14/11/2011 by Tris.

Hi. We get asked a lot of questions similar to this… “which is best for Triathlon training….. I currently use a Poolmate watch for swimming but nothing else… what would you recommend?”

Well this is our reply…

 Good questions !

 The Polar one is the Polar RCX5 http://www.heartratemonitor.co.uk/polar_rcx5.html

 And the Garmin one’s would be the310XT and soon to be released 910XT

 http://www.heartratemonitor.co.uk/garmin_forerunner_910xt.html

 http://www.heartratemonitor.co.uk/garmin_forerunner_310xt.html

 The Polar RCX5 is great. It is missing ALTITUDE, which is a shame, but it does everything else I want (please note, I swim for FUN only….)

 The RCX5 will give everything your partner wants when RUNNING and CYCLING… and when SWIMMING it will give him HEART RATE. This is something the GARMIN will not do as it uses a DIGITAL signal ALL the time, so does not work in the pool… Polar use an ANALOGUE HR signal when swimming… thus HR in the POOL and digital all other times.

 What the Polar will not do is provide any SWIM METRICS… no distance or swim efficiency.

 Possible solutions for your partner are

 1) Polar RCX5 with RUN POD and Bike speed / cadence sensors (he’d keep using his Poolmate when swimming) - no altitude data when running/riding

2) Garmin Forerunner 310XT has advantage of swim distance and speed when in OPEN water.. but no swimming HR and no swim metrics when in pool.. so he could continue to wear Poolmate when in pool

3) Garmin Forerunner 910XT and have everything except HR when swimming…. the 910XT has swim metrics similar to the Poolmate, so he wouldn’t need to wear that anymore.

 They are the three main options. All will provide great feedback and help him achieve his IronMan goal. I think it depends how much he wants to get everything from just ONE unit.

Hope that helps…

 Regards - Tris Haskins BHIP Ltd - www.heartratemonitor.co.uk

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24/09/2008 by Tris.

We at heart rate monitor UK have had several customers complaining about the date being recorded on their memory belts - the date shown is generally in the year 2000 - and NOT the proper time and date of the exercise session

SOLUTION:

Connect your SUUNTO MEMORY belt to the Suunto TRAINING MANAGER software

Left click on LEFT HAND SIDE header - under “Suunto Device” - Memory Belt

Now in the bottom right hand quarter of the screen - under ”DEVICE” - select the “EDIT” button

In the “VALUE” field opposite “PERSONAL DATA” - clear this field

In the “VALUE” field oposite “USERNAME” enter a unique ID - for example ”TRISTAN_MEMBELT”

THEN PRESS SAVE - this is the important bit !

By pressing SAVE the PC will write this data to the BELT - while doing this it will transfer the TIME and DATE from your PC to your Suunto  MEMORY BELT

Subsequent files will have the correct - PC synch’d - time and date

 Hope that helps

Tris

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17/09/2008 by Tris.

Customer question:

Please can you tell me, which of the male-specific chest-strap type heart rate monitors that you supply have an integrated ‘interval timer’ preferably with separate warm-up but not essential? Do any have 2 seperate inteval timers e.g. 40sec High, 60sec Low, and seperate 20sec High and 90sec Low?

heart rate monitor uk says:

The Suunto T3C heart rate monitor  - Suunto T4C heart rate monitor and Suunto T6C heart rate monitor have

1 x WARM UP TIMER

followed by

TIMER 1

followed by

TIMER 2

then repeat timer 1 and timer 2

During these stages of interval timing, the heart rate zone does NOT change - it only  has 1 x active HR zone

The Polar RS200 has 3 x timers.

Tmr1 Tmr2 and Tmr3

Each timer has it’s OWN HR zone

You can run just T1 on repeat - or - T1 then T2 and repeat or - T1, T2 and T3 then repeat…

You can start heart rate monitoring by pressing START once, WARM UP manually… then strat session proper by pressing START again, this then starts T1-T2-T3 process….

The Polar RS400 and Polar RS800 have even more flexibility - adding RECOVERY times between intervals

An example of a Polar RS400 heart rate monitor Polar RS800 interval session would be

10 mins warm up between 100 - 130 bpm

Then 5 x 3 min intervals between 140 - 155 bpm with a second recovery interval

Then 20 mins steady at 130 - 140 bpm

Then recovery down to 90 bpm.

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11/09/2008 by Tris.

This is a common mail we get at heart rate monitor UK

I bought a Suunto foot pod from you on xx/xx/xx

I’ve used it an estimated 40 hours of running but it’s stopped functioning.  I’ve tried changing the battery (using the one from my Comfort Strap which has only been used about 5 times and is working fine) to no avail. 

Can you advise how I should proceed with getting a replacement please?

This is what we said:

We are sorry to hear about this unusual failure

Please check the battery contacts

We have seen on numerous occassions the POSTIVE (side contact) being pushes in too far. Teasing it out with some TWEEZERS might be all you need to do.

You may also want to try RE-PAIRING it : http://www.heartratemonitor.co.uk/suunto_pairing_t6_t3_t4.html

If neither of these options work - you may need to return them to Suunto directly

http://www.heartratemonitor.co.uk/mainwarranty.html#suunto

QED - problem resolved - CUSTOMER HAPPY - heart rate monitor UK happy

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