Basejumper.com - archive

I know range finders are great but a multitasker like a good watch would be best for me. who is using what, and what are the pros and cons.
Im looking for accurate and easy!
thanks eveyone!

For lowish stuff -- say, 300 feet and less -- where you might actually want to know whether an object is (for instance) 160 feet tall or 140 feet, a rangefinder is an excellent tool to have around. I've found them particularly useful on man-made objects, which often have a large flat area below to shoot from the exit point.

Rangefinders become less useful for terminal jumps, since even their nominal range is ~800 metres, and at that they'll work only if you're aiming at a large, flat surface that's perpendicular to your line of sight. There, I think a combination of topographic maps (for the mountains) and an altimeter (GPS, watch, etc) is most useful.

For everything from 300 feet to short terminal jumps (and probably as a result of my doing a lot of jumping in the mountains), I've recently been more interested in doing a rock drop, though. A rock drop will give you two pieces of information you really need -- time to impact and some idea of how far out "that ledge" really goes. It's less accurate, of course, but at terminal you'll cover a hundred feet in half a second and will likely be eyeballing your opening altitude, so what's the point in knowing that it's 1210 feet to some particular boulder, rather than that the rock drop came in at 10 seconds? Even for the subterminal stuff, I suspect jumpers fall into one of two categories: (1) those who (like me) play it pretty conservatively, so don't really benefit from knowing whether it's 480 feet or 482 feet to the ground; and (2) those who are doing deeper delays, and (if they want to live) sure as hell aren't doing that by counting out 4.67 seconds before reaching back for the pull.

Of course, the smart money's on the person who uses at least two pieces of information in determining the altitude of the object.

Edit to add: Of course, if you're simply looking for a watch recommendation, I've got nothing to add. :)

I've had a Suunto Vector for 4 years now. Only replaced the battery once. I love it. suuntowatches.com is where I got the replacement battery and it comes with a new O ring for like 10 bucks. I wear it in the shower pretty often and have gone swimming with it a few times.

Alti/baro/therm/compass and a scale of the baro over the past 3 hours to help with trending weather. Runs about 200 still I think, but you might be able to find one for cheaper. Great watch. I've been looking at getting one of the Suunto X10's. Basically the same watch, but with GPS and it's battery is charged from USB on your computer. You can put waypoints in from the computer and can even plot places you've been into google earth. Huge down side to that one is shorter battery life, like 7 hours if you set the GPS to renew every second (so you have an exact path of where you went). 500 recharges per battery. not sure how much the batteries cost, but the watch is $550, which is why I haven't gotten one yet. Been waiting a year for the price to drop. Cheapest I have found is $410 and that's from some random site where you might now even have a warranty on it, I don't know.

edit: forgot to mention, you can easily and quickly calibrate the alti to 0 at the bottom of something and then recheck it at the top and it has always been within +/- 10 ft of right. It registers in 10's of feet.

My tools:

Suunto Vector
Bushnell Range Finder
American Tower
ASR website
Counting rungs

awesome, anyone else? keep it coming if there is more to add!
thanks guys

Suunto Observer. Seems to be within 10 foot and I normally jump sub 300 ft.

Asking locals that have jumped it
Wiki
Suunto Core
Bushnell Scout 1000
Using rope if less than 300ft

I have been using the X10M, which is basically what SBCDave has mentioned but has MGRS grid for military, red back light, and the option of degrees and mils for navigation. With the gps updating every 1sec it will last about 6hrs, (every minute) last ya about 14 hrs, and finally there is a manual option where it will last as long as two months. I now have this X10m and a Lieca 1200Y for checking out sites, small enough to fit in any breast pocket. P.S. the watch has an accuracy of 1 meter! I bought it for 408USD shipped from ebay, i recommend paying the extra and checking it out on bc.com (pm me). Sorry for the hijack!

A Brunton Sherpa is an excellent multi-tasker for BASE jumping. It's got a barometer (with trending), thermometer, altimeter (based on the barometer) and wind speed.

I've also got a Bushnell Yardage Pro Scout laser rangefinder. It's not illuminated, but it's small, and you can almost always take a measurement and then quickly move the sight over to something lit, so you can see what it says.

Finally, I've got a handful of GPS units.

I don't use my Sherpa much any more. As far as wind speed goes, I have a pretty good idea these days what "don't jump" feels like. For altitude, a rock drop goes a long way, and where it fails (urban stuff and low stuff), the laser is often a better choice.

One problem with using an altimeter is that you'll actually need to stand at the base of the object, and then again at the top, within a short period of time, if you want an accurate measurement. So it's not really as easy, or as accurate, as it sounds.

A GPS is more stable than an altimeter, but again you have to stand at the bottom and the top before you know what the height is.

Do you have a particular altitude range in mind? What kind of objects do you jump mostly?

Michael