I actually used my tachymetre!

kgb · Feb 27, 2020

Right now riding the TGV through French countryside and wondering my speed. iPhone gps not working at all on my or wife’s phone. But noticed white marks on the adjacent rail cross ties flying by at an exact interval. Probably every tenth km. So timing a count of ten of them gave me consistently 250-260 km/hr. Later when going faster it looks like 290-300!

I don’t like features that pretend to be functional but are really just decorative ( or fake.) Happily the tachymetre has now moved into the genuine functional category for me.

Speedmaster 3592.50

cgaites · Feb 27, 2020

Nice.

I too try my best to actually make use of every feature of my watches. The chronograph has many obvious day-to-day uses (e.g. tracking how long the parking meter has left), but the tachymetre less so. So far I’ve managed to use it just once when I took my car to a “track day”. While I was too scared to take my hands off the wheel during my own laps, I did time several cars in the other run group as they covered a marked quarter mile on one of the track’s straights. I had to divide the tachymetre readings by 4, but the resultant ~80 mph estimated speeds seemed reasonable given what I knew about the tracks length and typical lap times.

Feels good to use these watches as intended even if it is just for fun.

dougwhiz · Feb 27, 2020

Nice watch! The scale gives you "units" per hour, so it has a multitude of uses when timing things. But I don't end up using it regularly. I found more use for a telemeter scale as a kid, so I could time the interval between the lightning flash and thunder and know the distance.

I actually used my tachymetre!

kgb

cgaites

dougwhiz

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