AfterDark
Contributor
This may finally be a reason for me to get a smart phone, albeit not a good one, just another toy really.
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I replaced my Shearwater with a Ratio this year. This was one of the selling points, although really for me it's more of a "nice to have curiosity" than an important feature. Maybe it will become more valuable to me as I get used to it.Ratio is now making a GPS enabled computer Ratio Dive Computers - Choose a model
I replaced my Shearwater with a Ratio this year. This was one of the selling points, although really for me it's more of a "nice to have curiosity" than an important feature. Maybe it will become more valuable to me as I get used to it.
Of course it only tracks location while powered up and on the surface. You'd still need a solution akin to the one @CT-Rich described in the first post for proper tracking.
This could be an interesting hackerspace project. GPS receiver on the float, copper wires instead of polypropeline rope for towing the float, then a retransmitted at depth. Alternatively, you could use the phone and the copper line could be attached to a switch that the diver could use to mark locations.
Nice idea but, aren't you concerned about boaters grabbing the "line" for scrap copper?!
Not really. They won't know it's copper until after they've grabbed it. If it's someone who would grab a dive flag then it's going to happen regardless of what the line is constructed from.Exactly, to me "nice to have curiosity" = toy (short form)
Nice idea but, aren't you concerned about boaters grabbing the "line" for scrap copper?!
Reasonably priced, too. 100 meters of fiber, two transmitters and two detectors would be about what I paid for the copper wire I was thinking of using. It would probably have to be bundled with some regular cave line to give it strength.Use fiber optic cable instead and shine the flashlight at it to mark the spot (make sure your spool gives it a proper bend radius). Hooking a light sensor to a raspberry pi hiding inside the float is left as an exercise to the reader.
Holy crap! Just pull the line taught and swim ten feet out and back