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Laser Rangefinder for Calibration Course Measurement
A thread of posts on the Road Course measurement Bulletin Board reports experiments in using The Bosch GLM250 VF laser rangefinder to measure calibration courses.
In order to be able to point the laser accurately at a target I found it necessary to use a mount which has slow motion adjustment knobs. Ordinary camera alt-az mounts where not steady enough since they flex during adjustment, making exact fine pointing difficult.
I purchased a telescope equatorial mount, which was on a very sturdy tripod, and this worked very well. However, I found the tripod rather inconvenient to transport. Also set up took some minutes, which discouraged me from measuring calibration courses longer than the instruments maximum range of 250 metres since moving the tripod would take time.
I therefore devised a new mounting arrangement on the back of my bike:
The bike's kick stand holds the bike very steady. It is easy to ride or wheel the bike along the calibration course taking readings as required. when one has finished laser rangefinding the equipment packs fairly neatly into the pannier bag. The advantage of this system is that it is very quick to set up and measure a 250 metre calibration course.
