BBC's Top Gear Interviews Jack Heuer [06 January 2005]:

BBC's Top Gear Interviews Jack Heuer [06 January 2005] The interview is for three o'clock and, as you'd expect, Jack Heuer is keeping perfect time. The elder statesman of Tag Heuer is at the Getty Gallery in London to help celebrate 40 years of the close relationship between the Carrera watch and motor racing with an exhibition of classic photographs from the sport, as well as 21 examples of the watch's long history. Click here to read the rest of the story...

Bittersweet Lemania 5100 news, last 500 pieces procured by...

Jorge Merino Reports: N E W M o d e l — Sinn 142 Titanium D1 Jan 18, 2005 - 07:45 AM To celebrate the 20th anniversary of the 1985 space flight that saw the Sinn 142 become the first automatic chronograph in space, at the hands of German Astronaut-Professor Reinhard Furrer, Sinn has re-issued a new Limited Edition 142 chronograph. Sinn has procured the last 500 calibers of the famously robust Lemania 5100 movements that are still available. A first batch of 50 pieces is available with a COSC chronometer certification. The case is in titanium, with sapphire crystal and offers 100 meters of water resistance. Thanks. Jorge It's a sad day for fans of the less than beautiful but incredibly versatile, strong, reliable and durable movement. It's a bloody shame that Swatch group is killing off this movement dispite pleas from manufactures who use it and fans of the movement who would continue to buy them. It appears that with Swatch group pablum trumps performance. Such is the pity. It's a shame this movement is being killed while less deserving movements are pushed. It's a shame that Swatch group won't spin off or sell the movement, probably fearing they'd get their proverbaial chronometre's cleaned. We keep the flame from here on out boys and girls... Those of us who are fortunate enough to own them need to care to preserve them for posterity. The rest of you don't know what you're missing. -- Chuck

Deke Slayton's Speedmaster Discussed @ MWR…

Both Chris M. and Brian Cantor alerted me to a discussion taking place on the Military Watch Resource talking about the late Deke Slayton's Omega Speedmaster Professional which was recently auctioned... I make a couple of appearances within the thread (I'm not a MWR regular), I discuss some things that occur to me while replying that may be insightful for some... -- Chuck

Updated "Summertime/Daylight Savings" article...

I've updated my "Summertime/Daylight Savings" article to include more correct description of the status of Saskatchewan, Canada. Which didn't elect to not observe DST, but rather switched timezone (which had the effect of switching to DST all of the time)! Special Thanks to W.M. Hanover for pointing out the true story -- Chuck

Jean-Michael frets about Speedmaster Addiction...

JM sent me this email message and pictures: My dear "speedfan" friends I think I am turning "addicted" to the speedy ;-) After receiving back my good old speedy 145.022 from Bienne , it was looking so nice that I think it was a pitty to keep it in it's "beater" task : this watch follows me in my sports activity since the 90's and I confess that I have swim, motorbike, ski, parachute dive ... with it , it endure perfectly the task but its look was a little bit messy after so much action ... but now when I am looking to the beauty with its display back fitted I could not continue to have it as a "beater" .... hum how to replace it ? I also have 2 other beaters: my Sinn 142 Ti and Sinn 156 B .... perfect "action" watches but not a slim as the speedy which for certain activity is not perfect (for motorbiking I do not like think watches which are not nice to wear under the riding gloves and for parachute diving instructors refuse students wearing too thick watches) I think about the replacement of my speedy and the only conclusion was .... finding another speedy !!! I just find a 145.0022 of 1997 in very good condition on e-bay , I have choosen the "basic" version because it will be assigned to "action" : I prefer hesalite crystal over any other because scratches can be polished off and there is less risk to brake the crystal under a high shock .... here are two shots of my little speedy familly (still not on the pic the flightmaster and the X33) ... I am now with 7 speedies hum , I think I turn addicted !!!! cheers JM Well, I don't see any Speedmaster Quartz, no Speedsonics, no Bullheads, no Mark Series, Tutonics or c.1045's no 125's... I'm up to at least oh gosh... 28 Speedmasters I believe. It's not a bad start... Thanks for the pictures, JM! C P.S. Be sure to pay JM's websites a visit. Always worth the time!

Some specialized timers for some specialized purposes:

Some specialized timers for some specialized purposes: Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2005 18:49:45 -0600 To: Chuck Maddox <cmaddox3@sbcglobal.net> Subject: Seeking an accurate watch Chuck, I work with high speed video. We use IRIG timecode generators to figure out when things happen. Xxxxxxx, Ok, your ahead of me, but I suspect I don't know that I need to know the details. On almost every location (in the desert) there are at least 5 and as many as 15 of these time code generators. I need a watch that will allow me to see if these things are all reading from the same sheet of music, so to speak. All the watches and Palm programs I have seen are only accurate to the closest second, or at least only display to the closest second. Do you know of any affordable watches or programs that will give me 10th to 100th of a second? Well, the answer Xxxxxxx, is it depends... It really depends on what you are looking for, how much you are willing to pay what activation methods are optimal, does it need to be a watch and how accurate do you need. I have a Palm/Cellular phone that seems to be synchronized to my GPS time. I was hoping to use that, but have not had any luck finding a time program that displays to 10th of a second. For the Palm, there was a program, 5 or 6 years back (circa 1998) called "Chronos" that had a 1/100th of a second stopwatch that was activated by a tap on the screen. Let me see if I can find a link for you... It was probably one of these (which have probably since had a name change). Why don't you download them all and see which one's look promising? The other option was a WWV receiver watch but still have the same problem, no decasecond or centasecond hand. Of all the people I have met on the web you seemed like the most likely to know where I can turn for a solution. Well, if you're willing to live with a wristwatch solution, I'd recommend you look at either a Citizen Skyhawk: 1, 2. Casio has a watch called the "Wave Ceptor" that combines an Atomic Clock synchronizing watch with a 1/100th of a second chronograph that might be right down your alley, and more economical than the Citizen's... I'm sure there might be some Casio G-Shock's that might be good candidates as well... These would have the advantage of being ruggedized for field use: I see they have an "Atomic Solar" line of watches that might be possibilities. Now, one thing you may not realize is that one of the most significant drawbacks to accurate timing is the human Central Nervous System... The CNS only has connections that run at about 200mph (as opposed to the speed of light with electronic means of tripping a timer), there is also reaction times and the fact that the thumb is actually slower and less accurate than the index finger for triping a stopwatch. Hence you probably want to avoid a timing mechanism tripped by the human thumb for critical timings. You might wish to consider a quartz stopwatch... The brand I use when I visit the track is Robic (and the specific model is the SC-808). The SC-808 allows you to program in the length of the track so that when you time a lap, it will return the average speed of the car. Very handy: They also make one model, the SC-507, that has a 1/1000th of a second stopwatch: Check this out... That might be handy to have... I don't know... Anyway, I'm not sure I've answered your question, but hopefully I have provided some possibilities worth further investigation... Let me know what you end up with... Thanks Xxxxxxxx Xxxxxxxx Chuck

Pointer to a 5100 discussion at Purist...

This is a pointer to a discussion I joined after Chris Meisenzhal pointed it out over at Purist's... This is where I learned about the new Sinn 7750 variant with the center pinion Chrono Minute hand... http://www.network54.com/Forum/message?forumid=169624&messageid=1104954225 I'm in a "Circle back and get caught up" mindset today. This was at the top of the list... -- Chuck