Arun Gupta, Miles to go ...

Arun Gupta is a technology enthusiast, a passionate runner, and a community guy who works for Sun Microsystems.

« Previous day (Jun 6, 2007) | Main | Next day (Jun 8, 2007) »

Thursday June 07, 2007

Polar F11 and Electro Magnetic Interference

Last Sunday, right before I was about to start my PG&E run @ Rancho San Antonio I started the monitor on my Polar F11 wrist watch. But instead of starting the counter in a normal way, it just started emitting a shrieking sound. And it will NOT stop. If you are familiar with Polar F11, it has 5 visible controls. I tried pressing all of them in all possible combinations and it will not go away. It was audible to the level of disturbing during the run, to me and to others. Since I was not able to deal with the sound in any apparent manner and wanted to get done with my run sooner, I decided to drop the monitor in the car and started running without it.

All along the run, I had no clue about my timing. I used it to my advantage and instead took a detour through Upper Wildcat Canyon trail which is very beautiful and much more shaded. After I reached my car back I realized that the noise level has not reduced at all. I checked the manual for the symptoms after reaching home but it does not mention a clue about it. I took it to a nearby REI store and they had no clue either. They told me to contact to REI customer support and hide the clock away until then. This anyway was my last resort as well.

So the watch was hidden in the garage they whole Sunday to keep the noise level low. Luckily, Polar customer service opens up at 5:45am PT. I called them before Monday morning run and they told me to hold all the visible buttons together for 10 seconds. And voila, that reset the watch and the sound went away!

The customer service rep suspected it might have been caused by the electro-magnetic interference. I've used this watch multiple times on the exact same route but something was different that day