Hey folks:
Not sure if this is the right forum or group for this, so please either a) change it if you're an administrator or b) understand that i didn't know where else to put it (if you're a reader).
Did a couple of dives VERY far offshore this past weekend, and had a guy on my boat that had one of those wireless computers that monitors everything, including the pressure in his tank (transmitter on first stage). He had tested all of this stuff the night before and had no problems. Prior to the first dive, he found out that his computer was not receiving pressure information from his transmitter; just got a big, old, fat error message. And he didn't have an spg either. We managed to work out a solution for him, but the message here is that had he wanted to dive using his existing configuration he would have had issues as he would have had no idea as to his gas pressure.
So before anybody slams me on this, a couple of things: this guy is really current, probably 100 dives per year. batteries were brand new, and the unit is a major brand name that i shall not mention here. And it was working no less than 12 hours prior to this dive.
My message: wireless is really neat and cool, but maybe want to have a backup??? We were so far away from anything that might have helped his computer that there really weren't any options. There are those in the school of thought that having an spg just provides another point of failure. i disagree; in almost 30 years of diving i've seen that exactly one time and it wasn't catastrophic (an hp hose failure will take ~20 minutes or so to drain an AL80. Let's not flame me if you disagree). There have been extensive discussions on this board regarding both configuration, but just thought i'd throw this out there.
food for thought...
erik
Not sure if this is the right forum or group for this, so please either a) change it if you're an administrator or b) understand that i didn't know where else to put it (if you're a reader).
Did a couple of dives VERY far offshore this past weekend, and had a guy on my boat that had one of those wireless computers that monitors everything, including the pressure in his tank (transmitter on first stage). He had tested all of this stuff the night before and had no problems. Prior to the first dive, he found out that his computer was not receiving pressure information from his transmitter; just got a big, old, fat error message. And he didn't have an spg either. We managed to work out a solution for him, but the message here is that had he wanted to dive using his existing configuration he would have had issues as he would have had no idea as to his gas pressure.
So before anybody slams me on this, a couple of things: this guy is really current, probably 100 dives per year. batteries were brand new, and the unit is a major brand name that i shall not mention here. And it was working no less than 12 hours prior to this dive.
My message: wireless is really neat and cool, but maybe want to have a backup??? We were so far away from anything that might have helped his computer that there really weren't any options. There are those in the school of thought that having an spg just provides another point of failure. i disagree; in almost 30 years of diving i've seen that exactly one time and it wasn't catastrophic (an hp hose failure will take ~20 minutes or so to drain an AL80. Let's not flame me if you disagree). There have been extensive discussions on this board regarding both configuration, but just thought i'd throw this out there.
food for thought...
erik
