I tried my first ascent on a single line today after picking up my Pantin at Vermeer. I wanted to try out something I've been thinking about for a week or so. I used the Pantin on my ankle, and tied in to the single line with a Distal using Ultra Tech line. Instead of a tender pulley, I used a Mini-Traxion. It fit nicely on a Petzl Williams biner. When weighting my hitch, the Mini-Traxion took the weight. This kept my hitch from locking up but it was still in place in case anything happened to the Mini-Traxion.
I tried two variations. One with the hitch and M-T attached to my belt, and one with that biner connected to my belt via a 26" strap. Using the strap kept the ascender and hitch out of my way, but required more time to tie in once at the top.
I found that the M-T must be removed to descend. The lever to lock it open tends to slip when descending, and it will shred your rope. But hopefully this method will give me an easier option when faced with a tall tree to ascend. I've never been able to footlock and this is a LOT easier than air-humping. I'm usually too tired to do much work after air-humping 60'.
The biggest restriction that I see right now to actually working off of SRT is that your friction hitch is carrying ALL your weight instead of only half like in a traditional system. More money for more equipment would be necessary for ME to match the control I have in a traditional system. In a split tail system, the friction hitch takes the most abuse and is the 'weak link' in my mind. Using tiny hitch cord means more heat has to dissapate in a smaller area. My hitch gets MUCH hotter than when I used the single rope with 3' tail (old fashioned) method. Doubling the load on a friction hitch would make the system unacceptable, unless alternate methods were used to control descent.
Looks like I still have a lot more to learn!