Question about my Polar F4

[Worknprogress]

I am an outdoor runner but in my old age I am getting wimpy about the outside temperature. A couple of days ago it was too nippy to run so I decided to go to the gym and use the treadmill.

I am going along, everything fine and dandy, then a woman gets on the treadmill next to me. After that my monitor was doing strange things like staying at the same number, the little beating heart was beating weirdly and it knocked out the HR read on the treadmill.

Dumb question, but is this what they call cross talking? She did have a monitor on, don't know which one but it really made me frustrated.

It wasn't giving me the low battery message or anything. That's all I can think of or is it something else?

 

[RunninTeach]

Debbie,
It hasn't happened to me before, but I do think that's probably what it was.

 

[sancho]

Hopefully someone more in the know will post. But when I was researching which Polar to buy recently, I got confused on the website, so I called Polar cust. service. The guy "interviewed" me to figure out which one I should get. His first question was "will you be using the HR moniter around other people that have HR moniters?" I said yes and then he steered me to the F6.

So, I think your assumption is probably right. You could call Polar to see if there is anything you can do to avoid this problem.

 

[syzygy314]

I think you can upgrade to a better receiver that blocks other signals. It's a coded transmitter. It's about $50 or so on Amazon.

 

[NinjaMom]

I have the F4 and if I'm not mistaken, the F4 comes with a non-coded transmitter (chest strap) which can pick up crosstalk from other HRM/electronic devices. As you found out, crosstalk can make your HRM go haywire. If you are a regular gym goer, you might want to purchase a coded transmitter which will work with your F4 watch and eliminate crosstalk.

 

[Ronne]

I just got one this week so I've been reading the instructions. In the troubleshooting section, it says something about heartrate disappearing, etc. and it can come from picking up signals from other people's monitors.
Sounds like that's what happened to you!