mediawonk Posted January 19, 2008 Report Share Posted January 19, 2008 If the Rolex Daytona is themed around the race track ...Why does it have a 'units per hour' gage round the bezel ? isint this for diving. Somebody help before I get confused and blow up? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yellomen Posted January 19, 2008 Report Share Posted January 19, 2008 It's a tachymeter scale which is indeed for racing... at the starting point you press start and exactly after 100m you can stop the chronograph and see on the tachymeter scale how hard you where driving... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gioarmani Posted January 19, 2008 Report Share Posted January 19, 2008 The bezel tachy is used to clock speed, on a distance of one mile, only. So the numbers on the bezel actually represent MPH (miles per hour), just like the speedometer on your dashboard. If the distance between point A & point B on a track (be it for horses or cars) is exactly 1 mile, the second the moving object you're timing passes point A, you start the chronograph--the second the moving object passes point B, you stop the chronograph. Wherever the large second hand on the chronograph stops (on the bezel), is the exact MPH the object was traveling. In the picture below, a car clocked on the track between points A & B, appears to be traveling 160 MPH: An easier example would be, if you're driving at 60 MPH, you're traveling 1 mile for every minute. Which is why the 60 is at the top of the bezel, at the 12 o'clock position--if it took a full 60 second rotation of the chronograph hand between points A & B--the time to travel exactly one mile--then you're going exactly 60 miles per hour. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
McRae Posted January 19, 2008 Report Share Posted January 19, 2008 Not an expert, but it's not just MPH?! Isn't that the reason for "units per hour", i.e. if you do the measurements in kilometers, then you get KM/H instead, or?! Cheers, Mac Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mediawonk Posted January 19, 2008 Author Report Share Posted January 19, 2008 (edited) The bezel tachy is used to clock speed, on a distance of one mile, only. So the numbers on the bezel actually represent MPH (miles per hour), just like the speedometer on your dashboard. If the distance between point A & point B on a track (be it for horses or cars) is exactly 1 mile, the second the moving object you're timing passes point A, you start the chronograph--the second the moving object passes point B, you stop the chronograph. Wherever the large second hand on the chronograph stops (on the bezel), is the exact MPH the object was traveling. In the picture below, a car clocked on the track between points A & B, appears to be traveling 160 MPH: An easier example would be, if you're driving at 60 MPH, you're traveling 1 mile for every minute. Which is why the 60 is at the top of the bezel, at the 12 o'clock position--if it took a full 60 second rotation of the chronograph hand between points A & B--the time to travel exactly one mile--then you're going exactly 60 miles per hour. Thanks! It all makes perfect sense now. Sheeez Im glad I joined this forum as you guys know it all. I have always wondered about that bezel. Why also have you got a picture of my wife in bed on your signature. ? My vintage starts measuring in that case after fifteen seconds only as the units per hour start at tha crown unlike your more modern version. Edited January 19, 2008 by mediawonk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
POTR Posted January 24, 2008 Report Share Posted January 24, 2008 Ummm... depends on the unit of measure between A and B... if A is 1 Kilometer from B then, travelling from A to B in 60 seconds is 60 K/PH That is why it says UNITS. As an aside, there have been a couple of watches where the idiot engineers/designers at famous watch companies have actually gone to the trouble to do a "Dual Speed" bezel, where they went to extremes to put K/PH and M/PH measurements on the bezel together... the only problem is that if you are measuring K over time the bezel is WRONG... because the bezel converts M to K, not vice-versa (it would take 4 sets of numbers + hiding half depending on what the base measurement is for this to actually work) and no one thought about that before spending all the money on the development, tooling, marketing, production and delivery of said watches. That is the REAL reason why it should be UNITS. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
POTR Posted January 24, 2008 Report Share Posted January 24, 2008 The vintage bezel that starts after "3" @ 200, is usually called the "200 Bezel"... and if you take longer than a minute to get from A to B then it will show how slow you are down to 50 X/ph. The Gen '200 Bezel' watches are rare, and therefore, desirable, and... expensive. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gioarmani Posted January 24, 2008 Report Share Posted January 24, 2008 Very true about mph or kph--my frame of reference is American, and we weren't smart enough to learn the metric system. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
POTR Posted January 24, 2008 Report Share Posted January 24, 2008 I was reminded by a buddy that Tissot (Swatch Group) made this historic screw-up in the other direction (K to M) recently as well... Not once... But TWICE... See what I mean when I talk about Swatch Group, and the LOVERLY things they end up screwing up with what were once QUALITY brands... Maybe this will help clarify... Check out indicator at 3 and go a countin' by 5's with me... 5 10 15 25 20... yup... that there is HIGH QUALITY QUALITY CONTROL... Man, do I HATE SWATCH. Back to bezels though... what about this wild thing? What in the hell is this bastard measuring with the bezel? Especially with no hands to indicate? As far as regional frame of reference, I'm from Kentucky, and never had a problem with the metric system. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gioarmani Posted January 24, 2008 Report Share Posted January 24, 2008 That last piece couldn't get any tackier. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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