Select to expand quote
Aus501 Boz said..Boardsurfr/sailquick, I have found this discussion most interesting from a tech point (maybe not the bickering

) .
I went back to see how some of my previous data would look applying the above SDOP value of 1 for the 5Hz devices using Speedreader as per Sailquicks comment above (Excellent tool by the way).
What I discovered was a downgrade on one of my 2sec 40knt runs to 37knts due to the 40knt run 5 Hz SDOP not meeting the criteria of SDOP 1. All other 2 Sec runs that I checked where well within as I changed from the 5Hz device (watch stopped working) to the GT31 and the Mini Motion and no issues with the remainder of the 40+knot runs.
I suppose it begs the question if one software uses SDOP value of 1 then all software would require to be set like this otherwise we are not comparing apples with apples. Anyways I'm no techy and really only looking at my own data so thanks for the discussions you are having on this subject it's actually made me take a closer look and get a better understanding of our very interesting and exiting sport.
Screen shot of the default settings versus changing the SDOP to 1
Boz, that's an excellent example of why we need to treat u-blox (Motion and prototype) data differently from Locosys (GW60) data. The units use different GPS chip types which compute the error estimates differently.
Julien had initially suggested to lower the threshold for Motion data to 1 knot, since u-blox (but
not Locosys!) with an error estimate above 1.0 knots are poor quality. To get a quick idea what the effect of this would be, I analyzed a collection of 94 recent Motion files from ka72.com, looking only at data above 20 knots that did not trigger any of the default filters.
13 of the 94 Motion files had points with an accuracy estimate (sAcc) between 1.0 and 4.0 knots that would be filtered by increasing the threshold. 4 were from one "bad" unit; if we exclude this unit, that leaves 9 out of 90 files from 9 different units.
2 files had a maximum sAcc of 3.0 and 3.96. The other 11 had sAcc values below 1.3.
In the file with the highest sAcc (3.96), the newly filtered points with appeared to be in a crash, and therefore should be filtered:

Note that the sAcc values are increasing slowly, and that the speed remains constant for multiple stretches. This is quite typical for u-blox data in crashes. Based on the drop in satellites tracked, the crash seems to have happened around point 13069.
The next example is interesting:

There is a pretty long region with sAcc values above 1, but below 1.5, in the middle of a run. Here's the entire track:

The is a period of about 20 minutes where the sAcc values are much higher than usual, even during runs. Otherwise, the Motion used here has typical accuracy, as shown by the +- estimates for the 10 seconds.
One possible explanation for this is that during these ~20 minutes, the Motion armband had moved, and was pointing downward. But there may also be other explanations. Reducing the sAcc filter threshold from 4 knots to 1 knot, as sailquik had suggested, reduces the speeds for 1 hour and nautical mile, and cuts about 9 km from the distance.
Here is another example from a different GPS unit:

Again, there are many sAcc values between 1.0 and 1.5 within a run. This time, the track contained a period of about 7 minutes where the accuracy was low. The second-fastest 10 second run was during this period and is filtered out by the more stringent filter threshold, so lowering the sAcc filter threshold to 1.0 knots reduces 5x10 seconds, in addition to hour and nautical mile results.
Of the 6 other files which had points with sAcc values between 1.02 and 1.3, only one had a crash as the cause. The others showed a varying number of points with sAcc just above 1.0, generally no more than 2-3 points in a row. Filtering these points would only have a significant effect on results if they happen to be in the top 2 second or 10 second runs.
To summarize: reducing the SDOP/sAcc filter threshold from 4.0 to 1.0 affected about 10% of the files (if we exclude a "bad" unit). In a small subset of cases, the stricter threshold eliminated artifact speeds in crashes. In a similar amount of cases, it eliminated larger portions of a session where (probably) the arm band moved so the Motion was partially blocked by the arm and body. In the majority of cases where the stricter filter eliminated points, the effect was rather small.