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Reviews For: Gymboss Recurring Timer

Category: Ham Shack Clocks

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Review Summary For : Gymboss Recurring Timer
Reviews: 1MSRP: 20
Description:
The Gymboss is a small, easy-to-use, dual-mode, interval timer.
Product is in production
More Info: http://www.gymboss.com/
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
0015
WD4MTW Rating: 2009-02-13
Excellent Identification Timer Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Remember when most amateur radio lines featured a station console that integrated several useful station accessories in one cabinet? Most common of these features included a station 24hr clock,SWR meter,phone patch,and a simple R/C identification timer that fired a warning sound and often some visual indicator around 10 minutes. During the 70's digital clock LSI's spawned an entire subindusty of clocks and clock kits. Most notable of the features was a 3 or 4 digit countdown timer option that could be wired to sound an alarm at recurring rate. That was ideal for net control stations or long rag chews, as you can visually see how much time is left before the next ID. Once the LCD clocks dominated the market and the offerings from Mostek and National vanished, there has been little in the way of suitable station clocks with a true ID timer that wasn't based on a snooze timer as an afterthought. Nobody in the past 25 years that I could find has made a general purpose timer that doesn't stop at zero or just keep counting. Looking into specialized interval timers, I found some that were suitable for sports,fitness and therapy, but in one way or another wouldn't work as set once and forget ID timer. Well, thanks to Gymboss, here's the first time I found one that fulfils the basic needs of an countdown ID timer elegantly with a simple interface that programmed once, is perfect as useful station accessory. One button operation is all that's needed to start,stop,and reset an alarm cycle. You can set the timer up for 9:59 or 10:00 minutes, choose the loudness of the alarm or vibrate silently only or both. Another useful feature is that the timer even keeps a count of the alarm repetitions. The programming is so intuitive, you don't even need the manual sheet. It's small and looks like a pager complete with belt clip. It's hard to decribe any cons as there is nothing out there short of dedicated PC software that can do this. The only comparison that I can make is with my old Heathkit SB-634 station console that had a similar countdown feature. This works even better.