Off topic:
I had to give you a "Thank You" boulderjon, cause your thanks count of 666 was freaking me out...lol
I had to give you a "Thank You" boulderjon, cause your thanks count of 666 was freaking me out...lol
Dive tables take a back seat in SSI training
- Thread starter riddler
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Glad you got me off that one. I would not want people to get the wrong idea about my intentions.
Are you saying that students don't need computers for their OW dives?
If our shop were to do that now and we decided to supply the equipment to the student without charging a rental fee, then it would be just a matter of reaching into the rental gear and handing it out.
As it is right now, still in the tables era, our students have computers on their consoles when they do the CW dives, and we show them how they work. When they get equipment from us for their OW dives, they have computers as well. When we log their dives, we do it using the tables right now, but I show them how to pull the information from their computers.
I suppose that if a shop does not currently own a set of computers, then there will be an added expense, but a shop that does not own a set of computers these days probably deserves a kick in their retail planning pants.
We don't charge a rental fee on equipment.
In the CW the most you can get a computer to do is to turn on.
That makes sense, as long as the students are shown how to fill out the log. Many of them don't understand it's importance and forget how to use the log in way too short a period of time.
That depends on a number of factors. These "state of the art" training agencies who say they lead the way seem to fall 10 years behind SDI on the computer issue. I am not and never have been an SDI Instructor.
Not many of my customers have rented computers from me in the past, even though I have them available. I realize it depends how many students you train at once, but each student needs their own computer on the OW dives. It's unethical to pass one computer from student-to-student due to nitrogen uploading and since we don't go to the lake every weekend a backlog of students sometimes exists, especially in todays economic troubles. That adds up to a lot more computers than I have in stock, or have needed in the past. This is great for the manufacturer's and they have been touting it for years, duh.
When computers were first promoted over tables, I thought it had the potential of a liability issue. However, those statistics didn't change and neither did the amount of people getting bent. I understand and see students readily accept the computer and more computer sales will be the outcome. But when Instructors are being told that the students need a backup table/ERDPML in case their computer breaks down, it seems to send the message that computers aren't reliable.
Why would any agency promote diving safety in a beginning class, unless it's just a marketing ploy. It would be interesting to see the percentage of accidents versus divers trained in a year, broken down by agency. I would be willing to bet they are all at the same place.
I just finished with SSI and we wear taught the tables, we wear taught them again in deep diving. They maybe optional but I have not heard of anyone not being taught them through SSI, PADI yes we were at the Comal river and a group of PADI divers were doing their OW, and not of them knew how to use them. I guess it is becoming a lost art But I feel you need to know them to understand how your computer works.
To use two computers is a good idea. But I believe, that somebody who believes - while doing 5-6 dives in a day - if both his computers would fail after dive no.3 or 4, that he would be able to track his dives with a dive table, will also believe that Santa Claus is coming on 24th of December.
All you have to do is complete one multi-level dive with a maximum depth that would be a table violation with a square profile (which is what happens with the vast majority of resort area dives) and you won't be able to use the tables accurately the rest of the day.
SSI may have done that but NOT my SSI instructor. We practiced and practiced and practiced. He actually just touched on the computer primarily because there are so many models and functions from one computer to another. I really appreciated the old school approach.
I absolutely agree with you!
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