Altitron

Awful experience with my Altitron, avoid.

My altimeter has never been very reliable and it went crazy after only 8 months and started to reset to 0ft randomly, even while I was on the plane. Ironically when you try to reset the altitude on the ground it never works and you have to waste many minutes pushing buttons and hoping for the best.

Awful customer service from Parasport took almost 3 months to replace my faulty unit and the new one shows the same issues of the first one.

I wish I never bought it.

I started my AFF course and most of my JM’s jumped with a Viso II and suggested that unit to me. I started looking into the altimeters available and the Altitron caught my eye for many reasons.
I LOVE no decimals. The big display is fantastic while in free fall. While on the ground unit is a clock. While in transit up to altitude at about 250' unit turns into altimeter. Have not read any comments about this but it tracks your time to altitude nice added feature. I have the finger mount which I find to be very comfortable and easy to wear and very easy to see during free fall. I really love this unit! I have around 62 jumps with this unit I can only compare it to an Alti 2 but I would not trade this unit for anything else. I wear an Optima II audible and the two are very close to each other while at altitude while coming back down. I have also compared it to the Viso II that are in the aircraft with me. They are all in a couple of feet of each other.
The directions are very difficult to understand. I was on the phone with the person I purchased the unit from and it took her and I almost two hours to figure out how to get the unit to work. Once you get it figured out it is very easy to use all the controls and features.
I have had two failures so far. One time it did not record my jump at all. Another time it had some really messed up information. I had a speed of like 300mph and my exit altitude was 1000’ some feet. Not sure what happened. I reset everything and I have jumped fifty more times with no more issues.
I really LOVE the logbook feature. Records I believe up to 300 jumps. At the same time not sure how accurate the deploy altitude is. It seems it is recording deploy altitude as the altitude you get under full or near full canopy not when you actually deploy. Records exit altitude, deploy altitude, free fall time, max free fall speed, Ave. free fall speed, Temperature, time under canopy, and max speed under canopy. It also has an over all history that shows your highest exit altitude, lowest deploy altitude, and max speed. If you have 0 or thousands of jumps you can set unit up to start tracking your jumps.
Over all I would recommend this unit to anyone. My unit takes one AAA battery so no problem finding one. Replacing that battery SUCKS. Wish it were easier to change the mounting system as well. The positives far out way the negatives so far. Again I have I think sixty some jumps with this unit with the two issues. I will always wear a second altimeter whether an audible or a chest mount no matter what unit I am wearing on my wrist. I am not concerned about this unit failing anytime soon. If you are looking at this unit and have questions feel free to ask and I will do my best to answer them for you. Thinking about making a youtube video to help people with setting the unit up so they don’t have the troubles I had when I first got it. BLUE SKIES!

I work professionally and wanted a digital with better bigger display. I have used 3 Viso's. They last about 2000 jumps however display size is an issue with the 6000' and 5000' altitudes. Viso reliability is excellent. Both of the Altitrons I have used (one was replaced shortly after breaking, broke as a consequence of being dropped onto carpet covered cement floors. They are a nice unit with plenty of potential however the display is very fragile and breaks easily.

I bought this Item a few years ago, after 6 months it stopped showing the time when i was on the ground and on the way to altitude, it wasn't working, i would have to hit the middle button when we took off for it to work but altitude was never correct. I sent it back to Para-sport to fix which they did but again im in the usa and they are in Italy, took 2 months to send and receive the item back b/c of customs and mail to Italy, Customer service was good and they provided me with a wrist strap at my request, which was nice. 6 months later i was at altitude and the altimeter stopped working and turned off, 2nd time it happened. the battery should last 2 years due to low energy saver but i dont beleive it was the battery. I contacted Para-sport and they asked me to send it back, i haven't sent it back b/c i want to jump with it again to see if a new battery will correct the issue,if not i'm asking for my money back. i wouldn't recommend this item due to my issues but it could have been just with my unit.

Got mine earlier this year and I absolutely LOVE IT! The negative reviews here must have been written for older models as mine takes a standard AAA battery, is extremely durable, and the lighted display works just fine :-) My favorite feature is no decimals! The full altitude reads out so it says 13562 instead of 13.5. I use mine in conjunction with the parasport NeoXS audible, which I also love

All you need is a penny and two 2032 batteries drop the penny in first. and your sky will be blue once again!!

Try batteries plus

APRIL 2008: Just tried to buy 2040 Lithium coin batteries for this altimeter.
Out of production permanently, no drop in substitute available. Guess I will have to make an adapter for some other sized batteries. BUMMER!!!! (a day later...) Well, making and "adapter" is not so hard, Just drop in two 2032 cells and a wad of scrunched up aluminum foil on top to make contact between the top cell and the metal screw-on cover. Mickey Mouse solution, especially for something as critical as your altimeter, but it seems to work OK.
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Ok, where to start. I bought mine used cheap so someone didnt care for it. I like it. It is very easy to interpret the LCD pie wedge display. Since it is set up like a clock you dont really need to see the numerals on the edge, since you know that up is 12, down is 6 etc, but still the numbers are very hard to see. It has a programmable alt alert function that flashes the entire display at whatever alt you set the alarm for. It is very easy to set the alarm and the flashing alert really catches your atention for breakoff or deploy or whatever. The plastic inner edge of the black part surrounding the lens is getting a bit tattered on mine, but no big deal. I like altimeters and always wear a couple. This is one that catches people's attention as few have seen one. It works well, seems accurate, doent burn up batts fast. I think it may be out of production, but they are still turning up used. Buy one, they are fun and work fine. It is not good for night jumping as it has no backlight. It is funny that the designers go from analog pressure sensing to digital LCD segment driving and then display the energized segments not as numbers but in a radial graphic manner that sort of simulates an analog dial display but in an unusual manner where they display altitude as a pie slice of changing angular dimension. Those Italians, style style style.

I got a used Altron for cheap, should have known something was up then. The functions on the alti were a pain to get started up since the buttons did'nt always work right. Its extremly large for its limited functions.

The final straw came when the posts that the battery cover down broke off the soder on the circuit board.

I am glad I got it for so cheap or else I would have felt even more ripped off.

Everyone at Perris asks me about my altimeter.

It has an operating range of 20K feet, is very easy to read in freefall and has protrack features like exit/deployment altitudes.

Not much more expensive than an analog altimeter and more reliable because it's self calibrating with no moving parts!

One thing I don't recommend is using this altimeter on a night jump, the display is not "high contrast" enough to be visible in the dark, even with a mini glow stick taped to the side.

Use an audible if you are jumping at night, I didn't have one at the time so I got to count and pull, it was a very interesting experience!

All in all, it is very reliable!

I'm a happy owner of this altimeter. Altitude is the easiest to check, you can just take a QUICK look at the "pie" . It also has some pro-track features, like exit and opening altitudes. I would recommend Altitron to everyone (in the matter of fact I even convinced my dad to buy one for himself !).
Blue ones