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Re: SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT

To: Jon Hobden <Jon.Hobden@rdel.co.uk>
Subject: Re: SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT
From: Glen Barrett <speedtimer@earthlink.net>
Date: Wed, 01 Mar 2000 22:48:04 -0800
The Bonneville courses are surveyed not measured with a tape. Each course has a
certificate as well as the timing equipment being certified at a test lab that
has equipment tracable to the standards labs.
Glen Barrett
Chief Timer SCTA/BNI

Jon Hobden wrote:

> List
>
> At the risk of stirring another hornet's nest, as an electronics engineer
> involved in radar design I am used to measuring time routinely to
> resolutions of 0.00000001 second  (though it's of no use unless that
> measurement also has ACCURACY traceable to National Standards).
>
> But I have been intrigued for some time, following some discussions in Fast
> Facts on the numbers of significant figures quoted on speeds, as to the
> accuracy of the surveyed mile and kilometre courses.  Can anybody involved
> shed any light on this?   Somebody mentioned checking temperatures of
> "tapes" - does this mean that someone goes out on the salt and tries to
> pull a mile of measuring tape straight?   And how orthogonal are the traps
> to the axis of the measured mile?
>
> And I'm not looking for an argument (was that a ten minute one or the full
> half hour?) but I think we're all old enough to remember the discredit done
> by the Bud Rocket "record" fiasco.....
>
> Jon Hobden in Horley
> (Donald Campbell's birthplace)




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