kwinter
July 14th, 2003, 04:48 PM
No, this isn't a rehashing of the sub-duck vs the mini-hammerhead. We need a diver recall device from the surface without spending a fortune. I'm a volunteer diver at our state aquarium. Right now, our recall device is that the standby diver above bangs on the metal ladder with a lead weight. It doesn't make a loud enough noise to distinguish itself from other noises sometimes heard in the tank.
I know there are diver recall systems that use either microphone or tones through underwater speakers, but they start at about $1,000. And putting a hammerhead on a reg with an extra tank to use at the surface just isn't practical in an emergency.
If anybody remembers the old TV show "Flipper", they had a hand-held horn that looked like a megaphone. As I recall, they put it in the water and squeezed the trigger and it made a kind of "aahoooga" sound that brought Flipper magically to the boat or dock. Now I know we don't have the same kind of hearing reception that a dolphin has, but isn't there something like that around that could be used to make a sound from the surface that would be audible throughout a 760,000 gallon tank (about 50 feet diameter and 25 feet deep)? I figure something like that would sell for about $100 or so.
Any ideas?
I know there are diver recall systems that use either microphone or tones through underwater speakers, but they start at about $1,000. And putting a hammerhead on a reg with an extra tank to use at the surface just isn't practical in an emergency.
If anybody remembers the old TV show "Flipper", they had a hand-held horn that looked like a megaphone. As I recall, they put it in the water and squeezed the trigger and it made a kind of "aahoooga" sound that brought Flipper magically to the boat or dock. Now I know we don't have the same kind of hearing reception that a dolphin has, but isn't there something like that around that could be used to make a sound from the surface that would be audible throughout a 760,000 gallon tank (about 50 feet diameter and 25 feet deep)? I figure something like that would sell for about $100 or so.
Any ideas?