Megalink or Sius?

[Rune Kanstad]

My club in North Norway has decided to invest in electronic targets on our air pistol range. The big question is: Sius or Megalink?

We will be buying optical targets, which both manufacturers can offer. And we have no reason to believe that one has better (or worse) accuracy than the other. So the deciding factor will probaly be ease of operation and how good the user interface is. The difference in price is too small to be the deciding factor.

Hopefully, some of you have the knowledge and experience to steer us in the right direction...

[m1963]

Geetings-

both are good systems. I have shot on, and serviced, both. I have also seen both systems mishandled and continue to work. Currently using SIUS. When making your decision I would consider the availability of support, above all. The CMP, in the US, recently switched to Kongsberg targets, which is a Norwegian company, like Megalink. The Kongsberg targets seem to be robust, although I have had limited use with them. It is likely that a local company such as Kongsberg or Megalink would provide the best support.

http://www.kongsberg-ts.no/en/

Here is a link about the same thing-
http://www.targettalk.org/viewtopic.php?t=43991

Cheers!
m1963

[Christopher Miceli]

Sius hybrid the way to go. I know the ones the Cmp use are not Issf legal

[j danielsson]

Meyton. That's it.

[brucef]

We have SUIS in my former club, Brisbane, Australia. Well made targets but the software is not very user friendly. (Maybe it is the German to English translations.) Seems to have a mind of its own at times, especially if you need to sort out malfunctions or reload or change a competitor list if something need alteration. The shots are all recorded somewhere in the system but often it is a bit of an excercise getting it to show up on the screens correctly - especially if you have the 'overall placings' screen running. Can't say if Megalink are any better, just do your research as far as ease of use is concerned. Thanks Bruce

[proneshooter]

Megalink is easy to use and very robust. In eight years running sixteen points my only problems have been shot wires. Megalink Live is great and the match software works. Local displays have many options for viewing a match.

[Hemmers]

Sius hybrid the way to go. I know the ones the Cmp use are not Issf legal

Unless you're planning on running a World Cup or World Championship...? Who cares? Get the system that's right for your range and for which solid local support is available.

We have SUIS in my former club, Brisbane, Australia. Well made targets but the software is not very user friendly. (Maybe it is the German to English translations.) Seems to have a mind of its own at times, especially if you need to sort out malfunctions or reload or change a competitor list if something need alteration.

Yes, they've got better, but it's telling of their origins.

Sius were contracted to develop a scoring system for the Olympics when it became apparent that waiting for fanfold targets to be collected and scored was no longer appropriate for media/television.
As a result, their system was always function-first. A team from Sius would show up and run the electronics for the organisers. The organisers give them a start list and receive a list of scores back. It didn't need to be user-friendly when it was only designed for a team of factory engineers to run.

The likes of Megalink and Meyton on the other hand were always orienting themselves at the Club market because Sius had that monopoly contract with the ISSF tied up through to 2020. The Meyton and Megalink interfaces have thus always been oriented at letting non-specialists jump in relatively easily, and this is shown by Meyton's dominance in Germany where a majority of ranges run Meyton. It also shows in the hardware decisions - such as Meyton running their interface as a simple web service that you access through a browser rather than dedicated software - so a club can buy the targets and run them using £40 commodity tablets instead of having to buy dedicated firing point monitors for £££.

It's very much designed to allow casual club usage rather than organised competitions with a networked infrastructure and a team in the control room (though they'll do that as well if you want to set them up like that).

[Rune Kanstad]

ISSF legal would be a valid concern for us, because the Norwegian Shooting Federation would not sanction matches shot on non-approved targets. And all our matches are sanctioned. But with the current products being offered by Sius and Megalink that is not a problem. And we will definitely buy the latest models, no point in spending money on yesterday's technology!

[ChipEck]

SIUS+1

Chip