Requirements for electronic recording systems 2006/7

Requirements for electronic recording systems 2006/7 The list of requirements below is a summary of the requirements drawn up by the Dutch Homing Pigeon Fanciers Organisation (NPO) for the approval of electronic recording systems for the year 2006/2007. The list contains all the requirements from previous years, supplemented by requirements for 2007. A new feature of this list is the list of definitions. This list is intended to ensure that a number of the terms used are interpreted without ambiguity. The requirements are divided into system requirements and system software requirements. All electronic recording systems must satisfy these requirements. Definitions Arrival report: Application software: Atomic timer: Chip ring: Compatibility: Continuous recording module: Electronic Recording System: Basketing antenna: Basketing list: Nodes: Fancier antenna: Printer nodes: Synchronisation: System software: Terminal: Provisional arrival list: report of race data to be produced by electronic recording system after clocking. If pooling is also being done, the pool data are printed out on a single separate page. the software used on PCs for such things as creating assignment tables, reading out race data and other functions relating to electronic recording systems. a radio quartz timer with an electronic clock which is synchronised via the DCF77 signal from PTB in Braunschweig. These clocks are provided with a reset facility and signal indicating correct reception. removable leg ring with a memory transponder which is used to record pigeons digitally (for races). situation in which data can be exchanged between electronic recording systems from different manufacturers. Compatibility can also refers to different versions of system software supplied by the same manufacturer. We can talk about upwards and downwards compatibility. This means that an older version of system software is compatible with a newer version of system software or vice versa. device or part of a device whose function is to continue the timing function when the terminal (see definition) is not connected to the fancier's antenna. the set of equipment required to record race data digitally. the device used in the club for writing and allocating chip rings and for basketing, releasing and striking off. report of race data to be produced by electronic recording system after basketing and before clocking. If pooling is also being done, the pool data are printed out on a single separate page. element that connects electronic recording systems from different manufacturers to achieve compatibility. the device that a fancier uses at home to record arriving pigeons. element that connects the electronic recording system to a printer. process by which the electronic recording system matches the nomination values, pools and entered pigeons. After all, it is impossible to pool and/or nominate more pigeons than the number of pigeons entered. the software inside the terminal that controls the functions of the terminal. the fancier's device in which the allocation table and other data on races are to be found. report of race data to be produced by electronic recording system after clocking, after which further clocking can take place. This report serves as an arrival report if the electronic recording system fails after generating this report. The layout is identical to the layout of the arrival report but it has a different name. Requirements for electronic recording systems 2006/7 1 Version 3.3, 26 January 2006

General system requirements 1. The electronic recording systems must be tested for (physical) safety by the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (TNO) (or another institute to be designated by the NPO) and have been approved by the NPO board. 2. The system software must have been tested by the NPO (or an institute to be designated by the NPO) and have been approved by the NPO board. Each year the NPO publishes a list of approved system software for electronic recording systems. 3. Approval may be granted subject to conditions. This means that if the system software does not completely satisfy the requirements but the non-conformity does not in the NPO's opinion put race safety at risk the system software can still be approved and (future) modifications will be agreed with the manufacturer. 4. The club components of an electronic recording system should consist of a basketing antenna, atomic timer, printer nodes and nodes or similar components. 5. Electronic recording systems should have facilities for securing the race data before the race starts so that they can be used in case of an emergency to allow the fancier some way of using his own race data to take part in the race. The PC should not play any part in this!!! The NPO must be informed whether this (backup) facility is provided. If so, the NPO will decide how it will be tested (by the NPO or another institute). In any case, the NPO's approval is required before this functionality can be made available. 6. Each time the system software is modified, the version number must be incremented. The version number must also be incremented when test and other system software which has not yet been officially published is modified. No system software updates should be issued during the racing season (except for bug fixes). These updates should only be issued subject to consultation with and approval of the NPO board. 7. The available system software and all the necessary protocol descriptions/system documentation must be supplied unconditionally to application software manufacturers (recognised by the NPO), who must at all times treat as confidential the data which have been supplied to them. 8. The electronic recording systems must be documented in such a way that an electronic recording system can be used without further assistance from the manufacturer. 9. All instruction manuals must have a statement of approval from the NPO. 10. The basketing antennas must be protected against improper operations, i.e. all operations that could put the race at risk. As this involves hardware, the protection must also be extended to the hardware by means of access passes and/or "keys". Requirements for electronic recording systems 2006/7 2 Version 3.3, 26 January 2006

Dutch Homing Pigeon Fanciers' Organisation System software requirements 1. The electronic recording systems must be compatible with all NPO-approved electronic recording systems through the "Node Concept". Compatibility means that a terminal must work on the basketing antennas of all the other electronic recording systems and, conversely, that each basketing antenna must be able to operate all the terminals of other electronic recording systems Future system software must be downwards compatible with the approved version of the 2003 system software. Explanatory note: It is the NPO's intention to declare the system software as the definitive version in 2006. Thereafter, modifications can still be made but on the initiative of the manufacturers and not the NPO. This means that all future system software versions must be compatible with the version approved in 2006. It will then be up to the buyers (fanciers) to choose the additional functionality and pay for it. 2. All electronic recording systems must operate in accordance with Version 1.6 of the UNIVES protocol concerning operations relating to basketing, striking off and data communication. 3. Electronic recording systems must be capable of writing all chip rings in the writeable part of the ring (2 nd 64 bit) in accordance with the agreements between the Netherlands and Germany, which are set out in the document entitled Elektronischer Taubenring Spezifikationsschema Beschlußvorlage [Draft Resolution on Specification Scheme for Electronic Pigeon Rings] of 12 May 2000. It is advisable for the rings to be suitable for writing without the use of application software. 4. Electronic recording systems must guarantee the compatibility of written chip rings in accordance with the "protocol" to be supplied by the manufacturers. This means that rings which have been written by an electronic recording system from one manufacturer are capable of being read and overwritten by all the other electronic recording systems. To this end all the manufacturers must implement the jointly developed protocol adopted by the NPO. 5. It may not be possible to overwrite chip rings, already written with a valid country and club number, with a different country or club number. An appropriate error message together with the existing data must be displayed. 6. The electronic recording systems must be able to process the following chip rings: Name: Custom ID P4065 (SID500) 7F P41 65 (SID600) 7A HITAG2 (UCR) CD VR1 14 VR2 (MC601) 70 HITAG-S B0 (Deister); B2 (Motz); B4 (Tauris); B6 (Bricon) B8 (Mega); BA (Benzing); BE (Interfly) The electronic recording systems must be able to process all six of the above rings (allocation, basketing, generating secret code, etc.) Chip rings with different Custom IDs must be rejected by the systems. The chip rings must have been approved by the NPO. The NPO may require Hitag S chip rings to be provided with copy-protection. 7. The read-out from the chip ring should not be encrypted. 8. Electronic recording systems must also continue to operate unchanged from the appropriate type of terminal when processing the maximum permitted number of pigeons. Requirements for electronic recording systems 2006/7 3 Version 3.3, 26 January 2006

Allocation 9. In the club, allocation tables should only be created by means of a PC or downloaded. The first printout from the terminal after each change should always be an addition/change report. This is a summary on which only the changed data are shown as well as identification data indicating the terminal being used (member number, date of change, etc.) The print-out of the allocation table must indicate when it was last updated. 10. It must be possible during basketing to allocate a chip ring which is written with the correct country number and club number without using the club PC. 11. No permanent leg ring number or chip ring number should be duplicated in the allocation table. 12. A pigeon record stored in an electronic system must be displayed again in the same way (format). This applies to the country code table, for example. 13. As a minimum, when allocating a chip ring, the country and member number (or licence number) must be entered in the chip ring. If on a prior check of the chip ring a different club number (first four digits) is read from the member number (8 digits), this will be displayed and the data will not be overwritten. In this case, the chip ring should not therefore be allocated. This also applies in the event of an emergency allocation. It must be possible to write the chip ring with the club number as soon as it arrives at the club. The structure of this Format is XXXX0000. If the club number is correct, the chip ring may be written with a different member number. The rings are not locked. The agreed formats apply when writing the existing rings. The agreements between Deister and Motz apply to the HITAG S chip ring. They will be divided in a separate letter. Contrary to the last set of requirements, a chip ring can now only be allocated or written if it is either not written (new) or written with the correct club number. This guarantees that chip rings can only be used within a club. Race data 14. Electronic recording systems must be checked at both striking on and striking off to ensure that the atomic timer signal is correct or being received. If this is not the case, the system should not complete any further functions. For this a visual signal appears on the display. Once the system has been started correctly, it should not be possible for the atomic timer not to connect for more than 12 hours. The system time may be valid for a maximum of 12 hours after start-up. 15. If the time on a terminal on striking off deviates by more than 10 seconds from the time according to the atomic timer a visual signal must appear (display and on print-outs). 16. Clocking times must be displayed in whole seconds. 17. The order of the pigeons on the arrival report is identical to the order of the pigeons on the basketing list. To make it possible to tell the order in which the pigeons arrived, the arrival report includes a PIGEON-HOLE column which indicates the order of arrival. The print-out (for the same clocking time) should not contain sort runs. On exactly the same clock time (accurately measured to tenths of a second) the pigeon with the lowest nomination/pools on the list is classed as first. The lowest nomination/pool means the highest absolute value. A pigeon with a nomination value of 3 has a higher nomination than a pigeon with a nomination value of 5. Requirements for electronic recording systems 2006/7 4 Version 3.3, 26 January 2006

After all, third place is higher than 5th place. 18. Protection must be provided against unauthorised deletion of race data before the race has been completed. The race is deemed to have been completed once the arrival report has been printed and where appropriate the race data have been transmitted electronically to the application software. 19. It must be possible to delete race or pigeon data for each flight. If a pigeon is caught above the basketing antenna (= basketed), it must be possible for a club official to use a pin code or other security feature (passes or "keys") to remove it. 20. Race data may only be deleted in the club by means of a deletion trigger. This deletion trigger could be the printing out of an arrival report via the basketing antenna or consist of an action via the club PC. 21. In order to effect a "temporary save" an electronic recording system must contain a separate menu command "temporary save". The report generated by this menu command has the same layout as the arrival report but a different heading: Provisional arrival report. Up to and including the requirements for the year 2000, it was not strictly necessary for "temporary save" to have a separate menu command. This requirement is therefore a tightening up of requirement 19 of the list of requirements valid up to and including 2000. 22. The end of basketing is determined by the printing of the basketing list. The data 1 are also synchronised in the electronic recording system at the same time. Before a print command is given, the message "Does fancier agree with basketing?" should appear on the display. Once the basketing list has been printed it should no longer be possible to basket pigeons for the race concerned. This requirement means that the "locking" of the electronic recording system must be incorporated into the print module of the basketing report. This requirement removes the possibility of closing the basketing procedure with a time lock, as was allowed until 2001. 23. The electronic recording systems must have facilities for matching up differences between race data entered at home and actual basketing data. What this means in practical terms is the following: If a nominated pigeon is not basketed, the nomination value associated with this pigeon is lost and pigeons with a lower nomination value advance one place. 24. The number of entered pigeons and the number of basketed pigeons is automatically synchronised at the end of the basketing procedure. The rule is that the value of these fields must be equal at level 1. At other levels of the competition the values may be different provided that the number of entered pigeons does not exceed the number of basketed pigeons. Also, the fields from the pool matrix are adjusted during synchronisation so that the number of pooled pigeons should never exceed the number of entered pigeons. 25. The value "0" should not appear in the "nominated" field. The "nominated" field should not contain two values which are equal to each other. The nomination values should always start with "1". So, even if for example we (accidentally) begin with the value "10" at home, all the nomination values must be advanced after synchronisation so that the original lowest value entered is equal to 1 and rising. 26. It must be possible to basket for another competition during an ongoing flight. 1 These are "number of entered pigeons" and the "pool matrix" Requirements for electronic recording systems 2006/7 5 Version 3.3, 26 January 2006

27. If pigeons have been entered at home for a race and are basketed for another race, the electronic recording system must refuse this basketing. It is fanciers' own responsibility to prepare for a race. If they make mistakes when doing so, this must not affect the processing of other flights. 28. The clock run must be printed on the arrival report made after the flight. The clock run is defined as the result of synchronising the clock with the DCF 77 signal and this synchronisation must take place in the club. 29. The electronic recording systems must fill the "pigeon-hole number" field (from the UDP format) with values determined by the order of arrival. 30. The value in the pigeon-hole number field must be consecutive, within 1 race and not over several races. 31. Time synchronisation (= starting the "clock") must take place during the first basketing. 32. The "Number of results" and "entered pigeons" fields must be entered as independent data from the pool data for each race. This means that these values can/must be entered if no pooling is done. If no value is entered, a value 0 is entered at level 1 in the "Number of results" field and the "entered pigeons" field is filled with the value of the number of entered pigeons. The betting therefore takes place at this level only. The fields "on/not on Sunday" and "training pigeons Y/N" should only be entered once (per season) and stored independently of the pool data. These values may well have to be changed during a season, although this will happen seldom if at all. The electronic recording system must retain the last value entered until it is changed again. 33. The following applies with regard to continuous recording: the actual time during which a pigeon is recorded may be the clock time, provided that the terminal constitutes the master time. 34. Timing of pigeons should no longer be possible after an arrival report is printed on striking off. To prevent tampering with race data, it must not be possible to "manipulate" race data after striking off. This means that it must not be possible to record after striking off a race. The pigeons basketed for the race ended may however be recorded as training pigeons. 35. There are two permitted methods for validly transferring data present in the continuous recording module to the terminal. 1) All data in the continuous recording module which have been recorded within a maximum time span of 43,200 seconds / counts (=12 hours) as calculated from the disconnection of the terminal should be accepted by the terminal. 2) All data in the continuous recording module which have been recorded within a maximum time span of 21,600 seconds / counts (=6 hours) as calculated from the first record in the terminal should be accepted by the terminal. In a similar way to requirement 34, it must no longer be possible to retain pigeons in the recording module after striking off the race. In order to achieve this, a requirement has been formulated to allow a maximum number of hours within which data may be transferred to the terminal. This can therefore be 12 hours as calculated from the disconnection of the terminal or 6 hours as calculated from the first record in the continuous recording module. The continuous recording module should also read out the secret code from the chip ring and transfer it to the terminal. Requirements for electronic recording systems 2006/7 6 Version 3.3, 26 January 2006

Output 36. It must be indicated in the arrival report which arrival antenna and any continuous recording module has identified the pigeon (e.g. ant. 1, ant. 2, etc.) 37. Pigeons which arrive home with the correct secret code in the chip ring must be indicated by OK in the arrival report. Pigeons wearing a chip ring with a secret code that does not match, must be indicated by NOK and no clock times should be stated on the print-outs or the display. Also, it must not be possible to subsequently identify a pigeon found to be NOK (non-matching secret number) with a chip with the correct secret number. No OK is given when basketing or for pigeons which have not been identified. This pigeon cannot then be added manually to the race afterwards. Manipulation with an identical chip ring is therefore no longer possible. 38. The print-outs (basketing lists and arrival reports) must comply with the NPO regulations and are the same for all electronic recording systems. The maximum number of characters to a line must be limited to 77. 39. The version number of the system software and the unique identifying mark of the continuous recording module must be printed on each print-out. The print-out must state that a pigeon has been continuously recorded and after each continuously recorded pigeon a reference to or the continuous recording module for this pigeon must be printed. 40. The member number, name, race number and coordinates must appear on each page of the printout. Issue of coordinates: 10 places ASCII (VGGMMSS.T0) Key: V = + or sign; GG = Degrees; MM = Minutes;SS = Seconds separator = point; T = tenth of a second and a 0 at the end = zero. At the NPO's request the zero can be replaced by a number at a later date. With effect from the 2006 season the x and y axis will be replaced in the Netherlands by the WGS84 coordinates. Example of coordinates: LATITUDE: +500949.50 and LONGITUDE: +053539.40 in where the Latitude must always appear first on the print-out. 41. Printing at an acceptable speed must be possible for an average type of printer. The output must be compressed as much as possible to minimise the number of pages. 42. The pool matrix is not printed if there is no pooling. The number of entered pigeons and the number of results per level must be printed on the first page. The system must have a minimum of 10 pool levels of 25 pools. Piet van Gils, NPO Secretary and portfolio holder for Electronic Recording Systems. Requirements for electronic recording systems 2006/7 7 Version 3.3, 26 January 2006

Bestandsnaam: ETSrules.4aug06 Map: C:\Documents and Settings\user\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5\EGVPA9KN Sjabloon: C:\Documents and Settings\user\Application Data\Microsoft\Sjablonen\Normal.dot Titel: Requirements for electronic recording systems 2006/7 Onderwerp: Auteur: Peter Trefwoorden: Opmerkingen: Aanmaakdatum: 4-8-2006 14:53 Wijzigingsnummer: 1 Laatst opgeslagen op: 4-8-2006 14:54 Laatst opgeslagen door: Peter Totale bewerkingstijd: 2 minuten Laatst afgedrukt op: 25-10-2006 23:33 Vanaf laatste volledige afdruk Aantal pagina's: 7 Aantal woorden: 3.480 (ong.) Aantal tekens: 17.052 (ong.)