POISK

 Equipment Review

by James Flenner
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Poisk		 08 August 2005

When it comes to scoring systems and scorepads, jumpers in North America (and most of Europe, for that matter) have had only one choice: Wedbecker from Germany. Serious competitors who’ve jumped meets worldwide have encountered a scorepad in Russia that was a bit different, but was rarely seen outside Russia.

 

Capitalism is alive and well in Russia. At the Anton Malevsky meet, we jumped on this mythical Russian scorepad, met the makers of it, and found out they are open for business. Two of us were lucky enough to buy scoring systems and bring them back to the US. So, here’s a review of the system, with some inevitable comparisons with the competition.

 

The three owners/designers/manufacturers (L to R) Betin Vyacheslav, Kozlov Sergey, and Dimitri Zub.

 The system and company name is Poisk. This is Russian for “the search” and is pronounced “roizk”. They will cheerfully sell you a system, or can be hired to score your meet. We met the three gentlemen who make up Poisk, and were very impressed; knowledgeable, helpful and professional.

The first clue that you’re jumping on a Poisk system comes from the trademark lime-green scorebox. Although not built into a carrying case as the Wedbecker system is, this box is well built, with flush riveting and powder coated. The scorebox is equipped with connections for the external reset, a connection to the scorepad, a RS-232 computer communication socket, fuse, and an on-off switch as well as an external power connection. Unlike the Wedbecker system, there is no option for internal power. The digits are huge and to my eye, more legible than the Wedbecker. And, the dead-center sound is loud. No doubt about pounding out a zero with this system.
The scorepad looks the same as any other; black, 35cm wide, yellow dot in the middle. Pick it up, though, and you are struck by its density and firmness. You can also feel the corrugations of the scoring rings inside. You are very much struck by an impression of durability, and indeed, the manufacturer will guarantee 1000 landings. Chatting with the local Muscovite jumpers, the reality of it is more like 2000-3000 jumps. Wow!

This scorepad has over 4000 jumps. Note the "flat as a board" that is characteristic of the Poisk scorepad.

The wind display...pretty standard fare, both in appearance and function. Except it's dead accurate.

 

If you have the money, you can also purchase the wind display (we did not). This is as we are used to, showing wind speed and direction, as well as the countdown for over-limit conditions. This is driven by an ultrasonic weather head, instead of the cups and vane we’ve seen in the past, and is extremely accurate. If you’re buying the whole system, it also comes with a little tent to house it all in. Build quality is impeccable and very robust. All in all, very complete and “turnkey”.

The first questions generally asked tend to focus around “how accurate is it” and “how reliable is it”.  After watching this system through an entire parachute meet, and jumping our system for a while, the short answer is “very”.

Accuracy is high enough that after several days of jumping on it, I felt that every score was correct. So much so, that I felt as if I’d had revelation. On a Wedbecker pad, I often walked away with a feeling of “well, I didn’t think that’s what I got, but that’s what the box said, so it must be right”. With the Poisk scorepad, I walked away with a feeling that what I saw on the jump matched what the box said. It was amazing! So in the accuracy department, the Poisk impressed me. Others at the meet commented on this as well. This may be a combination of the firmness of the scorepad and the construction, which is fabric-based instead of rubber.

During the meet, pads were rotated in due to abuse of the dot, not to keep down an incidence of false scores. In training beforehand, we used the same pad straight through without a problem. Chatting with judge Bob King, he mentioned that meets he’s judged on the Poisk system were “very reliable”, which is high praise from the understated Brit. And, in use at Lodi, we jumped in record high temperatures, and just left the pad out there, baking in the sun. Not a problem at all, none of the puffy pad problems or sudden, bizarre readings.

 

A glimpse into the construction of the Poisk backfoot pad. Although it doesn't show in the photo, the grey fabric is actually woven metal.

If this scorepad has a weakness, it would be water. The scorepad and backfoot pads are fabric-based, using a metallic woven material that gives excellent “feel” and compliance. Of course, fabric “breathes” well, too, so it performs well in hot sun. However, rain will soak the material and short out the contacts, especially that huge backfoot pad. It just goes to show that there are compromises in every design.

Because the system has no internal battery, you have to use an external 12V DC source. This can be done with a stack of 8 D cells, or as we have done, with a 12V Lantern battery. The system will also work with a DC power converter. I for one have found the external power to be a relief. With the Wedbecker system, you had the recharging issue and erratic behavior if the charge was low, so much so that you tend to just keep it plugged in all the time at meets. The Poisk has a ridiculously low draw of 30 milliamps, and I’m expecting this lantern battery to last for a season. And if the voltage gets low, the scorebox displays a line to tell you. Simple and reliable.

 

A cool function that Poisk offers is what is called "training mode". In all scorepads, the logic is that in the case of a simultaneous strike over two scoring zones, the jumper will be awarded with the lower score. For example, if you land so you contact the 4cm ring and the 5cm ring simultaneously, you’ll get a 4. These simultaneous strikes are unusual, given that the scorebox can see a difference of milliseconds between the two zones. Still, in the rare case of a jump that truly splits the edge of the yellow, you will get the zero. However, if you have turned on the Poisk “training mode”, such an edge split will score you as a 1. This gives you (or me, anyway) some incentive to not get lax in training. For those worried about competition and abuse of the training mode, it takes a definite start-up procedure to get into training mode, and the scorebox displays a line whenever it’s in that mode.

The line at the top of the display indicates the scorebox is in training mode.

 

The box does have an automatic reset, which appears to be set at about 12 seconds. There is no way to set a different timing for the reset, nor turn the automatic reset on (or off).

With all this good stuff, there are some gripes I have. For one thing, the tripod socket is nonstandard; the box comes with a socket similar to those used by loudspeakers, but is an odd 22mm size. This is very functional, in that it allows the box to swivel freely if someone trips over a wire. Still, I had to have a delrin piece machined up to adapt the scorebox to a standard ¼-20 tripod screw.

The only other gripe is the scorepad connector. This is an aviation grade socket that is doubtless very high quality and would look perfectly at home inside a F-16. It’s just perhaps a bit too delicate for us ham-fisted guys that have trouble plugging in a toaster, and a more robust connector like that on the Wedbecker would be nice. (Update 26 Aug 2005: I noticed the new Wedbecker scorebox has a computer-type parallel-port connection for the scorepad. Even this would be more durable than the Poisk connector, although it's a step backwards for the Wedbecker.)
And now for that important question – cost. A scorebox and scorepad will put you back €700. The whole ordering and import process has yet to be worked out, although FedEx is really good about being a one-stop-shop for transport and duties. For the performance and price, a bit of effort to get it into the country is worth it.

Update 26 August 2005:The Poisk system was used to score the US Nationals. The system performed without incident; and, only one scorepad was used throughout the meet. The Judges reported that the system was very reliable, and the pad never malfunctioned in the 100-degree sun. The only maintenance was replacement of the dot after the conclusion of the meet; the single 12V lantern battery ran the entire meet and still has 12.2V as indicated by a meter. Only one jumper complained about the system, griping that the scorepad was "too hard", while most other jumpers liked the stiffer pad.

Story by James Flenner