Arnie's a winner as pigeons log on

Since he was 15, Arnie Tonks has spent Saturday evenings running around his back garden, trying to catch his racing pigeons.

But now his feathered friends are trained to land on an electronic pad which instantly records their time.

"It used to be a race to catch them and put their rubber rings in the clock, which would record the time they had arrived back after a race," says Arnie, aged 69.

"I have had the new electric system for a year and it is the best thing to have ever happened to pigeon racing.

"I'm not getting any younger and running around after the pigeons was becoming harder for me and my wife Sylvia. The new technology makes things much easier and quicker."

So far, only 90 of the 4,000 Royal Pigeon Racing Association members in the West Midlands have switched to the new technology – with many reluctant to find the £300 minimum outlay for a digital mat.

The system works much better if all members of the same club sign up to it, say association leaders.

But many believe the future of the sport lies with Electronic Timing System, which uses the same technology for chips in cats and dogs as well as the chip in a car key.

Anne Edwards, regional secretary, said:" The system only came out last year and it is taking a while for members to get used to it.

"It is the members who have to take the lead on using it and then it is up to each club to decide if it can provide the facilities."

An ETS system comprises a reader containing a database of the pigeons in one loft, an electronic ring scanner pad that records the arrival of each bird, and chip rings for each bird containing their information.

Each pigeon racing club using the new system has an electronic clocking station.

"With the old system, every Friday night would be spent writing out your race sheet, which included all the information about your birds such as their sex and ring numbers," says Arnie, from Wednesbury.

"Now you have a reader which keeps records of up to 200 pigeons in your loft.

"On Saturday, you take your birds and the reader along to your club. The secretary slots the reader into the master clocking station and then scans the chip on each bird's leg.

"Then in a few seconds your race sheet is printed out.

"As usual, all the birds are taken off in a lorry to their destination and the owners go home and wait for them to fly back into their lofts. When the birds get back now they land on the pad inside the loft and you hear the reader ping with the time the bird has arrived and all their details.

"With the old system you used to go along to the club on a Sunday with your times and the next day you would find out who had won

"Now the club scans all the readers and you know who the winner is before you go home."

Arnie is a member of two pigeon racing clubs at The Goldmine Pub in Ocker Hill which use ETS, and the Kings Arms, at Great Bridge, that sticks to the old system.

"I grew up in West Bromwich and have had pigeons since I was eight years old when I was introduced to it by my uncle Geoff," says Arnie.

Like thousands of others, he used to use the system where rubber rings on the birds' legs are removed and inserted into a pigeon clock to record race times.

"When my pigeons came back to your loft I would have to run after them, take the rubber ring off, put it inside a small plastic cup called a thimble and then slot it into the pigeon clock.

"It was time-consuming and it wasn't nice having to grab the pigeons."

Arnie says it costs between £300 and £800 to have the system. "I started off with a basic system which I won from a pigeon racing competition," says Arnie, who works as a steel window fitter with his son Neil, aged 32.

"But £800 is nothing compared to the £9,000 I have spent on birds over the last few years. I do win a few races and gained £10,800 last year – that's only just enough to pay the costs.

"Before the Electronic Timing System,, the biggest leap in technology for pigeon fanciers was the car, as before that we used to have to sit on the train with a basket full of pigeons.

"As a boy, I would cycle to Kidderminster with them and then try and race them back home. Of course, I never won."