Undercurrent is Temporarily Suspending Publication

[KathyV]

Undercurrent is taking a hiatus and will not publish during the pandemic:

An important letter from Undercurrent

 

[scubafanatic]

They sent out an e-mail today on this. No longer publishing as nobody is traveling (COVID) They hope to resume publishing someday, members still will have www access to the sight, memberships are on a freeze (no new subscriptions or renewals allowed), members still keep any remaining months they have as credits for when/if publishing resumes in the likely distant future, no mention of cash refunds on that.

 

[kelemvor]

Ouch, I just renewed 3 weeks ago.

 

[Cert1967]

They sent out an e-mail today on this. No longer publishing as nobody is traveling (COVID) They hope to resume publishing someday, members still will have www access to the sight, memberships are on a freeze (no new subscriptions or renewals allowed), members still keep any remaining months they have as credits for when/if publishing resumes in the likely distant future, no mention of cash refunds on that.

@John Bantin

No email for me.
And the web page makes no mention of this

John - what's the status?

 

[kelemvor]

@John Bantin

No email for me.
And the web page makes no mention of this

John - what's the status?

Here it is on the undercurrent website: An important letter from Undercurrent

The email went out yesterday at about 8:21am eastern time.

 

[Scraps]

@John Bantin

No email for me.
And the web page makes no mention of this

John - what's the status?

If you click the "subscribe now" button, you get a notice that says,

"Thanks for your interest in Undercurrent. Until the cornavirus is stopped, we will not be accepting new subscriptions, but please sign up for our regular email to divers, which will cover covid-related stories."

 

[happy-diver]

Great one to keep your eye on when they re open
There's a millions of bunch of stuff in the archives


Regulator Service Do I have to do it every year?

Past experience tells me two things: (1) the mostly likely time a regulator will malfunction is on the first dive after it has been serviced, and (2) if I take good care of my reg, I can go for three seasons without service and never have a problem.
So if I dutifully take my regulator in for its annual service, does that mean that, when I get the little plastic bag back with a handful of parts that look perfectly fine, I’ve just shelled out 50 to 100 bucks for nothing?

I called a buddy with a dive store who I knew would forgo the industry line and tell me what he thought. He did, but he also said he would like to remain anonymous.
“No, I don’t service my regs annually. I think the annual thing got started back when O-rings were made of rubber. Now that they’re made of more durable Regulator Service Do I have to do it every year? material, I don’t think it’s as necessary.

Manufacturers won’t back off because of liability reasons, and most dive stores want the service business. When a customer who’s an experienced diver brings in a reg, I can crank off the dust cap, look to see if it’s clean, check the filter, look for salt crystals, snap it on the test bench, and check the cracking pressures. If it passes all of these tests, I say there’s no reason to overhaul it.”


Rudy Mola of the International Association of Scuba Technicians (IAST) has a very different view. “Of course you should do an annual checkup — it’s a life-support system. You can’t tell anything about a regulator by slapping it on a test bench.

Some regs will even perform (for awhile) with the wrong parts. In a less than perfect world, a repair technician can’t find the right part, but ‘here, this one looks almost like it.’ The resulting problems may not happen until you’re at depth. A technician has to have already worked on the reg before he or she can tell anything about it on a bench. “Another good reason for regular servicing is that manufacturers sometimes modify components, replacing them with superior products.
Even without use, regulator components can dry out and become defective.

Yes, it’s true that most regs will fail positively (free flow rather than cut off your air), but why take a chance? It’s life support, and parts should be checked and replaced annually.”

Some of Rudy’s arguments are compelling, but I’m still not a hundred percent convinced that it’s necessary to replace all those components every 12 months if I take good care of my regulator. However, one of the IAST contentions is hard to argue with: that people who service underwater life support systems should be qualified. IAST points out that manufacturers offer courses lasting from a couple of hours to a day on how to service their regs, but as it stands now, anyone who wants to call himself a scuba technician is one.

It’s IAST’s goal to set minimum standards for the training of scuba technicians and organize an international registry of scuba technicians and repair training facilities. If this would mean that regulators would no longer be most prone to fail on the first dive after servicing, I’m for it.

John Q. Trigger IAST can be reached at 954-748- 4772, fax 954-748-0637, or e-mail IAST@aol.com.

©1996 Elephant Socks Publishing, Inc.



Magnificent!

 

[Umuntu]

Great one to keep your eye on when they re open
There's a millions of bunch of stuff in the archives


Regulator Service Do I have to do it every year?

Past experience tells me two things: (1) the mostly likely time a regulator will malfunction is on the first dive after it has been serviced, and (2) if I take good care of my reg, I can go for three seasons without service and never have a problem.
So if I dutifully take my regulator in for its annual service, does that mean that, when I get the little plastic bag back with a handful of parts that look perfectly fine, I’ve just shelled out 50 to 100 bucks for nothing?

I called a buddy with a dive store who I knew would forgo the industry line and tell me what he thought. He did, but he also said he would like to remain anonymous.
“No, I don’t service my regs annually. I think the annual thing got started back when O-rings were made of rubber. Now that they’re made of more durable Regulator Service Do I have to do it every year? material, I don’t think it’s as necessary.

Manufacturers won’t back off because of liability reasons, and most dive stores want the service business. When a customer who’s an experienced diver brings in a reg, I can crank off the dust cap, look to see if it’s clean, check the filter, look for salt crystals, snap it on the test bench, and check the cracking pressures. If it passes all of these tests, I say there’s no reason to overhaul it.”


Rudy Mola of the International Association of Scuba Technicians (IAST) has a very different view. “Of course you should do an annual checkup — it’s a life-support system. You can’t tell anything about a regulator by slapping it on a test bench.

Some regs will even perform (for awhile) with the wrong parts. In a less than perfect world, a repair technician can’t find the right part, but ‘here, this one looks almost like it.’ The resulting problems may not happen until you’re at depth. A technician has to have already worked on the reg before he or she can tell anything about it on a bench. “Another good reason for regular servicing is that manufacturers sometimes modify components, replacing them with superior products.
Even without use, regulator components can dry out and become defective.

Yes, it’s true that most regs will fail positively (free flow rather than cut off your air), but why take a chance? It’s life support, and parts should be checked and replaced annually.”

Some of Rudy’s arguments are compelling, but I’m still not a hundred percent convinced that it’s necessary to replace all those components every 12 months if I take good care of my regulator. However, one of the IAST contentions is hard to argue with: that people who service underwater life support systems should be qualified. IAST points out that manufacturers offer courses lasting from a couple of hours to a day on how to service their regs, but as it stands now, anyone who wants to call himself a scuba technician is one.

It’s IAST’s goal to set minimum standards for the training of scuba technicians and organize an international registry of scuba technicians and repair training facilities. If this would mean that regulators would no longer be most prone to fail on the first dive after servicing, I’m for it.

John Q. Trigger IAST can be reached at 954-748- 4772, fax 954-748-0637, or e-mail IAST@aol.com.

©1996 Elephant Socks Publishing, Inc.



Magnificent!

Reads like an advertisement for IAST, whoever they are ...

 

[dorsal]

I saw his email last night. Not surprised as this is impacting the entire industry

 

[Rusty Shackleford]

I liked the line about finding the wrong parts as a reason for annual replacement...I wonder when regulators almost always get wrong parts put in them???.....hmmm....that's quite a mystery...