How to Use a Watch Chronograph Part 2 | The Tachymeter

Video Transcription

In another video we previously covered the very basics on “How to use a Chronograph”. So, let’s take a minute and delve a little deeper and how to use a chronograph bezel. The most common bezel we see on a chronograph is the tachymeter. A tachymeter is essentially a scale used in conjunction with the chronograph to take elapsed time and convert it to speed. And we’re going to look at two ways in which you can use the tachymeter. The most common way, and that’s measuring average speed. But we’re also going to show you how to measure distance.

How to Measure Speed – OMEGA Speedmaster “First OMEGA in Space”

To measure speed, we need to work with a set distance, and it’s probably easiest to do this on a highway with mile marker. Go ahead and start the chronograph when you pass a mile marker, and then stop the chronograph when you pass the next mile marker. The chronograph hand will be pointing to the average speed you were traveling. If we take a second to look at the bezel, we can see that if we stopped the chronograph right at a minute it would mean we were traveling 60 miles per hour, or one mile a minute. And if for some reason it only took us 25 seconds to go one mile you could see we’d be traveling 144 miles per hour. Now you’re probably not going to be traveling at this speed any time soon, but you get the idea.

How to Measure Distance

Another really cool feature to the tachymeter is the ability to measure distance. This only works if your speed is constant. So, let’s say you’re on the highway with cruise control set at 80 miles per hour. Go ahead and start the chronograph, and when the second hand gets to 80 on the bezel, stop the chronograph. Notice that it took 45 seconds. This means that you are going one mile every 45 seconds. So, if we have 30 miles left to go, and we did some simple math. We would know we roughly had 23 minutes until we arrived.

1 Mile = 45 Seconds | 30 (Miles) x 45 (Seconds per mile) = 1,350 Seconds or 22.5 Minutes

These are two of the more common ways that you can use a tachymeter. And there are plenty of other ways that you can use the device, however not all chronographs have tachymeters.

Ball Pulsometer

Some chronographs are equipped with scales like the pulsometer and the telemeter. Let us know inventive ways that you use the tachymeter, and if you enjoy content like this, subscribe to our channel, and thanks for watching.