Certification cards once again...

[DevonDiver]

scan strips, bar codes, hashes, computers ... these would all work just fine.

Sure, I'll buy a card scanner tomorrow and have it shipped from the USA. Please don't complain if the cost of diving increases by 20% to pay for the investment.

 

[Edward3c]

I've found VISA, MASTERCARD or AMERICAN EXPRESS C-Cards do the trick, backed up by a paper book with Advanced Diver written on it.

Worked in Hawaii, Belize, Cozumel, Oman, Cyprus and various places in Florida.

The only card that normally gets a grilling is the dive insurance cover.

Regards

 

[tlj3071]

This would work.....and may be used as early as.....2028?
I'm not busting your butt on this...it's a cool idea...but really, when you come into Belize, or the Philippines, or Honduras....they just look at your passport and stamp it. Not like the US where they know the color of your grandmother's underwear after they swipe your passport.
If the governments of these countries don't have that tech for passports, will the dive shops have it for verifying cert levels?

Looking at my U.S. private Pilot's certificate, and assuming a dive card more or less fashioned after it, there is EASILY room for 20 "endorsements" on the back along with the certifying agency - all in plain text. That leaves two questions: 1) By a show of hands: would you be willing to pony up $20 or $30 for a SINGLE card that listed ALL your "certs" w/ certifying agency, and 2) how long would it take for this card to be recognized by a majority of dive shops (I envision the "clearing house" that issues this card would verify the information an all applications though the certifying agencies). The card would be useless if it wouldn't be recognized.

Tom

Tom

 

[String]

All these fancy computer scanning methods forget that lots of the great diving in the world is in very poor and third world type areas. They often don't have internet at all, rarely have a working landline, half the time the power is unreliable and they certainly aren't going to buy a computer and card reader.
You need a low-tech solution. Cards are a low-tech solution.

 

[Kingpatzer]

Sure, I'll buy a card scanner tomorrow and have it shipped from the USA. Please don't complain if the cost of diving increases by 20% to pay for the investment.

If you can manage to turn a $50 hardware investment into a 20% increase for your customers, then I'd suggest either you charge way to little, or you're a very shrewd businessman.

More to the point, in my post I suggested that you would use that to encode all of the certs, but that you'd also list the top most requested certs so that if a shop only cared about AOW, for example, they wouldn't need a scanner.

 

[RTee]

I'm not quite sure that information is correct. I just went on PADI's website, and found my dive buddy's certification level, his cert numbers, the dates of his certifications, and his most recent picture submitted.

And I'm certainly not a padi center.

You are quite right...name + date of birth and then if you go through the C-card replacement process you will end up with all the diving qualifications that individual has with PADI just as you mention

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

I was refused a night dive once because I didn't have my AOW. Had a full cave card, but no AOW. Can't really get mad, these people are just trying to make a living. Fortunately the boat next door was going out and we had a great time.

Gotta wonder at the skills and knowledge that these 'dive pros' possess... when they don't understand the basic structure and heirarchy of scuba certifications..

I suppose the fellow figured that James couldn't provide proof that he'd been cave diving at night ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[DevonDiver]

If you can manage to turn a $50 hardware investment into a 20% increase for your customers, then I'd suggest either you charge way to little, or you're a very shrewd businessman.

Well.... the unit might cost $50, but I would need to add international shipping to that. And import taxes and customs handling fees (which in the P.I. can be more than the cost of the item shipped).

And then I'd need the internet connection to use it. I currently use a USB plug-in modem. It isn't sufficient for reliable data transfer for credit cards, data links etc. So that'd up my $50 monthly internet costs to over $350 (full-time hardwired broadband access). There'd also be a lump sum for the broadband modem...and to have cable installed to the dive centre etc.

Or were you assuming that the whole world has the infrastructure, convenience and costs of the continental USA?

 

[Subcooled]

How much space would "Master scuba diver. Altitude. Drift. Drysuit. Deep. Night. Wreck. Ice. Cavern. EAN40." take on a card? Nine specialities. Very compact.

 

[DevonDiver]

Yep...agreed. MSD should list the specialitities taken IMHO.