# racing basics



## james_606 (Feb 11, 2007)

Hi everybody,
I'm new here and this is my first post. My local club gave me some older racing birds to breed. I built my loft from the designs available online. This racing idea excites me everyday. I love to just look and watch at this wonderful creatures.

I have found some available pigeon clock on ebay, the older ones. Honestly, even if I have the birds, the loft, the clock I still don't know the exact mechanics of the game.

How does the pigeon clock works? Do I have to watch my birds come home on a estimated time of arrival and catch them and somehow take the racing band off their feet and have my pigeon clock read it? Or certain races only requires new, digital pigeon clock?

Any info will be of help. Thanks.


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## learning (May 19, 2006)

*Lots of Info*

James,

First of all, welcome to Pigeon Talk! The great thing about this site is that if one person can't answer your question, chances are there will be 10 more that will come along that can! I will try to give some basic info to get you started and then some other folks can come along and fill in the holes.

The older style clocks work on a stamp system that is part of the mechanics of the clock. When the birds are shipped to a race, there is a rubber band with a number on it that is placed on the bird's leg. This is called a countermark. At shipping, all of the clocks are lined up and examined by the race secretary to be sure they are all synchronized and in good working order. At that point, the race secretary seals all of the clocks so that if they are openned or tampered with they will know. When the birds come home from the race they are caught by the owner and the rubber countermark is taken off the leg and put in a small capsule. The capsule is put into a small openning on the clock and a handle is turned that activates a mechanical stamp that imprints the exact time on a tape.

When all the birds are back the owners meet back at the clubhouse and the clocks are all openned by the race secretary who verrifies that the stamps and countermarks are valid. Then it is simply a mathmatical formula that is used to figure the fastest bird (usually stated in yards per minute). Fastest bird wins.

Now...with the electronic systems, forget everything I have just said! Modern computers and electronic chips turn all of this into a virtual hands off proceedure. With this method there is an electronic chip in a band that is put on the bird's leg by it's owner. This chip is scanned upon shipping to register the bird in the race. When the bird comes home there is a sensor in the floor of the enterance to the loft that automatically scans the bird's return. The owner never has to touch the bird (much quicker and much less stressful on the bird). Then the information is sent to the club and the computers do all the rest.

This was a *very* brief and simplistic expination but as I said before, there will be plenty of people that can fill in any gaps for me!  Hope this helps.

Dan


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## Lovebirds (Sep 6, 2002)

james_606 said:


> Hi everybody,
> I'm new here and this is my first post. My local club gave me some older racing birds to breed. I built my loft from the designs available online. This racing idea excites me everyday. I love to just look and watch at this wonderful creatures.
> 
> I have found some available pigeon clock on ebay, the older ones. Honestly, even if I have the birds, the loft, the clock I still don't know the exact mechanics of the game.
> ...



James,

Your best bet is to join the club, go to shipping night and watch what is done with the clocks. Then get yourself invited over to someones' house on race day and watch the birds come in. Then go to knockoff whenever that is and see what they do. Old Bird race season is about to start and you can see all the workings of the clock that you want to in the next couple of months. Actually, the clock is the EASY part of racing. It's the birds that you need to concentrate on,....making sure they are healthy and learning all you can about them.
When we first started, all of this was explained to me over and over. I just didn't get it until I actually saw the process. Then the bells went off and it was all very clear.


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## james_606 (Feb 11, 2007)

*clocking*

Thanks a lot Dan, Renee. That's more than enough info.


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## SmithFamilyLoft (Nov 22, 2004)

james_606 said:


> Hi everybody,
> I'm new here and this is my first post. My local club gave me some older racing birds to breed. I built my loft from the designs available online. This racing idea excites me everyday. I love to just look and watch at this wonderful creatures.
> 
> I have found some available pigeon clock on ebay, the older ones. Honestly, even if I have the birds, the loft, the clock I still don't know the exact mechanics of the game.
> ...


 Actually, I would hold off on buying a clock, first of all you will want to figure out how the game works before going out and buying old outdated equipment. 
Our club went electronic, and if a new person showed up to fly, he could borrow one of our old manual clocks. Some clubs even arrange for you to rent a newer electronic version. Anyway before you start buying a bunch of stuff, like the one post suggested meet with the local club first and learn about how the equipment is used etc.


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