Ironman Timex GPS Watch



V

Vitodelapata

Guest
Has anyone used the Ironman Triathalon GPS watch model 3501? It gives you distance, time and speed.
Just curious about quality and limitations. Wal-Mart has them at a reasonable price.

--
R.Robinson
rrockslideATearthlink.net
 
Hi... I'm selling mine (I'm in the UK)

Even though it works superbly well I find the wearing the GPS unit on my arm or waist a little
uncomfortable. I did a 4 Miler & a 8 Mile run and kept having to adjust the thing. I know many
people don't have a problem with it but it's just not for me.

Unfortunately, I couldn't try before I bought it and it's okay for a mile or so but it just got too
irritating for me. Anyway, I decided to sell now as new rather than wait! Only bought it last
Wednesday!

It's currently on ebay:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2688535357&category=10356

Regards,

Mike

"VITOdelapata" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Has anyone used the Ironman Triathalon GPS watch model 3501? It gives you distance, time and
> speed. Just curious about quality and limitations. Wal-Mart has them at a reasonable price.
>
> --
> R.Robinson rrockslideATearthlink.net
 
Hi I have had mine for just about a year. Have not had a problem with arm band. The one fault I have
are the very sketchy instructions. Another problem I have is that I run early in the morning and
can't read the watch readouts; i.e pace or mileage accumulated. This watch has come down in price
because they have a new watch out which includes a HRM.

"VITOdelapata" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Has anyone used the Ironman Triathalon GPS watch model 3501? It gives you distance, time and
> speed. Just curious about quality and limitations. Wal-Mart has them at a reasonable price.
>
> --
> R.Robinson rrockslideATearthlink.net
 
Hey thanks for the responses. I have ordered one and thought I would get feed back on its
performance. If it is not up to par, I can always send it back. All of my runs involve hills and
mountains. There are very few flat spots to run. I measure out certain distances with my car, 12, 15
and 20 miles but would like a more accurate way to do this. The one I ordered did not have the HRM
strap with it. Wal-mart has them for $138.

--
R.R
rrockslideATearthlink.net
 
VITOdelapata wrote:
> All of my runs involve hills and mountains. There are very few flat spots to run. I measure out
> certain distances with my car, 12, 15 and 20 miles but would like a more accurate way to do this.

Important bit of info there. A GPS unit requires 4 signals to give you credit for altitude gained or
lost. Based on measurements I've taken with my Timex, I'm thinking that it only catches 3 signals,
as I come up short on distance for my hilly workouts, and I'm a flatlander. It seems to be
remarkably consistent with my cyclometer (which is pretty accurate) on the flats.

I'd be curious to know, in fact, how many signals the Timex uses.

Scott
 
Scott Williams <[email protected]> wrote:
> VITOdelapata wrote:
>> All of my runs involve hills and mountains. There are very few flat spots to run. I measure out
>> certain distances with my car, 12, 15 and 20 miles but would like a more accurate way to do this.
>
> Important bit of info there. A GPS unit requires 4 signals to give you credit for altitude gained
> or lost. Based on measurements I've taken with my Timex, I'm thinking that it only catches 3
> signals, as I come up short on distance for my hilly workouts, and I'm a flatlander. It seems to
> be remarkably consistent with my cyclometer (which is pretty accurate) on the flats.
>
> I'd be curious to know, in fact, how many signals the Timex uses.

I've heard three. That's anecdotal, however.

I keep eyeing the Garmin Forerunner 201 though, the price and accuracy is pretty appealing.

-jeremy

--
--
+================================================================+
Jeremy Hallum, System Manager , Astronomy, University of Michigan
[email protected]::[email protected]
"Audentis Fortuna Iuvat"
 
In article <[email protected]>, Scott Williams wrote:
> VITOdelapata wrote:
>> All of my runs involve hills and mountains. There are very few flat spots to run. I measure out
>> certain distances with my car, 12, 15 and 20 miles but would like a more accurate way to do this.
>
> Important bit of info there. A GPS unit requires 4 signals to give you credit for altitude gained
> or lost.

That makes almost no difference, unless you want an elevation profile, but a GPS will do a pretty
bad job at that too (at least as far as running is concerned)

> Based on measurements I've taken with my Timex, I'm thinking that it only catches 3 signals, as I
> come up short on distance for my hilly workouts, and I'm a flatlander. It seems to be remarkably
> consistent with my cyclometer (which is pretty accurate) on the flats.

I think the errors have nothing to do with the hills. They are more likely to have something to do
with how straight the road/course is (maybe you're going back and forth in your hill workouts, and
it's slicing off distance on your turnarounds, or maybe the road isn't that straight up the hill) or
the quality of satellite reception. If you only get 3 satellites, it *will* adversely affect the
accuracy of the unit.

FWIW, I have a regular GPS unit, and unless you're on fairly straight roads, it's not all
that accurate. It's good enough for logging milage, but you wouldn't want to use it to
measure your speed.

Cheers,
--
Donovan Rebbechi http://pegasus.rutgers.edu/~elflord/
 
[email protected] wrote in news:[email protected]:

> Scott Williams <[email protected]> wrote:
>> VITOdelapata wrote:
>>> All of my runs involve hills and mountains. There are very few flat spots to run. I measure
>>> out certain distances with my car, 12, 15 and 20 miles but would like a more accurate way to
>>> do this.
>>
>> Important bit of info there. A GPS unit requires 4 signals to give you credit for altitude gained
>> or lost. Based on measurements I've taken with my Timex, I'm thinking that it only catches 3
>> signals, as I come up short on distance for my hilly workouts, and I'm a flatlander. It seems to
>> be remarkably consistent with my cyclometer (which is pretty accurate) on the flats.
>>
>> I'd be curious to know, in fact, how many signals the Timex uses.
>
> I've heard three. That's anecdotal, however.
>
> I keep eyeing the Garmin Forerunner 201 though, the price and accuracy is pretty appealing.

Three is correct. I bought the Garmin Forerunner 201 a few weeks ago for $124 at Amazon.com. So far,
I love it. It's probably within 20 feet accuracy (just a guess, havn't tested this). The only thing
that isn't as accurate is the "real time" measurment, such as current pace or speed and hill grade.
In order to get a good reading on pace, you should only look at your average pace, or your lap pace.
I have mine set to count a lap every mile, so this is pretty accurate. A few times it had trouble
picking up a signal at the start of my run, so it wasn't logging any miles for a while, just elapsed
time. Now I'm careful to make sure it has a signal before I start my run. But the pleasure of not
having to measure my routes is pretty neat. Just head out the door and run anywhere.

-Phil
 
[email protected] wrote:

> I keep eyeing the Garmin Forerunner 201 though, the price and accuracy is pretty appealing.
>

Here's another forerunner review. http://www.eskimo.com/~joelm/forerunner201.htm

check out the image partway down - the ultimate for geeks ;) (at least with present gadgets -
probably be in one gadget some day)

Dot

--
"Success is different things to different people" -Bernd Heinrich in Racing the Antelope
 
>check out the image partway down - the ultimate for geeks ;) (at least with present gadgets -
>probably be in one gadget some day)

Excellent review, and thanks for the link. A couple of things that Joel did not address though --
does it have a backlight feature and if so, how is the clarity in the dark? How long does it take to
get a signal and does it lose its signal at all?
 
glenn <[email protected]> wrote in news:qcl020p5dt3erguu8vdb8srfdm6k1h6fmk@
4ax.com:

>>check out the image partway down - the ultimate for geeks ;) (at least with present gadgets -
>>probably be in one gadget some day)
>
> Excellent review, and thanks for the link. A couple of things that Joel did not address though --
> does it have a backlight feature and if so, how is the clarity in the dark? How long does it take
> to get a signal and does it lose its signal at all?

It has a backlight feature. You can set it to 15 seconds, 30 seconds, 1 minute, 2 minutes, or
indefinately. The clarity is excellent. Bettar than my Timex Ironman.

The first time you turn it on it takes about 15 minutes to find the 3 satellites (minumum required
to function properly). After that, it will only take a minute to locate the satellites, unless you
move more than 500 miles away. I've logged 9 runs with my Garmin. It has only lost a signal once for
about a few hundred yards.

-Phil
 
Phil M. wrote:

I've logged 9 runs with my Garmin. It has only lost a signal
> once for about a few hundred yards.
>
> -Phil

Do you run on enough hills to get a feeling for how accurate (or lack thereof) the altimeter might
be for changes in elevation? Or does that require the software, hence nobody knows until Garmin
provides that?

Dot

--
"Success is different things to different people" -Bernd Heinrich in Racing the Antelope
 
Dot <dot.h@#att.net> wrote in news:6H_Tb.171609$6y6.3351519@bgtnsc05-
news.ops.worldnet.att.net:

> Phil M. wrote:
>
> I've logged 9 runs with my Garmin. It has only lost a signal
>> once for about a few hundred yards.
>>
>> -Phil
>
> Do you run on enough hills to get a feeling for how accurate (or lack thereof) the altimeter might
> be for changes in elevation? Or does that require the software, hence nobody knows until Garmin
> provides that?
>
> Dot

The reason I feel that the % grade readings are inacurate is that as I'm going up a long steady
grade, the readings are jumping all over. Since the software is simply a log book, I'm not sure
if that would correct that. Unless it does the math for you. I would prefer a more accurate real-
time reading.

The software is supposed to be out early this month. So any time now.

-Phil
 
Phil M. wrote:

> The reason I feel that the % grade readings are inacurate is that as I'm going up a long steady
> grade, the readings are jumping all over.

Does it do that on flats also or just on hills? I'm thinking it would do it all the time on the
basis that flat is a hill with 0% slope, unless it's a function of slope. At least with regular
GPS's, I can stand still and watch the location bounce around, occasionally large jumps, but usually
small. Hence, I'd expect some jumping in the elevation also.

Does the elevation profile that you download later make sense, approximately? I'm mostly interested
in totals and maybe occasional hill heights, generally not in real-time. Thanks.

Dot

--
"Success is different things to different people" -Bernd Heinrich in Racing the Antelope
 
"Phil M." <[email protected]> wrote:

> It has a backlight feature. You can set it to 15 seconds, 30 seconds, 1 minute, 2 minutes, or
> indefinately. The clarity is excellent. Bettar than my Timex Ironman.

That's what's so cool about the Forerunner... there is no end to the customizability of the
thing. Awesome onboard software. I just wish it had a HRM. If it did... I would have bought one
in an instant.

--
Nova Scotia, Canada
 
Scott Williams <[email protected]> wrote: Important bit of info there. A GPS unit requires 4 signals
to give you
> credit for altitude gained or lost. Based on measurements I've taken with my Timex, I'm thinking
> that it only catches 3 signals, as I come up short on distance for my hilly workouts, and I'm a
> flatlander. It seems to be remarkably consistent with my cyclometer (which is pretty accurate) on
> the flats.
>
> I'd be curious to know, in fact, how many signals the Timex uses.

Let me make sure I have this right. Your saying that in the hills, its distance measurement is
off? Here in Northeast Tennessee there are nothing but hills and mountains. Elevation change on
my runs are 200 to 1000 feet or more. Actually I am more concerned with distance than with
speed. Once I get my distance logged, I can then check my timer on the watch to figure my actual
time per mile. You can run both the timer and the GPS at the same time, right?

I like the Forerunner. If I do not get what I want from the Timex, I will check out it out next.

--
R.Robinson
rrockslide"AT"earthlink.net
 
David <[email protected]> wrote in
news:[email protected]:

> "Phil M." <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> It has a backlight feature. You can set it to 15 seconds, 30 seconds, 1 minute, 2 minutes, or
>> indefinately. The clarity is excellent. Bettar than my Timex Ironman.
>
> That's what's so cool about the Forerunner... there is no end to the customizability of the thing.
> Awesome onboard software. I just wish it had a HRM. If it did... I would have bought one in an
> instant.

I have an HRM, but I haven't been using it lately. I really needed to lose a gadget or 2. I'm on-
call for our IT deparment on the weekends. Since my long runs are getting into the 12 mile range, I
can't in good conscience leave them hanging for so long, so I need to carry my pager and my cell
phone. Of course, this is in addition to the obligatory running paraphernalia, such as MP3 player,
GPS device, and Gatorade. I recently purchased a Camelbak Flashflo. It all fits rather niceley along
with 45 oz of Gatorade. So I guess what I really need as an all-in-one "GPS-watch-cell phone-pager-
MP3 Player-Gatorade Dispenser."

-Phil
 
Dot <dot.h@#att.net> wrote in
news:[email protected]:

> Phil M. wrote:
>
>> The reason I feel that the % grade readings are inacurate is that as I'm going up a long steady
>> grade, the readings are jumping all over.
>
> Does it do that on flats also or just on hills? I'm thinking it would do it all the time on the
> basis that flat is a hill with 0% slope, unless it's a function of slope. At least with regular
> GPS's, I can stand still and watch the location bounce around, occasionally large jumps, but
> usually small. Hence, I'd expect some jumping in the elevation also.
>
> Does the elevation profile that you download later make sense, approximately? I'm mostly
> interested in totals and maybe occasional hill heights, generally not in real-time. Thanks.

I'm not sure if it does it on the flats. I'm looking at a differnt view on the flats. I have my
"custom screen" set to grade, avg pace, and total miles. I only use that screen when I'm going up a
hill. But I'll check it on the flats tomorrow to see if it bounces around at all.

The logbook software is not available yet. According to the web site: "Forerunner 201 Logbook
software will be available early February 2004." So any day now.

-Phil
 
"Phil M." <[email protected]> wrote:

> So I guess what I really need as an all-in-one "GPS-watch-cell phone-pager-MP3 Player-Gatorade
> Dispenser."

Add a HRM to the list... and that would be one SWEET product! :p I suppose I could have gotten a
Forerunner and a seperate HRM... but the dual watch thing would just be a little too geeky :)

--
Nova Scotia, Canada
 
David <[email protected]> wrote in news:user-FD6304.22401504022004
@news.hfx.eastlink.ca:

> "Phil M." <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> So I guess what I really need as an all-in-one "GPS-watch-cell phone-pager-MP3 Player-Gatorade
>> Dispenser."
>
> Add a HRM to the list... and that would be one SWEET product! :p I suppose I could have gotten a
> Forerunner and a seperate HRM... but the dual watch thing would just be a little too geeky :)
>

mmmmm....geeky....oooohhh.