveniently] forgotten about or accepted in the name of economy). But it simply is not possible to produce in Australia (or anywhere else for that matter) a system with the features and attributes being asked for for $1500 or less and provide much in the way of ongoing support (due to insufficient cash flow). So I head into "retirement" (a misnomer actually) and intend to look after the systems I do have out there (like the one at Lockhart) as best I can fully understanding the financial and other pressures these clubs are having to deal with. That are not too dissimilar to what shooters in the USA and elsewhere have to deal with also.

Why? Because I can...

But can I grow? No. Not if I want to eat and continue to develop the system listening to people saying they want what my effort provides but can't or won't pay for it. Having said that, if provided with an incentive, I could possibly be persuaded to come up with something that incorporates all the existing features (and more) without the expenses associated with manufacturing wooden targets. One thing I won't compromise on however is my mound unit. I have been told that if I do I may as well leave the country! :-)

I do have some ideas regarding improvements to the electronics at the target end but again, really need some incentive to provide motivation to pursue it.

Geoff.
 
I think GeoffR has taken my comments as a swipe against his Ozscore target system. Nothing could be further from the truth.


However my comments are regarding what are termed dumb targets which just record any shot that is fired through them and report to the assigned monitor.

Most of my comments are with what the ozscore system is capable of doing in the back of my mind as I shoot on them most weekends.
They can and are upgraded and Geoff is able to add in great shooter specific features, not just a dumb target dutifully reporting a shot to its assigned monitor.

Agree with Geoff’s comments regarding open faced/open air targets.

Closed is the only way to go for pinpoint shot placement.
 
Geoff.
If more ranges here used your targets and actually implemented the things it can do, then I would start thinking about shooting on ETs again.

Damn it Rod!!! You are starting to get my creative and motivational juices going again! :)

I have a couple of half built plastic targets here. With luck will get to complete them soon (once dog is better) and get them out to the Canberra range for trialing. Beaudesert have been using plastic targets for more than two years now. They are cheap, light (even when enclosed), and seem to be doing the job OK.

I have completely redesigned the cabling systems to accommodate both power and networking whilst also providing a high degree of ruggedisation. When I put my system together I underestimated the sort of treatment that would be dished out. Progression if you like. Lockhart and Beaudesert have been upgraded and they seem to be holding up pretty well. I hope to do Sydney and Casino soon. I upgraded Goulburn just before they got shut down a few months ago. Chidlow is on the list also. Nowra is a special case in that they indicated that they want a permanent type of mound wiring installation (that I have to my shame been lax in designing and progressing with them!) and hopefully will get Benalla commissioned soon (also with the new cabling scheme. I need to get down there but my movements have been restricted as of late).

I am slowly moving everyone on to a wired LAN on the mound. Wifi is simply too fickle - and unstable. I use wifi only (if I can help it) for mound spectator purposes. Moving to a wired LAN improved the stability of the system untold (as did bullying everyone into using a 24VDC power supply on the mound).

But am I game to increase my user base? Well, I'd like to, but I simply can't compete against the $1200 (Aussie) "personal target" systems that clubs use here. Or anywhere else. So right now I don't bother.

Geoff.
 
I don’t care what the name is.

The vendors need to provide systems that cater to the sport.
We shouldn’t be changing rules to suit the targets we get.



Staying blinkered, like you obviously are is another roadblock that needs to be removed. And it will eventually.

I have been shooting on repairing and improving the Kongsberg targets longer than you have been shooting on ETs. Some things can be upgraded other things cant fact of life. Hence live with it or bin it. There is too much cost in binning the early models when they still work to the standard and rules for when they were released. Wind reading skills wont be decreased because we don't have a time delay in fact they will improve for the top shooters as they have an iron will now (self control) not to run without looking.
Normal rebuild cost $1500 + per target, 2.5hrs time to do. Now $450 conversion cost then $50 per rebuild after that in less than 5 minutes per target. One other thing the shot count per target before issues has gone from 800 or less to north of 2,500 and can see another improvement to do which will increase the shot count.
Road block removable in time yes I will die. Blinkered I am not.
 
I think it is a bit of a shame that Australia has been at the forefront of ET development but with a small market they have been slow to get off the ground and even bigger barriers to break into or more correctly start the market overseas. The overseas manufactures have taken the ideas and the technology and then using National Pride been able to sell their product over the more well established proven systems developed in Australia.
 
If you have a link to where they get posted please share here.
These can be difficult to find at times.
Tks, George


George,

Try the following: nra.rulebooks.org - once they are published, that's where they will be....hopefully.

Hope it works,

John
 
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The exact same thing could be said about better modern powders, better bullets, higher quality rifles, etc. No one is asking us to go back to Black Powder rifles shooting Maxi Balls.

The way I see it, none of those things change the way the game is played, and do not create drastic differences in how the game is played between ranges who have e-targets without a delay vs manually pulled ranges... E-Targets do both.
 
Wanted to share one last spreadsheet now that I've analyzed all the ShotMarker data at my disposal.

Summary: Of 371 20-shot strings, all fired in registered matches, only 2 shots were recorded in under 7 seconds from the previous shot - one a crossfire (that came up an 'X'), the other a '9'. Lowest Average Shot Delay: 12 seconds. Average score for the 8 strings fired with an Average Shot Delay of under 15 seconds: 197.625 - 10X.

Prediction: Guys that can read the wind and shoot fast will continue to prevail.

Edit: replace '12' with 'under 15' in the last sentence of the summary.
 

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