Head Start

Building an RFID Race Timing System

September 06, 2021 Brian Agee Episode 13
Head Start
Building an RFID Race Timing System
Show Notes Transcript

Have you ever thought about timing your races yourself? Building your own RFID timing system? Perhaps even building a small race timing business on the side as a way to diversify your income?

Well, doing your own race timing is certainly not for everyone. For most race directors, managing their own race timing is the last thing they need on race day. Nevertheless, DIY race timing is exactly the route many race directors choose to go down, either to save money, try their hands at building a race timing side-business or simply for the enjoyment of building their own RFID timing system.

Today I’ll be talking to Brian Agee of Agee Race Timing, a man very well-known among DIY race timing enthusiasts not only for his very popular race timing software, but also for his willingness to share with others everything he’s learned building and operating DIY race timing.

Over the next hour or so, we’ll be touching on a few things with Brian, from choosing the right components for your race timing system to bringing everything together, setting up your system correctly, and avoiding some common race day pitfalls. 

In this episode:

  • What is an open hardware timing system and who is it suitable for
  • Pros and cons of open timing systems vs branded/proprietary systems (MYLAPS, Chronotrack, IPICO etc)
  • How proprietary systems use password-protected tags and what that means for the ongoing operating cost of your branded system.
  • The main components of a DIY timing system: reader, antennas, cables, tags, software
  • Mat antennas vs panel antennas
  • Passive vs active RFID tags
  • 2-port vs 4-port RFID readers
  • The cost of building a DIY RFID timing system
  • Chip starts/chip times: when you need them and when you don’t
  • Recommended RFID tag placement: bib tags vs shoe tags vs wrist tags
  • Double tagging: pros and cons of using two tags per runner
  • The cost of buying RFID tags
  • Making disposable tags reusable 
  • Programming/encoding your RFID tags
  • Inexpensive backup systems for your main RFID timing system: camcorders, capturing backup times manually, using secondary RFID systems

Thanks to GiveSignup|RunSignup for supporting quality content for race directors by sponsoring this episode. More than 22,000 in-person, virtual, and hybrid events use GiveSignup|RunSignup's free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more. If you'd like to learn more about GiveSignup|RunSignup's all-in-one technology solution for endurance and fundraising events visit runsignup.com.

You can find more resources on anything and everything related to race directing on our website RaceDirectorsHQ.com, where you’ll also find a 5% discount from Atlas RFID Store for all your RFID timing equipment needs and a 15% discount from Agee Race Timing on timing software you can use with both your DIY and proprietary timing system.

If you are building and operating your own system, Race Timing Hub is our Facebook group dedicated just to race timing and building race timing systems, so come join that and people, including Brian, will be glad to help out with any questions you may have.


Panos:

Hi! Welcome to Head Start, the podcast for race directors and the business of putting on races. Have you ever thought about timing your races yourself? Building your own RFID timing system? Perhaps even building a small race timing business on the side as a way to diversify your income? Well, doing your own race timing is certainly not for everyone. For most race directors, managing their own race timing is the last thing they need on race day. Nevertheless, DIY race timing is exactly the route many race directors choose to go down, either to save money, try their hands at building a race timing side-business or simply for the enjoyment of building their own RFID timing system. Today I'll be talking to Brian Agee of Agee Race Timing, a man very well-known among DIY race timing enthusiasts not only for his very popular race timing software, but also for his willingness to share with others everything he's learned building and operating DIY race timing systems. Over the next hour or so, we'll be touching on a few things with Brian, from choosing the right components for your race timing system to bringing everything together, setting up your system correctly, and avoiding some common race day pitfalls. So stick with us for a very interesting discussion. Before we go into all that though, I want to give a quick shout out to our podcast sponsor, GiveSignup|RunSignup, the leading all-in-one technology solution for endurance and fundraising events. More than 22,000 in-person, virtual, and hybrid events use GiveSignup|RunSignup's free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more. And it's through the support of our friends at GiveSignup|RunSignup that we can bring you great free content like today's podcast. So if you want to check out the many things that GiveSignup|RunSignup can do for your event, from streamlined online registration and free email marketing to having your own super-slick race website, make sure to visit runsignup.com. One last thing: If you enjoy this podcast, please make sure to subscribe on your favorite player. And if you really really enjoy this podcast, please leave us a review. It would mean a great deal to us. Okay, let's get into this amazing episode! Brian, welcome to the podcast!

Brian:

Glad to be here.

Panos:

Thanks a lot for coming on. You are the owner of Agee Race Timing, which is a race timing software company. But for the benefit of today's episode, I should say that it's a lot more than that. And in fact, one of the main reasons why I sought your expertise for today's podcast is because you've also been helping lots of people build and learn how to operate race timing systems through Agee Race Timing. So tell us a little bit about Agee Race Timing - what you guys do there and your experience with building RFID timing systems.

Brian:

Yeah. That was a good setup because, originally, my plan was just to build a race timing software for my own personal use. I probably have a similar story to a lot of people that are looking to build their own system. My first race ever directed was for an organization that was very well known. There's a lot of schools that have the FCA, Fellowship of Christian Athletes. Every school in my area had one. And so, I knew that - at Arkansas State University where we're trying to start up an FCA program - we could get a lot of support from that community. We're also a brand new organization and we had no money. And so, we're stuck with this decision of what if we have 500 people show up? We need to hire a chip timer. But what if we only have 50 and we're in the hole? And so, that was a tough decision. And so, the natural progression and journey I feel people go through is they look at, "Okay. Do I time it myself with the card system or popsicles?" That's not fun for anybody. It's basically free, but it's not fun, and results take forever. And the other option, of course, was to hire a chip timer. And then, basically, I feel like, what if I only worked for two months and someone else gets all the money from it? And so, I try to find some middle-of-the-road option here. Sure, I can download some free Excel-based programs because races are all over the world and races have been around forever. So surely, there's some free program that makes race timing easy. And I downloaded some of the programs and they're good programs. The vast majority of all races around the world are small to medium-sized road races and stuff. And so, I was surprised that there was nothing that was free and easy to use. So that's when a seed was planted in my mind to maybe do something about this someday. And that's what I tried to do. So I use a system for a few years. It worked great and I never had intentions of releasing it to the public. I ended up getting married, having twins, and of course, life stops. So I stopped racing for a while. And then, I kept getting emails and calls from race directors and they say, "Hey, man. The timer is killing us." And so that's when I decided that I'm gonna try to release this out to the world. And that involved a dramatic rewrite because the database was a SQL Server database - SQL Express. It takes an hour to install and set up. So it took a while to get it all going. But after I released it, people would say,"Hey, can you make it work with RFID hardware?" And so, that's the journey. And that is what we'll talk about today - how to get started, finding equipment, what works, and what doesn't work. There's a lot of things that you may think about, say,"Oh, let's try wristbands. Let's try this or that." And you'll discover why no one's using those because some of that stuff looks good on paper, but just doesn't perform well.

Panos:

Exactly. And as you said, today, we will be talking about how to build an RFID timing system, what hardware you'll need, how to put it all together, how it all works, how it comes together, and - something that I find is lacking in terms of online content out there - how to actually use that system in real life to time a race. But before we go into all that, I think it's really important - and you sort of highlighted it a little bit in your story about how you went into producing the software and then doing what you do through Agee Race Timing - to spend a minute to discuss, first of all, these timing systems we'll be going through the build procedure for. What do we mean when we say, these systems are DIY? And what kinds of people are these systems primarily suitable for?

Brian:

Some people reached out to me and they say, "Hey, I'm trying to build a system and I've got this reader but I'm not sure what to do after that." So there's a gap here that they fail to see. You can't just buy equipment, hook it all together, and then plug it into your computer. You're going to get a flood of data when a tag comes across. First of all, you have to be able to tell the reader,"Hey. Start listening." And so, you can't just buy a reader, hook it up to your laptop, turn it on, and it will just magically produce results. You got to have software that does something with this flood of data. So when I hear DIY, there's a certain component of it that's not really DIY unless you're a software developer or you're great with data manipulation. I think almost every reader has a little app that you can use to test the reader out with. And I've seen some people do some pretty creative things with that data and then have some Excel program to read it. But those people are few and far between. So true DIY- if you're doing everything yourself - means the software and everything. So I'd like to qualify your average person is more looking for an open system, not a DIY system. And so an open system basically has no yearly fees. They're not locked into proprietary tags or anything else. And so, I guess I would draw a line between open versus DIY. Yeah. I hope that answers that question.

Panos:

Right. Yeah. And I suppose "Open"-- the best comparison for people to understand the kind of system we're talking about is to consider it alongside the branded timing systems that most people would be familiar with - right? The MYLAPS, the Chronotrack, the IPICO, all of those systems which come in a box. They have their pros and cons, I guess. So how does the system that we'll be talking about today - which as you said, is an open system - compare to some of those systems that you can buy off the shelf from one of the RFID timing system manufacturers?

Brian:

At the very beginning of my journey, the first thing I did was, "Okay. Let me just see what equipments are out there." And it's both a fortunate thing and an unfortunate thing that there are so many options - right? So it's good that there are a lot of options but it's also bad because there are also some options that you want to avoid really. And it's not obvious when you first started. Like, anyone that really knows about timing knows to avoid that reader - right? So it's good to have some package system is that they've done all the research. They'll want to make sure that you follow through with what you're supposed to do. Now, of course, taking a step back, if you buy a software that allows everything to work together, that software provider will say, "Hey. You need to use this hardware. You need to kind of follow these rules," because, again, they don't want their name brand not looking good. And so the pros, I guess, of a DIY system, of course, is the no yearly fees. They're not stuck to any proprietary hardware. There's no price gouging on the things that you need to buy from them because a lot of systems out there are their bread and butter. And I've talked to some race timers and they all agree that there's not a whole lot of people in the world that want to be race timers. And so, whenever you do get a customer, a lot of these systems that have got the infrastructure, tech support, development, marketing, executives, everyone they've got to pay, usually there's some catch and there's some hook when you buy these systems. They've got to make money perpetually. So the benefit of an open system is that, let's say, if you time a race once every three years, well, you'll not pay that for the system. You're not using it for a couple of years. And so the other benefit, I guess, with an open system is that UHF just works. UHF RFID works well. You do have to know the rules of using UHF RFID. And some of those rules looked good on paper but it turns out that they didn't work well. But in general, UHF works really well. And I guess those are the main benefits. I mean, the cons of an open system, if you design it yourself, you can really twist yourself into a pretzel trying to figure out what type of antenna should you use. I mean, there's circular, linear, and all these other options. And so, that's kind of the pros and cons. I know, RunSignup is doing RaceDay Scoring. And I figured that they had to set it public or whatever. I figured eventually that it may go to,"Hey, you can plug in your own hardware from wherever you want." I know that it is a web score. They have it as pretty much an open system. Yeah, I think they charge it maybe per finish or something like that - I'm not sure. But you have to look at what hardware all these systems work with and follow their rules.

Panos:

Yeah. As you said, sometimes, companies need to make revenue even after you have bought their systems. One of the way in which this is done is by those off-the-shelf branded systems is by working with specific tags that those companies provide to you. So for instance, then, you don't perhaps get some of the benefits of just going out in the open market and buying any kind of tag that would work with a DIY system that might not work with a branded system. Is that right?

Brian:

Yeah. They're password-protected tags. You can't buy tags from anywhere. Let's say if you and I are using the same system from the same company and everything, I may not be able to use your reader. It's very, very locked down. There's a lot of pushback on that. And that's why when I first released this, I didn't really have a lot of marketing around it. And in fact, I still don't have a lot. People come to me simply because of Google searching, "How to do it yourself system?" So I think there's a lot of demand out there for something that's open-source or open-hardware. And again, I've talked to a couple of these companies. They all agree that the vast majority of their customer base is your mom and pop who can run your small to medium-sized races. So that's how I feel like, if a lot of timers don't really time a race with over 5,000 participants, they probably should go with an open system. And then, yeah, that's the other thing. It's those box systems. If you look at their websites, a lot of them are advertising,"Hey. We're the most precise or we time the biggest races in the world." But for every one big race, there will probably be 100 or more small races. And it's kind of silly to promote UHF RFID for being more accurate over another system because, by nature, UHF RFID is not a laser-precise FinishLynx photo system.

Panos:

Right. Okay. So moving on to the nitty-gritty of building such a system, can you walk us through the major components that are required by such a system, how they come together, and how they work together?

Brian:

Oh, yeah. So obviously, the main component is the reader so we'll start there. So the reader, it's got no moving components - just a reader there. And it usually comes in a couple of different configurations. If you see this online, it'll say 2-port, for example, FX7400 2-port, FX7500, or a 2-port Impinj reader, whatever. So the 2-ports means you can hook up to two antennas to it. A 4-port reader, obviously, means you can hook up to four antennas to it. An 8-port reader can hook up to eight antennas. What's interesting is that some people make an argument that the less antennas there are, the better. We can dig into that later. But the number of ports really indicates the number of antennas you can have hooked up to it. So that's the main component. It's the reader. The reader is going to connect to your laptop. Now, other systems, of course, can do Bluetooth connections and whatever else. And you can do this even with an open system but your standard setup is a reader that's hooked up to your laptop with an ethernet cord. So you probably have that ethernet cord later in-house. So it didn't have to be a special Ethernet cord - just a standard Ethernet cable. And so the reader hooks up to the laptop via Ethernet cable. Now, the reader is just the brain. It didn't have ears or mouth to try to echo out, "Hey, what tags are out there?" So you have to have antennas that hook up to the 2-port or 4-port reader, whatever. A lot of people would use either a mat antenna or panel antennas. My recommendation is to get the best of both worlds. There's a company in China, I think, called Feibot. It's the only Chinese product I recommend. They make a really good quality mat antenna at a very good value. In fact, one of their panel or mat antennas is equal to the price - maybe less - of four-panel antennas. And so what I actually recommend is to get one of those four meters wide mats and then get one or two panels open at the side. That way, you can get the reading from below and from the sides. And for you to go through my finish line, even in a tight group, it's really hard to miss you. So get the reader and the ethernet cord. Obviously, you have a laptop. Most people already have that. That does the work with the software and everything. I get the antennas. And I guess the final component is the tags. And so that's the core equipment. The reader connects to the laptop via an ethernet cord. The antennas out there, whether it'd be mat antenna or panels, they'll have- well, one of the components I guess is - the cables that connect the antenna to the reader. Let me go through it one last time. Reader, ethernet cord, laptop, antennas, antenna cables, and tags. Those are your core components.

Panos:

Perfect. And for people who may not be super familiar with the distinction, you mentioned mat antennas - even if they don't know much about timing systems, they would be familiar with it if they've done big races where you actually go over the finish line and there is a long mat - that's actually an antenna reading tags as you go over it both at the start and the finish line. On the other hand, panel antennas - they don't obstruct, there's nothing on the road, they're just on the side, up top, or somewhere on the finish arch or something and they just record crosses - just record times without actually having to be laid down on the floor. So for people who might be interested in knowing this, where do I best use one over the other?

Brian:

Yes, great question. Let's say that you're a person that wants to time inline rollerskating races, well, would you want those people-- and those guys are moving. I've been to a couple of those races. They're pretty amazing to watch. But those inline skaters do not want to roll over a mat. And so that's a good case to have some kind of arch structure that brings the antenna cable over to the side and maybe you want to use panels on each side. The same thing goes for cycling races. I mean a bicycle going over a mat is not a big deal but, in my opinion, I think that panel antennas would be better. So obviously, there are a million types of races out there. Just think that through like, "Okay, is it a problem for someone speeding through my finish line? Will a mat get in the way?" Even with panel antennas, if you don't have some kind of arch structure or if you're timing in the dirt, we're saying, of course, you can lay the cables there. But keep in mind that with panel antennas, if it's on the road, you will have rubber mats covering the cables so people don't trip on them. Here's the thing, for years, I use just panel antennas. Great read rates. Never had any issues even with chip starts with thousands of people flowing through. And so, now, you need to understand,"Okay, with panel antennas, you want to keep the starting line as narrow as possible - so that when people pass, they're as close to the antennas as possible - but not so narrow that it's uncomfortable for the runners." So the point is panel antennas, in most cases, can do the job no matter what type of event you're timing. A lot of people do like the convenience of the mat because it simply unfolds and you're done. And so, here's the thing, imagine if you're a race timer, you show up before the sun gets up, you're there before anybody gets there because often I like to have my finish line totally set up before anybody is there to register anything. That way, your brain can think about one thing at a time - think about my finish line setup or getting all the timing stuff ready. Now, let me focus on registration. After registration is over, now let me focus on the start and so on. And so the mat antenna is really convenient. You can just unfold it. You don't have to hook a panel antenna up to like a tripod or set up a truss in the dark, in the cold, whatever. You just unfold it, connect your reader, and you're done. But there are some drawbacks to the mat. I don't think it performs as well as the panels. But that's why I said before, I like to use the mat plus a couple of antennas. That way, I only set up a one-panel antenna on one side of the finish line. On the other side of the finish line, I've got my mat teed up so that it reads sideways. In most cases, I think the panels are your best bet if you're just getting started.

Panos:

And in terms of the tags that you mentioned there, is a system like this going to be able to accommodate both passive tags, active tags, and basically any kind of RFID tag?

Brian:

A UHF RFID tag, yeah. So you can't buy like an NFC or whatever else. Your UHF readers read UHF tags. But yes, there should be no problems with active and passive tags. To be honest, I've never been to a race - and I've ran races all over the world and hundreds of races since I started running - that use passive tags. Now there are needs for them. But again, it's just one of those niche races where active tags are really better, maybe in mud runs or something where the tag could be covered. It's highly unlikely that your average timer is ever gonna need to bypass active tags.

Panos:

Right. So most races use passive tags - the ones that people would be familiar with like the little foamy stuff you stick up the back of the bib, right?

Brian:

Yeah, the dogbones. And that's even debatable whether or not the foam is necessary. And it's even debatable whether or not the foam is patented. So yeah, most timers just avoid worrying about any patent concerns until all of that has been worked out. I'll not get into what else is going on now in the industry, but the read rates, again, is debatable. But I've got a lot of customers that don't use the foam and just slap a dogbone at the back of the bib and they get great results.

Panos:

Right. So in terms of an entry level-system, I guess, the main choice would be, do I build a 2-port system that can support two antennas, or do I build a 4-port system that supports four antennas which, obviously, is going to be more expensive? Or do I even go beyond that? And the question is, what is the price difference between a 2-port and a 4-port? Which one would you recommend as a first-time buy? And what kind of limitations does one have over the other?

Brian:

So that's an interesting question because if you're like me, my objective was to say,"How cheap can I go and still get great results?" Right? I mean, how cheap can I go and still reliably get 100%? We timed about 70, maybe more. Obviously, last year was low but we timed 70 plus races a year. And so I don't want to get a system that makes my timing system or timing services or business look bad. But if you just want to play around with UHF RFID, learn how it all works, and have a system that can handle almost every race, a 2-port reader is fine. Now once you have a 5K with probably over 300 people, then you start to think, "Okay. Maybe I can go and get a 4-port reader." I guess the way to think about it is not how many people is in your race, but how busy is your finish line. So if you were timing a one-mile race, I'd say, maybe 100 people is where you want to get more antennas. So there are no hard lines on this. Just think about how busy is my finish line. If I've got multiple occurrences of two or more people crossing at the same time - that's very frequent in our races - then, the more antennas, the better. And, of course, you can set a tag at each side of your body depending on your antenna placement. And let's say that you tell the participants, "Oh, just put the tag anywhere in your body, maybe on the side of your shorts. You can pin it to the shorts at the side or slide it under a shoelace." Well, then it's highly likely that as we go through the finish line, maybe your body is blocking my tag during that short window when they cross by the antennas. And so that's kind of a long answer. But the basic principle is, if you can find like a $50 reader on eBay for these 2-ports, well, then buy that, test it out, see if it works for you just to get comfortable with the system. And then, you would also have a backup reader if you decide to upgrade your readers later. And you can use that 2-port reader as a turnaround point at the marathon or something. And so, it's not a bad idea to get that. It is probably best for an average person to start with a 4-port reader, four antennas. There's a discussion on my users' group years ago where people said, "Hey, if I had to do this again, would you start with a 4-port or an 8-port?" Everybody unanimously said, "Go with the biggest reader you can because when word gets that you got timing system, your business will grow." I'd tell people that, usually, when I time a race, I come home with two - the one I just timed wants me back next year, and then, someone says, "We have this race and they hired me, or want to talk to me about doing their race." And so you should find that every year, your number of races almost double. And so if you start off with the 2-port reader, you'd be upgrading pretty quick.

Panos:

Right. And in terms of the cost, what's the relative cost of, let's say, building a 2-port system versus a 4-port system, or even an 8-port to begin with?

Brian:

Sure. So, yeah. A lot of people want to get that brand new vs used, and what if it doesn't work. But with the chip shortage going on in the world right now, you can hardly find used readers. And so, let's just go with brand new. I don't have the price reference. It's probably about $800 for a 2-port reader. Something like the Impinj or the Motorolas or Zebras. And then, for the 4-port model from us - cause I think we press it right at MSRP to make sure we never take a loss - it's$1,150. It's what we charge for a 4-port model. And then your 8-port model is $1,600, $1,500,$1,700. So the other part of it is that for $500 more, you get twice the ports. So a lot of people say, "Hey, I'll just go and pay the extra $500 and get an 8-port reader versus a 4-port. The big benefit with an 8-port versus a 4-port is that, let's say you want to use a mat antenna, if it has four antennas built into the mat, it'll just take four of those ports and leave four more ports for your side panel antennas. And so, if you have a 4-port reader and you have a mat, that means you got to unhook one of your mat cables to put the side panel up. So the more ports you have, the more options you have. It's what it is. Usually, for some thinner-sized mats, where they get two rows of mats, you can definitely go with 2-port or 4-port readers - one for each mat - or you can do an 8-port reader and control all of them. Again, there are pros and cons for both. We can get into that if you want, on how readers work, how they cycled, and where you may find more ports are not good in some situations. But, yeah. That's the price point. It's roughly $1,700 for the 8-port, $1,200 roughly for the 4-port, and then maybe $800 for the 2-port.

Panos:

And in terms of sort of-- just to give people an idea of what the total cost for a system would be - including the reader, the antennas, cables, software, like ballpark - what kind of figure are we talking about?

Brian:

So if somebody ever releases free software, that would be amazing. Now, a lot of people can make software that's half patched together and whatever. I'm talking about software that works really well. It's clean and whatever. That would be amazing. In fact, I've always told RunSignup that if somebody releases software that's amazing, easy, and does everything people need, then I'll step aside. I've got a good job. I write police software for a living. I did this because I saw a huge hole in the market. So we have to add the cost of the software. I don't know if any of the software out there that's open hardware. So I charge $900 - a one-time fee - for the software. Even if you add on other timing syst-- or other timing crews, there's no extra cost. So that's $900 for the software. And then, the reader, like we said before, let's imagine you got the top-of-the-line reader, the FX9600. That's the only 8-port model that I'm aware of. There are some Chinese brands that have 8-ports, but I haven't been able to interface with the Chinese readers because the documentation is not the best. And so that will be $1,700. And then you've got the antennas. Again, the mat antenna from Feibot is roughly $600 for the four-meter mat. Or you can go with four-panel antennas because for most races, four antennas are all you'll ever need. And so that's probably around-- well, the mat is $600. And so the price should be around the same for four panels. And then you've got the tags. That's the big variable. It's how many tags you want. If you're going to time a race--

Panos:

Well, let's leave the tags out of it for now. Just the price of the hardware itself.

Brian:

Sure. So the hardware itself without the software is like $2,300 for the 4-port model. And that's all brand new stuff. And then, with the 4-port or the 8-port model, it is - I've got it pulled up here, let me see - $2,870. And that includes the Ethernet cord which you may already have. That includes a battery backup. I think, if you're thinking about building your own system, you've got to have some kind of battery backup, a UPS battery backup or something because these readers are very sensitive to power fluctuations. So if you plug your reader into a generator, you're just asking for trouble. The generator can fluctuate or whatever. And so, you want to have a UPS battery backup. So that process includes the reader, the power supply to the reader, a 10-foot ethernet cord, four circular antennas, mounting brackets to be able to put those antennas onto tripods, tripods, two 15-foot antenna cables, and also a 250-foot Ethernet antenna cables. So if the software is included on top of that, it will be roughly $3,500 - $3,600 for everything.

Panos:

Right. So $3,500 - $3,600 for the 8-port.

Brian:

That's the top-of-the-line.

Panos:

Top-of-the-line 8-port,$3,600. And then, roughly about$800 less sort of, like, high$2,000 - $2,800 or something for a 4-port.

Brian:

Yeah. Right around $3,000 for the 4-port, including the software and everything.

Panos:

So you're building your own RFID timing system - you're gonna need some timing software. Well, there's a few options on the market for you, some more reliable than others, and there's currently one leading piece of timing software you

definitely want to look into:

RaceDay Scoring. RaceDay Scoring has absolutely everything you'll ever need to time and score your race. It integrates with all popular branded timing systems - like Chronotrack, MYLAPS and Race Result - and it can be configured to work with any custom timing system you build. With Race Day Scoring you get live results, that can feed to your registration system giving you real time participant text notifications, you get all the different scoring configurations you'll ever going to need - you can score age groups, you can score relays, by anything you need, really - and you even get a manual timing option, so you can manage your backup times in the same system that's doing your main chip timing. And probably one of the best things about RaceDay Scoring is the price. RaceDay Scoring works on a subscription basis, and you pay based on the number of participants you want to time. So if you want to time 10,000 participants you'll pay $400, and if you're only timing 2,500, you'll only pay $150 - which works out to literally only a few cents per participant. And if the races you are timing are hosted on GiveSignup|RunSignup you get a further massive discount on those prices of between 25% and 80%. So, when you do come to consider your timing software purchase, definitely give RaceDay Scoring a look. You can find more information on the RaceDay Scoring suite, the pricing and the amazing team behind the software, on the RaceDay Scoring website, racedayscoring.blog - that's racedayscoring.blog. Okay, now let's get back to talking RFID timing systems with Brian Agee. Next up: using your RFID timing system on race day. So, now, let's move on to, I built my system, I've tested it out, and I've used it practically in a race. So first of all, I suppose people may not necessarily know that when we're talking about a timing system, we're actually thinking of a single timing point - right? So wherever you lay down your system, you will be recording a time at that point. And I guess if you have maybe an out and back course, or a loop course or something, maybe just a single system at the start/finish line- which is essentially the same point - should work fine. But if you have a point-to-point system, then I guess you either get two systems for your start and finish line, or just don't have one at the start line - if you want to be on a budget - and just put it at the finish line. Or do you even think of moving it during the race? So how does that consideration work in terms of how many timing systems I will need for the type of event I have?

Brian:

Yeah. So of course, I've done everything you mentioned. I've moved it. So the advice I give my customers is, "If you ask the race director if they want a chip start, what's their answer's going to be 100% of the time?" It's going to be yes - right? Let's say the race has 50 people in it. If you ask them,"Do you want a chip start for 50 people?" For sure - right? So let's say that you're hiring me to time a race and you said,"Hey, can we do a chip start?" And if I see that you have 50 people every year, I'm gonna say, "Well, look, we can do it," but I kind of explained that in a very polite, very respectful way that it doesn't make any sense.

Panos:

And by the way, just to clarify for people listening in, a chip start would be when you would actually time people from the time where they actually crossed the start line.

Brian:

Correct.

Panos:

Right.

Brian:

And so, in every race that we timed last year during COVID, no matter what the size was, we offered a window to say,"Hey, look, you can start anytime, really." Let's say your race starts at 8.00am, I would say, "Hey, you can start separately. If you want to wait, sit in the car, wait for everyone to leave, whatever. And we just had a time limit to say,'Okay, you need to start by 8.30am'." And that way people can start whenever they want to. So during COVID, a 50 person race now truly may need a chip start if they still want to keep things separated or whatever.

Panos:

Right. Because essentially they need to start people off distanced, right? And still, people need to have an accurate time from the point when they cross the start line to the point where they cross the finish line. As a race director, for safety reasons, you'll want to start people off every 20 or 30 seconds. You can't just assume that everyone went off at 8.00am. You need to give people the benefit of when they cross the start line and you need the timing system to be at the start line to know when people cross that start line.

Brian:

Yeah, obviously, if we're doing a race where the start and finish are the exact same location, I don't care how many people is in it. If they want to do a chip start then that's not a big deal because, as you've probably alluded to, it's just a flip of a switch, basically, in the software like, "Okay. I'm doing chip start and now I'm doing the finish." And so easy peasy, why not? But if the starting line is three miles away from the finish line, and you've got 50 people, and there are no COVID requirements, maybe I'll do it if you want me to, but I may add an extra charge on top of that just because of, you know, whatever. Now, if it's a large race, I would do it without adding any extra cost because larger races usually pay a little more. So you get some benefits out of that. Plus, this is expected if you've got-- a good example, I guess, is if your race had over 500 people, and it's a dead method, the distance, I guess, then I would say, "If you want a chip start, yeah, I'll do that." But you're right. You would have to have two separate systems. Now, there have been some races where the start line and finish line aren't the same but they're close enough to where I've been able to carry the equipment. And so, let's imagine this and think through what you would need. You need to bring your laptop. You need to bring a battery backup. And that's really all you have to bring - an inexpensive battery backup. A lot of people don't know this - the reader uses very, very little power. And I don't have the numbers but it's like 625-volt battery backup, whatever. You can buy them at Walmart or Best Buy or whatever for like $50 - $60. And by the way, some people come up with some really fancy, crazy, and neat battery stuff - I'm not an electrical guy, but with a DIY system - whatever is reliable for your reader. But an inexpensive battery backup will keep your reader powered on for about three hours - non-stop reading. Okay? And so, usually when I'm doing a chip start that's maybe close enough, I can just carry the equipment over. I'll bring my laptop, reader, battery backup, and then whatever antennas and cables I need to do the job. And that's something I can easily put into a tote. After it's done, I'll carry it over to the finish line, unload it, and whatever. Obviously, if it's a 5K, you got to rush there because you only have 15, 16, 17 minutes from the moment they start to the moment they finish. So, yeah. If it's a super short race, it's kind of a risk to carry equipment around. But, yeah, it's doable.

Panos:

Yeah. You need to know your stuff, though. Yeah, I agree. I mean, it's probably not an entry-level thing to have a 5K and to be able to put your timing system at the start line, then move it, set it up, and be confident that it works before the first runner crosses the finish line. It's a little bit--

Brian:

Yeah.

Panos:

You need nerves of steel for that, for sure.

Brian:

Yeah, I'm sure. I don't know if we plan to talk about backup systems. But if you've been around races, you'd know that the first 10% of runners are those female or male studs that are out there by themselves. And so, if you've got some kind of backup system, even if you're a minute or two late - I mean, God forbid you are - hopefully, you can catch the bulk of the people without having to do many manual entries. But yeah, I've only carried the equipment a couple of times over the years. But it's possible.

Panos:

Right. So then, just to wrap up the whole, kind of, how many systems do I need for my race? Goes without saying, you need one at the finish line. Now, if your course's start line and finish line are at the same point, that's fantastic because then you would get two reads however long apart - first one is the start, second one is the finish. Then, if your course is more of a point-to-point, and you really, really want to have, as you said, a chip time, meaning from the point when a person crosses the start line - which would make sense if you have lots of runners like in the old days, pre-COVID or a 50-person race during COVID period - then you would need two systems, at least, at the start and the finish. You can also add more systems in between if you have a long 10K or 20K race and you have the ambitions in your marathon to give split times. You need to have a system there.

Brian:

Yeah. In most of the marathons we timed, we do not provide split times. We just provide evidence that this person completed the whole course - right? And so obviously, it's a nice benefit for the runner to be able to say, "Oh, here is your 10K split. Here's your whatever." But a lot of marathons do it for the two benefits of, "Here's your splits and you didn't cheat."

Panos:

Okay. So now that we've clarified that, let's move on to one very important aspect of all this, particularly for people who have just started out races with systems like these. What do I need to consider to make sure that I get as high of a read rate with my system as possible? What do I need to do with my tags? What do I tell my runners? How do I set up my system at the finish line? And I appreciate that there will be tons of tips here. But what are the key basic things that I need to think about to make sure that my system works optimally and I capture as many reads as I can?

Brian:

Sure. When you first get a system, you should go to test it out. Well, because everyone has their own idea of what they want to do, I can tell people,"Hey, there are absolute 100% reliable ways to do this," but they may say, "Well, I want to do this because this is what's popular in my area." So the first thing you should do is, if you're a coach buying a system, bring it to the track and say,"All right, fellas, or ladies, or whatever, we're going to try to break the system." So if you want to try bib tags, slap a bib on the chest, and then try to say, "All right. Everybody, sprint through as fast as you can. Did we miss anybody? All right. Well, now, let me turn my antennas this way, or let me do that. Let me shift things around." So I mean, it would be pretty irresponsible to test that at a race for the first time - right? So the first thing you should do is, whatever setup you want to go with, get some pizza, invite a bunch of people over, and try to break it. Figure out what works and what doesn't work. What you'll find is, if it was a UHF RFID, you can flick a tag in front of the antennas as fast as you want and it will pick it up every time. But you can also take a wet paper towel or a piece of aluminum foil or your pinky finger and cover the tag. So you have to understand like, "Okay, there are some things you got to know about." And what I've found is, "When I first built the system, I assumed that these other systems that were slapping tags on the back of the bib, that "Okay, I'm gonna piggyback off their research. There's nothing that says I can't throw a tag on the back of the bib so I'm gonna try that. And I would set antennas up in different places." And what I would find is that, most of the time, it'd get picked up. No problems. But every now and then, if I'd run through, it'd miss me. And now, wait a minute, how can I flick a tag as fast as I want, and they get me every time? But if I stick the tag on my bib, they have missed me every now and then - very rare but every now and then. What you would learn is that tags are very sensitive to water. And so when you sweat, what's the wettest part of your body? And so, what's also the thickest part of your body? And so, what I quickly discovered was that a lot of these systems were pushing bib tags. And they offer no other solution, by the way. They offer just - not all, but some - bib tags. And they've told me by the way, it's like,"That's our cash cow." This is the basis of staying in business. And so, if you plan to use bib tags, test it like crazy. Try overhead, try side-mounted, try different things. And you got to test those stuff anyway because if you've got a mat antenna, it may require - based on the mat you have - tags or horizontal on the back of the bib or vertical on the back of the bib. I tell my customers, "There's plenty of them that make their own tags." What I found was when the tag is placed on the dryer part of the body and the skinnier part of the body - for me, it's having pinned it to the side of the shorts or having to slide it down a shoelace - then it gets picked up every time reliably. Obviously, you can have some situation where someone takes a shoe off, stick a tag in there, and put the shoe back on. I've actually seen that. Or you got some girls with yoga pants that have a little side pocket that's really tight, and they can stick their tag in there without pressing too hard up against the skin. So it can be a problem. But what I found is that when the tag is on the skinnier part of the body and the drier part of the body, it comes across directly facing the side panel antennas. You just can't miss them. So that's my recommendation, but I'm only going to recommend what's gonna make me look good - the software and this tech support. Some people thought about using like slap-on wristbands back in the old days - that slap braces or whatever. I wouldn't do any kind of wristbands. I haven't found that those work well, because imagine you got people crossing the line with their hands up in the air, cheering or whatever, they're pushing that tag away from the mat antenna or way above the reach, maybe, of the side panels. So you want to put the tag in a position that will come across pretty consistent every time. And so, typically, that's going to be the bibs, the shoes, or the side of the shorts.

Panos:

So actually, we have - and it's going to be in the notes - a very popular group on Facebook just for people who are interested in race timing. It's called Race Timing Hub, and you're there, and quite a lot of people who actually start on that journey to building their system and testing and scaling systems like this go there and discuss things. And one of the things that sometimes comes up is this suggestion that people might use two tags, for instance. So instead of sending out runners with one tag, you give them two tags, sort of like the equivalent of the double mask, I guess, which some people are wearing due to COVID times and people understand that. Does that make sense for you to do the double tag thing? Does it improve things?

Brian:

Man, I'm glad you asked because I wouldn't have brought that up. That's a good question. I'll prefer double tagging for a couple of reasons. Number one, again, the tags that I designed- and I'll tell you how to make them - are simply laminated RFID and laser. That's all it is. I simply laminate it. And now they're reusable. Because they're reusable, it doesn't cost me any more to double tag you - right? And so when you put a single tag on a person, let's say it's a cross country race, and you've got a bunch of kids in it, kids are kids, who knows what they're gonna do with those tags? And so, what I like to do is I like to double-tag. That way, I'm twice as likely to be able to sit back and just enjoy the race - right? Let's imagine that scenario earlier whereas a tight group coming through, and I've got antennas on both sides and, maybe, even a mat antenna down below. If I double tag you and four people come across at the same time, then it's highly unlikely that one of your tags will not get picked up by at least one of the antennas. And so, it's really rare for us. And again, we time 70 plus races a year. And there are over 500 race timing companies using my software. And so, I hear a lot of feedback on what works and didn't work. Yeah. So that Race Timing Hub is a great resource. I've got a user's forum that's a great resource. And there, you'll see, like, "Hey, I found that this doesn't work. Don't do this or whatever." But yeah, double tagging is what I recommend. The single tag will save a little money, I guess, if you just buy just what you need. But most people buy more than they need. But yeah, let's just imagine it doubles your chances for a 100%. That's what everyone wants. It's a 100% consistent read rate.

Panos:

And with a double tag, would the recommendation be that you place each of the two tags at a different part of the body or something or is it more for redundancy, both of them at the same place?

Brian:

So I'm kind of indifferent about where you want to place it. The way I do my bibs is I'll take two laminated tags, then I'll take one safety pin, and attach it to the bib. So now, you've got a bib when you show up at my race that's got two tags hanging off of it. And so the problem is when a person thinks, "Oh, I'll just take this one safety pin and leave both tags hanging off of it," well, now you've got two tags that are sandwiched together. They're basically touching each other or they're really, really close. That's the one thing where I've seen misses. Two tags sandwiched on top of each other can kind of cancel each other out. So really, I don't really care how you place them but they need to be separated by a couple of inches. And yes, ideally, I would place one at each side of their body so that I can read one of your tags at either side of your body.

Panos:

And since we're onto tags now, earlier, when I asked you about the cost of building a system, we only focused on the hardware. Can you give us an idea of how much do a bunch of tags for an open system like this generally costs?

Brian:

So, yeah. It's been a while since I've looked at dogbone tags. You used to go buy those for less than 25 cents a piece, maybe even less than 20 in some places. And so, that's why they're pretty popular - they're pretty inexpensive. Just throw them on the back of the bib. Of course, you got to program the tag or have a cross-reference file based on the system you're using. But, yeah. Dogbones that are on the back of the bib are typically 15 to 20 cents a piece. The ones that we use for the laminated tags, we buy those at 10 cents a piece. But of course, we buy 15,000 of those at a time or whatever. And so that's kind of the cost you can look at now. Let's say you went through the whole process of laminating and making the tags reusable which, again, is what I would do, because I don't want to always worry about the inventory of tags with as many races we've timed. I don't want to constantly think about, "Okay. Do I have enough for next weekend?" And I'm constantly buying more and all that stuff. And plus, with the chips shortage, it's even hard to find tags now. So it's even more of an attraction to use reusable tags. But, yeah. That's the price you're looking at. It's 10 cents, roughly, if you buy in bulk. If you don't buy in bulk, you still need to pay 15 or 20 cents. And so, the one rule too, by the way, is if you plan to use bib tags, there's only one tag you should use. Now, I know that there's a couple of companies that work with Race Results to come up with their own design and I think it's cool. I trust their work. They're really good at what they do. So they have a good bib tag. But in general, for an open-source tag, you'll want to use the dogbone tag only for the back of the bib. You can use different tags but you'll have multiple tags at the back of the bib.

Panos:

Right. Okay. Yeah. And the dogbone you mentioned there is a super popular tag. Whoever just gets into this world, they'll come across this very, very soon. So one last thing on tags, just to give people an idea on that as well, I get my tags in, how do I actually program them to match my participant list? And that whole thing of encoding the tags and the tags telling the reader who the runner crosses the line is - how does that whole thing work?

Brian:

Sure. So let's say that you're listening to this, and you're a developer and you plan on developing your own system, you have two considerations. If you're not a developer, you just have to do whatever the software company tells you to expect. So if you are a software developer, you have to decide, "Okay. Do I have a cross-reference file where I take these tags and they come with a default EPC that's unique across all tags?" And you can say, "Okay, well, this unique EPC ties to this bib number or this athlete. And in this other one, there is this other EPC that ties to this athlete." So you'd have to have some kind of cross-reference table in your database or whatever. We'll not get into that because there's probably not many people listening to this that are gonna do all that. So it depends on what your system is expecting. And so, I know some systems out there expect a cross-reference file. For other systems like mine, what you'd do is you actually program your tags before race day. Now I'd do it during the slow winter months or slow summer months. I'll order a stack of, let's say, 10,000 bibs or more and I will blindly grab two tags out of my tag return bin from the previous races - grab two tags attached to the bibs - and that's my first process. I don't care what they're programmed to. I just get my bibs ready. And, then, once I get all my bibs or tags on, then I go through the bibs again. I drop them on top of an antenna, I've got my antenna facing straight up, so it's kind of like a little table. So I'll just drop it on there and say,"Alright, you will be bib number one, for example." And I just hit the "enter" key twice. And, then, when I hit it twice, it progresses both tags to one. And it also auto increments to the next number. So I can say, "All right, well, now it goes to two. So I'll grab two, slap it on, and hit the 'enter' key twice. Grab three, and hit the 'enter' key twice." And it's a pretty quick process. So that's it. Your EPC which is the data that the tag is returning is going to return the bib number. And the benefit with that is that I can program and prepare tens of thousands of bibs before I can even time my first race. And so let's say that Panos calls me up and says, "Oh, man. In two days, I've got my race and my race timer just backed out. I've got 3,000 people. Can you come to do it?" I'll just grab this stack of bibs and show up in time to your race. And so when I pull people in either from some online registration platform or whatever, I tell my software,"Okay, start with bib number X and, then, go up from there." And, of course, the day before the race or that morning of, I'd pass out the bib numbers when people show up. So I hope that paints a clear picture on the options.

Panos:

Sure. The last thing I want to talk about is backups. So you mentioned that earlier a little bit. It's a super important topic because let's remember what we're talking about here. We're talking about building something that records finish times. There's nothing more precious to a participant in a race than having a finish time and nothing that can harm your race more than getting people through the finish line that have paid decent money to take part in it without recording a finish time. That's going to hurt your race's reputation quite a lot. Whatever system, whether it's a timing system, or a rocket taking off into the moon fails sometimes. So what would be your best choices for a backup system like the one we're discussing here?

Brian:

Yeah. You're right. That's extremely important. When I hear that people are 100% reliant on their readers and they don't have any backup system, it just melts me inside. And so you've got to have a backup system. And I've been to races, by the way, where they didn't. It's just one hometown over from where I was at this race and they had some problems during the race. Before the race is over, they packed up and left. No results. They just packed up and left. I guess they knew their goose was cooked and they just left. And I just like,"Oh my gosh." And so yeah, you'd have to have a backup system. Can you imagine, I mean, you just turn into a ghost if you relied on your reader only or your laptop only and it just shut down, and you're just totally messed up. So, yeah. So here's what I recommend as minimum backups. Number one, I think everybody should - and most people don't, but I think they should because they're so inexpensive - buy an inexpensive camcorder. Just buy a camcorder, throw it on a tripod. It's not connected to anything. You can buy camcorders really cheap online. You just have to remember - and the hardest part is remembering - to turn it on and hit record. Hit record before the first finish comes in. Usually, the first finisher goes by and I'm like, "Oh wait, I gotta turn my camera on." So anyway, buy a camcorder, set it up, record the whole finish line. That's kind of your ultimate backup for the worst-case scenario. But it's more than a backup. RunSignup and I know Race Entry does this and probably other platforms. And of course, YouTube is free. When the race is over, upload it to YouTube - free to do. If you've got a results platform that handles linking the results to a YouTube video, then use a timer. Not only do you have a decent backup system for a worst-case scenario, but you'll look great - right? If you can provide results that have a video, like, of the finish, you'll get hired again. So buy a camcorder. So we got the camcorder. Yeah, that's something I feel like everybody should have. My manual timing system backup is a second laptop. I let volunteers run that laptop. God forbid I have to rely on it completely. Another worst-case scenario is that Windows 10 does an update and restarts my chip timing computer in the middle of the race and it may take a couple of minutes to come back up, I'll not totally throw that system away. I'll get it back up, get the system going, and I've only got two minutes of missing gap - right? And so you have to have some backup system. And so, what I do is I set up another laptop. It's got a copy of the race. It's got everything there. And I have someone that's simply pressing the spacebar. And all this does is capture the time for every finisher - doesn't matter what race you're in. If someone crosses that line, you hit the button. That's it. And then at the end of the finish line, I have someone writing bib numbers in order. And so if it's a large race, I don't want that person looking up and looking down, I have someone standing next to them calling numbers out, "32, 18, 104," whatever. And so, between those two systems, I can always fill any gaps or figure out, "Okay, hey, what was that number?" And in a worst-case scenario, I can record results with that if I absolutely had to, but that's assuming some catastrophic failure. But yeah, we've had times, of course, where I've had to refer to that, like, "Hey, there's a couple of people here where it happened. Maybe they didn't wear the tags." But, yeah. That's what I do for a backup system. I've set up a totally separate system for some of our biggest races, either right before the finish line or right after. And what I've found so far is that if you set it up before, when do people gonna want to quit the race? A little early. They'll cross the first mat and think they're done - right? And so if you set it up after, I don't know, I haven't seen any benefit with setting up a whole separate system. I've been able to do everything I need with just a manual backup system.

Panos:

Yeah. And I guess, even though the probability of both timing systems failing is fairly remote. When you have two timing systems that rely on the same tag, they may both still fail. So I guess with a proper backup, it's probably wise to go with a kind of backup that is completely independent, almost, of your main system - right?

Brian:

Yeah. The only common variable here is the software - right? And now, some people might say, "Well, maybe I should use this other software, this other system, like those old printing stopwatches, if you remember those back in the day". That's where I think we may be going too far separate because doing results with something totally separate where you don't have any of the participants' information in there, that would be really rough. And so I think that having two totally separate systems - one manual, one chip - is good. And I think that they both should be the same software because, then, it's maybe really easy to sync the data back and forth. You can easily say,"Okay, maybe you had 25 people register that day. Well, on the other laptop, I just hit one button. Boom! Sync and they're all in there if they're using RunSignup or Race Entry or Race Roster or whatever." If they don't use any of those, I'll just copy a database over. But yeah, so you want to have a manual system, a chip system, a camcorder, and on top of that - I don't know if other systems do this - my system will automatically take a picture of every finisher and stuff like that. So I've got photos, I've got video, I've got manual, and I've got chip timing.

Panos:

Right. Okay, great. I think we've covered most of the ground that I wanted us to cover in terms of putting the system together, using it, operating it, backups, and all of that stuff. You've done this thing and your customers have done this thing thousands of times. Any last words of wisdom for people who are looking to jump into this world of building their own system and doing their own timing?

Brian:

Well, I think you brought up a good resource earlier, the Race Timing Hub. Of course, timers talk. That can be a hit or miss because I think there's a lot of very vocal people that are like salesmen for their systems, but the Race Timing Hub seems to be more like a condor crowd that is more likely to help, I think, not more likely to try to sell you something. The way I look at it, I'm just a software guy. So if you say,"Hey, have you thought about using this? Have you tried that?" I've probably tried it and I can tell you, "Here's my experience, or I wouldn't recommend this hardware, or whatever." So, yeah. Glean from the wisdom of people that have been down the road. But yeah, I guess that's the number one advice.

Panos:

Indeed. And that's actually what I also tell race director who is starting out. We have an extensive content on how to do a million things and the number one thing that's at the top of all of that is to talk to someone who's done this before and sort of like learn from them. I think it's the most invaluable resource you can have in this business. So I know you are very kindly offering advice to people online on all kinds of things. Where can people find you? Where can they find Agee Race Timing? Websites? Emails? Tell us about it.

Brian:

Yeah. So I guess, step number one would be the website, AgeeRaceTiming.com. So over there, you'll see that my website is divided into two sections. You want the left section, which is timing systems. If you click in there, there's a couple of packages I put together. We don't have a box that says, "Here's this package." What we do is we say,"Look, if you want to build your own system, here's everything that's needed." So there you can see a list and you can also see how much each of those items will be from us. So if you can find other components which are cheaper, or if you have a question about, "Well, I found this antenna on eBay, will this work?" Send it to me. I'll say yea or nay. That's one resource. Number two, of course, my email is on the website and all that stuff. One thing I guess I'll say is I don't know how many other systems do this but I've got a 100% open users forum. Now, if you want to post on there, you have to actually join or request to join because I don't want people who sell life insurance or whatever to be in there. But you can jump on the user forum and the forum is great because, again, it's years and years of people saying,"Hey, here's what work." I did this type of race. And so, if you try to time some kind of race that's unique, you'll find all kinds of great pictures, videos, tips, and stuff from other users that have done what you're trying to do or tried hardware that you're considering to try. And you'll find some stories on there, like, "Hey, I was having bad results and I finally figured out what it was." Little tips, I'll give you one little nugget just for fun. So let's say you laminate a tag, and you decide that it would be cool if I place a paper label over it to show my company name or logo on it. Well, if you're attending cross-country races, what's going to happen to that paper label? It's going to get a little wet. You're gonna have bad read rates. And so, you can learn from other people's mistakes and other people's successes. Yeah, that's, I guess, the two main resources - my website, and a user's group and, then, the race timing hub, and people like you out there putting good information out there.

Panos:

Perfect. And you also work with - I think your hardware - Atlas RFID store, right?

Brian:

Yeah. So yeah, Atlas and I have a great relationship. A lot of products that we supply, if you buy a package system from us, some of that stuff comes from Atlas. And so I've really enjoyed working with them over the years. They can be trusted to provide good tags and everything else. So yeah, they're a good company.

Panos:

Yeah, so do we. And we have an offer from Atlas RFID store - really great guys. They know their stuff. They know race timing and you can listen to that at the end of the episode. So Brian, thank you very, very much for your time and for sharing all these great tips with us today. People know where to find you to be able to speak to you soon. Thank you very much again for your time, and thanks to everyone listening in. And we'll see everyone in the next episode. I hope you enjoyed this episode on building an RFID timing system with Agee Race Timing owner, Brian Agee. You can find more resources on anything and everything related to race directing on our website RaceDirectorsHQ.com, where you'll also find a 5% discount from Atlas RFID Store for all your RFID timing equipment needs and a 15% discount from Brian on his full-feature timing software, that you can use with both your DIY and proprietary timing system. If you are building and operating your own system, Race Timing Hub is our Facebook group dedicated just to race timing and building race timing systems, so come join that and people, including Brian, will be glad to help you out with any questions you may have. If you enjoyed this episode, please don't forget to subscribe or leave a review on your favorite player and, also, check out the podcast back-catalogue for more great content like this. Until our next episode, take care and keep putting on amazing races.