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oi... looking at purchasing a mountaineering watch and figured theres probably some out there who can give recomendations from personal experience....

must haves... alti in small increments, barometer, compass.... also not huge and ridiculous looking

any help/recomendations out there?

most accurate for altitude is the silva alti (+/- 3ft) so i beleive) - i bought one for the accuracy as did several other BASE friends and recently some swoopers who are now using them (not sure if thats a good thing or not)

if you want more bells and whistles with still good accuracy (+/- 10ft) then the suunto range seems to be a favorite (as I have lots of friends that prefer these watches).....

I guess its like a canopy, some love it, some need it, some have a different reason for using it.....



HTH

Anyone used any of the "High Gear" alti watches?

Yeah,

First one broke, the compass and altimeter both completely quit working. Thought it to be an anomaly so I took it back. The compass was off 120 degrees and couldn't be recalibrated by anyone, even the "techs" at the store where it was purchased. Even with readjustment of the altimeter for changing barometric pressure, the altimeter was almost always wrong shortly after adjustment. The second one broke as well in similar ways but to different magnitudes. I took it back and got a Suunto, which is great (as it can be). I think you get what you pay for with some of these trick electronic devices and they are only marginally reliable in my experience. Due to my negative experience, I recommend against High Gear to anyone, I wouldn't trust one. If they quit working for no reason (no abuse, no extreme condition exposure at all, they were almost brand new), what can really be said about their real-time accuracy and reliability? Just my opinion.

Suunto has to be the choice here.

I know they are bulky, but they are fairly indistructable (so far), I'm pretty harsh on watches and I went through 3 in six months until I bought this one a year ago.

The figures are big enough to use on a skydive and accurate enough to use under canopy (IMHO).

It does loads of other stuff (compass, HRM, etc) but I only use it as a watch or an alti.

I stand corrected

FWIW, I've had excellent results with High Gear Summit & Axis watches. I use it exclusively for jumping. The only negative is you'll need to find a jeweler to replace the battery when it fails.

The Suunto vector does everything you asked for, at ~200$CAD... or you can have mine, it's at some climbing crag in Railey Bay, Thailand.

The Observer does the same stuff, but they put it into a more attractive package for ~$300.

The Advisor adds a HR monitor $300.

The T6 adds a number of other training features, but no compass, $500.

The t9 has a built in GPS, $700. Maybe useful for tracking stuff.

I used my vector in freefall, no problem. 5 years of use, no issues.

I just bought the Suunto Titanium Observer last week. It is bulky, but being titanium, (and plastic), it is very light. My biggest complaint so far is the cheesy band:
- It is plastic with some metal stampings attached to make it almost look metal.
- The clasp doesn't open nearly as far as most metal bands. The result is that when I shortened it to fit, I had to stop when I could barely get it over my hand, rather than when it was snug on the wrist.
- The band is integrated with the watch in a way that makes it impossible to use any other band.

On the plus side the battery can be easily changed by removing the plastic door with the edge of a coin.

The best deal I found was: http://www.jomashop.com/suunob.html

$356, free shipping, prompt delivery.

yup. I had a Suunto X6 HRM for the last 16 months and did around 350 skydives and 270 basejumps while wearing it.


displays in 3 ft steps, pretty accurate when checked against other altis (neptune, protrack, alti2), rangefinders and other info (known heights etc.).


yes


yes,


I didn't think it's too huge (the metal frame makes it less bulky than a plastic frame Suunto), but it's bigger than a normal watch. It does wear quite comfortably, though.

ridiculous looking? not the metal version, I think it looks quite nice.


the X6 / X6HR / X6HRM might be what you are looking for, they also have a Hiking mode and a Weather mode, which I rarely used, but I did use the Chrono mode a lot, as it allowed me to store alti data in 2 second intervals, which I found real useful to log wingsuit jumps (over 2 minutes, so protracks time out), general skydives and also basejumps, you can download the info to PC and see how low you were open.

the only thing I didn't like about my X6HRM was seeing it freefalling away from me while I was climbing a big rock...

Did somebody use the X9 GPS watch for track/WS before?

 
Short version
About the accuracy, one can easily mistake the accuracy of the display (often referred to as 'Altimeter resolution') as the accuracy of the altitude estimate, at least I did... Actually, the amount of meters the estimated altitude is off, is not just a single number, but depends on air temperature and altitude.

I have the Suunto Observer, and as an example of it's altitude estimate accuracy: With 0 degrees celsius at sealevel and at 100m (I live in Finland… ) the Observer's estimated altitude would be within about 102 and 110m (or equivalently about 106 +/-4m, see formula below). The accuracy of the display is 1m though (so the display shows values at 1m steps (...,102,103,104,…))

Longer version
About a year ago I was checking a few alternatives for an altimeter watch, and I got in contact with the Suunto tech support, and here's what I learned:
1. 'Altimeter resolution' is not the same as the accuracy of the altitude estimate. 'Altimeter resolution' usually refers to the display. One of the worst examples I've seen is 'Altimeter resolution 1m' whereas the altitude accuracy was later admitted to be +/-50m, which of course was not mentioned on their web site…, and it doesn't make sense anyway, see 2. (don't remember the brand)

2. Air pressure is measured, and altitude is calculated/estimated based on the air pressure. The accuracy of the air pressure measurement in the Observer is in effect about +/-0.5hPa. Since the air gets thinner as you go higher, the absolute error gets bigger in higher altitudes. As already mentioned, the accuracy is also temperature dependent. The Observer actually assumes a certain temperature at a certain altitude, so if the temp is not what it thinks it is, the estimate is off. In general, for the Observer, the altitude estimation error can be calculated like this:
-0.002*(temperature deviation)*(altitude difference) +/- the effect of the air pressure measurement error (which at see level is about +/-4m)
The temperature dependency is explained in the Observer manual (page 24):
http://www.suunto.com/...r_manual_en_e5d3.pdf (1.7MB)

So, the more the temperature deviates from what he Observer assumes and the higher the altitude, the more meters the estimate is off. (20 degrees off, 2000m => 80m off)

The +/-4m comes from Suunto support. Actually, they said that the typical accuracy (excluding effects of temperature deviation and changes in air pressure due to weather changes) is 'within 4m' at sealevel. Since English is not my native language, I'm not sure if this means +/-4m or does it mean +/-2m???

<pimp_my_ride>"I'm very happy with my Observer, and thanks to Suunto, people now respect me for what I have and not for who I am" </pimp_my_ride>

Anyway, I think this kind of accuracy is representative for any high end altimeter manufacturer.

Bernt

The X9i is a pretty cool set up , if you can afford it. However, it is far from ideal in the GPS department for skydiving. The GPS receiver logs in ten second intervals and the software is proprietary. So as of now, no luck with downloading data to anything other than to their software. If the GPS feature is what you want, then there are far better and cheaper alternatives out there than the X9.

So this may be considered advice, but with a different twist. Sorry! :)

I have found that the best way to tell your altitude is by using a map and a compass, and in some cases (i.e., bad weather) an analog altimeter. The best way to tell what the weather is doing is to keep a constant eye over your shoulder and understand the prevailing weather patterns of the mountain range you climb in rather than looking at little bars on a digital display.

So that means you can buy yourself a cheap watch with an alarm (so you can wake your ass up in time for a summit bid). That way you are not relaying on batteries (that can fail) and when you smash your watch because you are doing hand jams, or a piece of ice comes down and nails you in the wrist, or you are stripping layers and away flies the watch down the route you still will know what the heck is going on around you.

Long story short: Good Mountain Sense and awareness/understanding of your environment is far more important than yet another piece of battery operated technology in the mountains. No GPS, No Cell/Sat Phones, no Fancy gizmo watches, and certainly no data-link laptop reports from base camp bull shit...

We go out there to get away from all that... the simpler you make things the richer the experience becomes...

My 2 cents... Peace :)

Tom

i agree wholeheartedly there tom, and very much understand where you are coming from, however, as i live in florida, there wont be much mountaineering going on...

there will be a considerable amount of ladder climbing,reconnisance, and late nite debauchery going on tho...

respect the earth...fuck the man

Fuckin' eh...
....fuckin' eh...

The thing is that I'm looking for:
1~an altimeter for the purpose of measuring objects before the jump,
2~a GPS for assessing the track, and for WS jumps/skydives.

The X9 looked pretty cool, as it combines both. However, what would you recommend for those purpose?

Unfortunately, there is nothing out there that will meet needs 1 and 2 in one package at the moment. Depending on how gnats ass you want to get with it, a watch altimeter may suffice or better yet an actual altimeter.

For the GPS receiver, ideally you want one that is capable of logging at one second intervals for more accurate readings. Also, it must be able to downlaod that data to a computer. There are several on the market that fit that bill and even some that you can wear on your wrist( Garmin Foretrex series).

Mate,Silva dont make Silva alta anymore i know fore sure..
Atleast i still have mine