A Guide to the AMB Chronix System
When you open Chronix you will see two screens. On the Left screen right click and select “New Event”. This will give you a folder. You now name the event in the highlighted section. Now you are ready to set all the defaults for the event. Across the top of the screen you will see a Tab named “Options”. Click on the “Options” tab and you will get a window that has seven tabs: General, Run Defaults, Hardware, Print, Excel Export, Starting Grid and Log Print. In the “General” tab you enter the track, its length, qualifying sorted on best and second best. You also name your additional fields such as car, region or whatever you want to put in the “Competitor Database”.
After you complete your entry in the “General” tab you will go to the “Run Defaults” tab and enter a time faster than the fastest track record. What this will do is disallow any short cuts of the course. The Auto Finish button should be turned on ONLY for a race. You do this by entering the published number of laps for the race. For Qualifying and Practice it should be set to 999 to accommodate the full sessions. Count 1st Passing should be NO for a Race. If you set it to yes it will count that time as a completion of a lap at the green flag. Set Count During Yellow to Yes. Set not Qualified from Position to 0.
The next tab is “Hardware”. The 1st two relate to photocells and transponders. If you are running photocells it is here that you adjust the time between the system looking for a transponder and if none is found you get the “Single Photocell Window”. If you get a lot of these and there just wasn’t but one car that passed the photocell adjust you photocell timeout and separation. This takes a bit of practice to get the right setting. The default normally works very well. You will get a lot of these windows during yellow flags and very slow traffic. You can just delete those windows.
The next tab is “Print”. You can select the Preview button so that every time you hit prints it shows you what the print will look like. This window is pretty self-explanatory.
The next tab is “Excel Export. You can set the type of time export as M:SS.000 to allow a correct export to excel.
The “Starting Grid” tab is self-explanatory.
The last tab is “Log Print”. Check the enable log print and you will get a print out of all passings as they are occurring. This is a most helpful tool in normal auditing.
The next thing you want to do is set up your “Runs”. A “Run is a race group. On the left side of the window right click and select “Add A Run” and in the highlighted Blue name the Run as Group # Practice, Qualifying or Race. The go to the big right window named “Run Properties” and complete the information for each run you set up. The time field is Military time. If you are running a no schedule-schedule fill in the time right before the group go out. This will give you a time on your results print out. If you are in a race and it changes from a 20 lap race to something shorter or longer change the auto to laps.
Next you want to enter your competitors. If you are using a third party system for results and registration has entered all the info you can import all into Chronix. Each system is different so check with you system writer for instructions. You should import from File and select run Competitors from RTS_init. To manually enter your competitors: First you need to enter the Classes. On the top select “View” and then “Competitor Database. You will see a window that is split, left and right. On the Left side right click and select enter “New Class”. You will get a folder and in the highlighted folder enter the Class. You will do this for every class. To add a Competitor: Go to the right side of the same window as above and right click and select “Add Competitor”. Tab through and enter all info. When you get to the Class section USE THE ARROW DOWN AND SELECT THE CLASS ONLY. If you type in the class you run the risk of entering a new class such as GT-1 instead of the already entered GT1. Another way you can do this is to first select the class on the left window and then go to add the competitor on the right window. NEVER PUT ANYTHING IN THE REGISTRY SECTION. This will cause the system to not properly function internally.
Now you are ready to run the system. It is advisable to run the system for all practice sessions. During these sessions you can find and fix most of your competitor database problems, no transponders, low transponder etc. Always use the headphones and NEVER LEAVE THE SYSTEM UNATTENDED. Have a pad of paper and pencil with you to mark all items that need correcting and once you have corrected them through the database mark them in some way that you know that they are corrected. I also mark down all cars that I call into the Stewards for transponder issues and during which run. This will help you determine during transponder mandatory events when the competitor was notified. In Cendiv we do have a Stewards ruling on transponders which I will be glad to send you if you wish. You also will want a taper to sit with you. To START the run you want select the “RUN” you want to start from the initial screen in Chronix and click it to open that file. Look at the “General Property Screen” to make sure all of your defaults are correct. Now you need to put the competitors in the “run”. This will allow all cars for that “Run” to be listed. Open the “Competitor Database” either through “View” or you can access it by hitting the F3 key. Then select all the classes that are in that “Run” and then select all the competitors and drag them down into the “General Property” screen. You can do this for all the runs at once but I prefer to do this individually before the run to account for last minute database changes. Now go to the “ Passing Screen”. When you go Green keep your eyes and ears alert. You need to track with your eyes the cars going over the loop and correspond them to the beeps you hear. If you get a passing line that says “UNRELATED”, determine what car did not have a transponder either by what see and hear or with the help of your taper. Now that you know what car had a transponder that you didn’t know about or that you had an incorrect transponder number entered you will right click on that passing line and select “EDIT”. Know you can enter the correct Competitor info. Once you have done that you will need to go back to the “General Screen”, select the competitor, then open the “Competitor Database” (F3) and drag that competitor up into the database. You do not need to select the class or the competitor. If you don’t feel comfortable doing this you will have to wait till the end of the session after you have stopped it and then go to the “Competitor Database” (F3) and correct the competitor. Write down all the corrections you need to make, along with the transponder number, which will be on the “Passing Screen” and mark them when you have corrected them. I would wait for the session to settle down and then go back to the “General Screen” to make all corrections.
The next thing is the “Photocell Window”. If you have a car that doesn’t have a transponder or one that did and now it is not working you will get a pop-up window that says “Single Photocell”. Determine what car it should be and enter the info in the window or select the competitors that are already listed in the window. If a competitor did not have a transponder number to begin, he will not be listed and you will have to enter him each time. If you have a few cars that pass at the same time that do not have transponders you will see one window, enter the info and then the window stays there for you to enter the next. You can determine where you are by the time indicated in the “Single Photocell” window. You can either keep entering or hit cancel to get rid of all the windows and then go back and edit each passing “Photocell” In the event you have two cars crossing at the same time and one has a transponder or both don’t you need to do a manual hit for that. You accomplish that by hitting the F10 key and edit the pop-up window. This is rough if you have a lot of cars that don’t have transponders. If you have a taper and you realize what car doesn’t have a transponder have them draw a circle around it so you can go back and edit and then you will know for the whole sessions which cars will present the “Photocell” window. This process takes a bit of practice and patience. You can always cancel the windows and then go back and use your tapes to edit the individual passing line.
Once you have the system running in good working order you can make the necessary corrections by dragging from the “General Screen” to the “Competitor Database”. Now you need to listen and make sure you get hits on all the transponders you started with. If not you should get the “Photocell” pop-up. If you have cars that don’t have transponders and this is a mandatory transponder event, notify either your Steward or Black Flag Steward so they can notify the competitor. You also need to watch for low hits, low strength and low battery. The low hits and strength relate to transponder placement and the competitor should be made aware of this so they may correct it. If you get a car number that appears in red this means that it is a battery transponder and is somewhere in the last 24 hours and needs to be recharged. Notify the Stewards as they will notify the competitor. Both of these scenarios run the risk of the transponder at some time to stop running or to run intermittently. The other thing to look for is the Class field on the passing screen. Make sure you only have the classes listed for that session. If you have a FA in the SS class determine if someone is sharing a transponder with a FA driver and do a “Transponder Switch” in the “General Screen”. Sharing transponders is not advisable. The system looks only for the transponder number and not a class. If there are cars in the pits from the last group and are situated before the loop they will get a passing when they cross the loop. You will need to “Delete Competitor Result” on the “Results” screen. Make sure you use the Yellow Flag button and the Red Flag. Use the Yellow for Black Flag all.
During a session you can switch to the “Results Screen” to give updates to announcers, Stewards etc. Make sure you have Q for Qualifying or R for Race on the left side of the window. To change from one to the other just click on it. On the results screen if you want to view the results sorted by Class just click on the Class column heading. Then to go back click on Fast Time for Qualifying or Overall Time for Race. On the results screen you also want to edit the competitor as DNS or DNF. You can also see an individual time card here. Select the Competitor and double click and you will get a timecard on the bottom of the screen. You can edit the time card here by the overall time or number of laps. Then hit the “Hide” button and it will go away. This is they way you would do penalties.
At the end of the session you need to print results, even if you are running a third system for results. By doing this you can verify results. I post the AMB printout as PROVISIONAL. Make sure after you hit the Checkered Flag that you hit STOP. You need to hit stop before the cars come across the pit loop. If you don’t the system will keep timing them and adding laps. If this happens you can delete that in your third party system or on the “Results” page. Once you are ready to print go to the “Results” screen and select either the Q or the R and hit the print icon. You will see a window that asks what you want. Select how you want you results to look like. Click the “Preview” button if you didn’t select it as a default to see actually what your results will look like. Here is where you can edit the column size and delete any columns you don’t want. Once you have satisfied yourself with how it looks Save this layout as the one you want for Practice, Qualifying or Race. You will only have to do this once if you save the layout. Now you can print. Once again I post the AMB printout as Provisional with the footer (from the Print tab) saying that this is Provisional. You can enter anything in the footer that you want. I also select the timecards from print and post those along with the Provisional. If you want only one or a few timecards, go to the “Results” screen, select the competitors that you want a time card on and hit print, select timecards and then select “ONLY The SELECTION”.
At the end of the race weekend you will want to save to disk all files and competitor database. Once you have done this you will want to delete the whole event, run by run with results, and then the whole database. You want to do this to keep the system clean and not run the risk of pulling a transponder from a different class or event into your current event.
Don’t use screen savers as this interrupts the AMB System.
The system will allow you to multitask. If you are in one run and decide to go to another you can and then go back. You can print results or timecards from previous runs by selecting that run and then go back to the run you are currently running. Make sure you always go back by selecting that run by looking for the wristwatch on the run name.
During a session make sure you have the “Passing Screen’ always at the bottom of the page.
If you make edits and decide they don’t belong where they are on the passing screen, such as Photocell hits or manual hits you can highlight that line and drag it to where it belongs. The same thing goes with all the flags, including checkered.
Before the beginning of the day you want to check that the photocells and loop are working properly.
In the evening shut down all equipment. Disconnect power from the decoder and computers, prints etc. Disconnect the loop. This is a must as you don’t want to run the risk of electrical storm damage from power or the loop.
Have a taper sit with you to help on the edits. Tapers are a great asset. Once you feel comfortable with the system yourself you can start to train your taper. This will allow you to switch off with them on the system.
If you use a log print make use of it in the manual auditing job.
Don’t get nervous or upset when you get unrelated or pop-ups. Take your time and do the edits, mark down what needs to be done and then mark them that you have done them. This all takes time getting used to. This is really a user- friendly system. By the end of the day you will feel comfortable using and understanding it.
To set up see AMB book in the silver box.
For the network, Timing is the main computer. Turn that one on first and let load and then the others.
To export your passing files to your third party system, go to file then select export passing. Make sure you have a run you want highlighted. Then save to disk or cd or if you are running a network to a file prenamed. You will save the file as pass1.text. If you have 8 groups and they run 2 times a weekend the first file name would be pass1.text and the last file would be pass16.text. There are no spaces in the file name.
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