PS-1200 Electronic Start Sound Generator

The PS-1200 is a discontinued electronic starting device for competitive swimming made by Seiko. It generated the start signal sound and an alarm sound electronically and sent the start signal to the printing timer at the same time, and Seiko listed it as conforming to FINA rules and as Japan Swimming Federation Class AA and Class A.¹ It is the earliest generation of the company’s swimming start sound generator that can be documented, and it was replaced by the much smaller PS-1300.²³ This article is a starting point; the start-systems overview covers the shared background that applies to every starter.

Naming and product line¶

The Japanese name is 電子式スタート音発生装置, “electronic start sound generator”, the same name Seiko has applied to all three generations of the swimming unit.

The PS-1200 no longer appears on any Seiko page or in any current catalogue, and Seiko publishes no discontinued-product listing for it, unlike the PS-1300 that followed it. It is documented here from archived copies of Seiko’s own product index and swimming catalogue, which is the only surviving first-party source.¹⁴

Those archives place it as the listed generator from at least 19 December 2007 to at least 8 June 2013, after which the PS-1300 had replaced it by the next surviving snapshot of 20 October 2014.⁴²³ The earliest archived copy of any Seiko sports page dates from 2007, so the start of the PS-1200’s service life is not established and it may well be older.

The certification line on the archived page reads 国際水泳連盟（FINA）ルール適合 and （財）日本水泳連盟AA級/A級公認 in the 2009 snapshot, where the current PS-1300 listing reads 世界水泳連盟（World Aquatics）ルール適合 and （公財）日本水泳連盟.¹⁵ The wording is not a reliable guide to when either product was sold, because Seiko revised it at its own pace: the last PS-1200 snapshot, from 2013, already carries （公財）, and the first PS-1300 snapshot, from 2014, still carries the older FINA wording.²³ The changes track edits to the pages rather than the generations of equipment.

The archived index shows what the PS-1200 was listed alongside. In 2007 that was the PT-7000 printing timer, manufactured 1998 to 2010, the DHS-2000 high-speed video system, touch plates, starting blocks, lane boxes, a battery and charger, connector boxes, an underwater lap display system, a light-stimulus start signal system, a pacemaker and a results network system.⁴⁶ By the 2013 snapshot the timer alongside it was the PT-8000 and the video system the DHS-3000.²

Design and hardware¶

The PS-1200 is a substantially larger machine than anything that followed it. It measures about 380 W × 700 H × 380 D mm excluding protrusions and weighs about 30 kg, running from a small sealed lead battery of DC 12 V and 20 Ah.¹ At 700 mm tall it is a floor-standing unit rather than something carried onto the deck by hand.

The archived product page carries no pistol entry, but the pistol is named elsewhere. The operating manual for Seiko’s portable PS-110 lists the equipment it cannot be connected to, and identifies the PF-125 starter pistol as the one belonging to the Electronic Start Sound Generator PS-1200.⁷ No specifications for that pistol are published. Later generations do publish pistol figures, but those must not be read back onto this unit.

Operation¶

Seiko’s description is the same sentence it would go on using for the PS-1300 and the PS-1400: the unit generates the start signal sound and an alarm sound electronically and at the same time sends the start signal to the printing timer; because no propellant is involved there are no misfires and no smoke, unlike a powder pistol; and the start sound can be selected from two types.¹

Audio¶

The archived page says nothing at all about the PS-1200’s own speaker, and Seiko publishes no amplifier rating, sound pressure level or speaker-output count for it.¹

The company did publish those figures for the athletics counterpart, the PS-1200TR, on its former traditional-Chinese site, and they are the only amplifier ratings published anywhere in this family. That unit shares the DC 12 V 20 Ah sealed lead-acid battery and carries a built-in amplifier rated at up to 60 W into 1 Ω with a combined impedance of about 4 Ω, an external amplifier output also rated at up to 60 W into 1 Ω, an operating range of -10 to +40 °C non-condensing, audio and start-contact inputs, and start signal, alarm contact, audio and start-contact outputs. An optional SP-1200 loudspeaker extended the system.⁸ These are the athletics variant’s figures and should not be attributed to the swimming unit.

The same page states the acoustic principle these systems are built on: the electronic start sound is delivered through loudspeakers so that it reaches every competitor simultaneously.⁸ The start-systems overview covers that principle and the governing-body requirements built on it.

Compared with the PS-1300¶

The move to the PS-1300 halved the equipment. The battery dropped from 20 Ah to 17 Ah, the weight from about 30 kg to about 14.5 kg, and the height from about 700 mm to 203 mm, turning a floor-standing cabinet into a unit that can be carried.¹⁵ The published width and depth changed less, from about 380 by 380 mm to 264 by 390 mm.¹⁵

Seiko does not describe what changed internally, and the description text and the selectable-sound count stayed the same across the two generations, so the size reduction is the only documented difference.

Specifications¶

Part number	PS-1200
Power	Small sealed lead battery, DC 12 V, 20 Ah
Dimensions	Approx. 380 W × 700 H × 380 D mm (excluding protrusions)
Weight	Approx. 30 kg
Start sounds	Two, selectable
Certifications	FINA rules; Japan Swimming Federation Class AA and Class A

Seiko published no specifications for the PF-125 pistol, and no output wattage, sound pressure level, speaker-output count, connector type, operating temperature range or battery runtime for this unit, and no instruction manual for it survives in the company’s manual index.⁹

See also¶

• PS-1300 Electronic Start Sound Generator: the smaller successor
• PS-1400 Electronic Start Sound Generator: the current generation
• Seiko Electronic Starting System: the portable cross-sport starter from the same manufacturer
• Start systems: the start-system overview and governing-body requirements
• Seiko: the manufacturer
• Equipment: the wider equipment reference

References¶

Footnotes¶

1. Internet Archive, Seiko swimming products index, 18 April 2009 snapshot (PS-1200 description, certification line and specification table). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸

2. Internet Archive, Seiko swimming products index, 8 June 2013 snapshot (last snapshot listing the PS-1200). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

3. Internet Archive, Seiko swimming products index, 20 October 2014 snapshot (first snapshot listing the PS-1300). ↩ ↩² ↩³

4. Internet Archive, Seiko swimming products index, 19 December 2007 snapshot (earliest surviving listing of the PS-1200). ↩ ↩² ↩³

5. Seiko Time Creation, PS-1300 (discontinued-product listing). ↩ ↩² ↩³

6. Seiko Time Creation, PT-7000 (製造時期 1998年～2010年). ↩

7. Seiko Time Creation, Electronic Starting System PS-110 Operating Manual, section 2-1 (naming the PF-125 pistol as belonging to the PS-1200). ↩

8. Internet Archive, Seiko PS-1200TR, 18 August 2016 snapshot (the athletics counterpart, with amplifier ratings and the optional SP-1200 loudspeaker). ↩ ↩²

9. Seiko Time Creation, manual index (the data behind the 取扱説明書 download page; its swimming category holds only SB-5010 and SB-5020). ↩