hoseless, air integrated comp question

I am an owner of Aeris 750GT hoseless air integrated writsmounted computer. I bought it used for very resonable price (ie. much much much lower than it retails online)

I did bunch of dives with it and i like it (the air integrated part is very cool BUt it tends to loose the signal every so often, usually when i put my wrist in front of me to read the gauges. That's not a big problem because it usually finds the signal again few seconds later but it has this annoying habbit of beeping while signal is lost.

I looked around the scubaboard and saw some people mentioning this problem. Since I've got this unit used and I didn't change the batteries (and the computer doesn't diplsay "battery low" icon yet) I was wondering if getting new batteries would fix it or is it a typical problem with this model (this would explain why i got such a good deal on it and why Aeris is not making it anymore)

The batteries are quite pricey (half AA, radioshack sells them for $12 a piece), so i would like to avoid spending $24 to just test the "theory" that the batteries are weak in my unit.

The other thing that i might suspect is the placement of the transmitter on the 1st stage, as i understand the display and the transmitter should be parallel to each other for best transmission. Unfortunatelly my 1st stage has only one high pressure port (mares MR-12) so i don't have much of a freedom to experiment here.

Personally i don't care too much for loss of the signal since it is never permament but my buddies are getting annoyed every so often because they think those beeps mean real danger or something...

So.. is this a general problem or the batteries or somehting else ? The only mention of the range of the transmitter i could find in the manual is "when activating keep the display in 3 ft/1 meter distance from the transmiter".
I am over 6ft tall so i could imagine my wrist could be over 3ft from the transmitter everyso often...

Anyway, any kind of observations/advices woudl be appreciated... (even the "you bought junk!!" ones ut: )

this is the pics of the display unit, no i didn't buy it from those guys, they just had the image handy

a note after talking to Dr. Jay in PM...

if the loss of signal gets really annoying for me and my dive buddies (i doubt it will be ever that big of a problem), i can still disable the air integrated part and just use it as a plain wristmount computer. For the price i paid for it it would be still a good deal....

:mean:

Logged just under 40 dives since I got it…
Never had problems with the transmission while diving in various conditions, e.g. warm or cold water, left or right wrist, open water or metal overhead, buddies shooting pictures with those gigantic strobes, etc… except for that one time when for no reason whatsoever, as I see it (in mid-water above a reef in warm Andaman sea), the unit started beeping complaining of lost signal.
I tried repositioning my hand – didn’t help, and, as there were no possible sources of interference, after about of 30-40-50 seconds I figured that the transmitter battery or transmitter itself went south…. and then it resumed working… My attempts to reproduce the problem yielded nothing. I did 10-15 dives since then – hasn’t happened again.

Almost like it has mind of its own, which makes me even more suspicious. I do like the computer, but do not trust it enough to get rid of my old-fashioned SPG. One might say it defeats the purpose of having air-integration, but I don’t think so.

ok, so i see this may be my unit's problem

well.. i took the transmitter appart and checked the battery.. date of production (if i am reading it right) is 06 99... that's 4 years ago ...

i guess the previous owner didn't read the manual "change the battery every 100 dives or every year" ... so i am off to radioshack.. get two of those pricey batteries and i will see how it will work during the dive this weekend... ginnie springs, FLa...

ps. wouldn't the computer display "battery low" when the performance degraded enough for the transmitter get out of range as often as it does for me ???

I don't remember where now, but I got mine spares on the Web for definitely less than $12 a piece including shipping. Though, had to spend some time searching.
Try searches for Tadiran & 1/2 AA.

went to radioshak (because it is on the corner... i wanted to test it _now_ )

and.. same results.. fresh batteries but the range the same. It seems like it doesn't like me. As long as i am not in the line between the transmitter and hte receiver it works on a nice distance, the momemt i walk in between the range drops to annoying levels.

Tested it by putting all my stuff on my (tank, bc, regs,computer) and checking different postions with my hand... it mostly works with a hand parallel to my bosy,not so with wrist in front of me.. sigh...

as i said it is not enough to make it unworkable since those are only interminent connectivity problems but still it is quite annoying seeing other people not having such problems...

maybe it is just me being a good shield against radio waves ? need to change my diet ? :freak:

oh well..

:damn:

FallenMatt once bubbled...
maybe it is just me being a good shield against radio waves ? need to change my diet ? :freak:

Click to expand...

Maybe it's the pizza? Or all those hours playing Wolfenstein :confound:?

I maybe new to Scuba, but I've been a HAM for about 3 or 4 years now. There are lots of things that can cause interference in a radio signal and not all of them I've seen over the last few years were scientifically explainable by the common joe (or jane). So I guess it would be possible that you do have a good "resistance" to radio waves and there by could be the very object blocking the signal.

Oh well, just my 2 cents.

i knew i should stop eating Post Raisin Bran cereal.. it is high in Iron... :wacko:

one bowl a day and pretty soon i am "iron man" unpenetrable by radio waves!!!

.. and i always wondered why i don't need much weight when going diving... hmmm

You should have bought the Uwatec hoseless to begin with.....