BACKGROUND
Instructions2k8
5
6/4/2010
A question often asked is “Why did you do that like that?” Well, here’s why.
The design philosophy of Regatta Pro Start is to put into the Race Committee’s hands a completely automatic starting system,
which requires a minimum amount of interaction so that the Race committee can attend to the start line. To this end, some features
were purposefully designed into, and out of, the unit.
Minimize the buttons. You don’t need a lot of buttons getting in the way during the sequence. Start, Reset, and Manual horn
get you in the least amount of trouble when tensions are high at the start. Yes, it would be nice to have more controls to set and
maintain the configuration for cycle, attention, and delay, but the reality is that the RC only needs to set up the unit once. After that
you’ll never touch the configuration again.
Minimize the interface. RPS is an aural device. It gives feedback and countdowns via the beeper. If a display were
incorporated with a countdown, then you would be looking at the display rather than sighting the line. This way, you’re sighting the
line and listening to RPS in the background. You have control over your race.
The unit comes in a bag for a purpose, besides the obvious advertising. Don’t store it in a closed container. Any moisture on
RPS will be happy to corrode it when confined. The cotton bag allows RPS to breathe and dry out. It’ll last a lot longer that way. If
you don’t like the advertising, turn the bag inside out, no problem.
And lastly, the third button down, “Shape Alert Select”. Well the touch pad was designed just prior to 2001, when the five-
minute start was changed (who knew). In the old start, there was a shape that came down one minute prior to the start and this button
provided some ability to change the timing of the shape take down. Since the touch pads had been bought and paid for, it made more
sense to use them than to throw them away and start over.
That’s it, Think of RPS as a valuable tool in your RC bag. Take care of it and it will give you many seasons of reliable
performance. If you like it, please spread the word. If you have a problem, please let me know,
.
