RIDIVER501
Contributor
cdiver2:I also agree with RIDIVER to an extent. His idea of a lo-jack is very good...but who's going to pay for it. At present there is a system in place paid for by the tax payer, if you want a system just for a chosen few oil Co, shipping Co then let them pay for it they have the money.
It seems to me that bureaucracy once again has failed us, if you buy a PLB you are REQUIRED by law to register it, why required make the seller do the registering with proof of ID or Coast Guard IE the PLB is sent to the nearest CG station and you pick it up there along with a class of course..... that you pay for.
As far as who would pay for it CD: divers would pay for the dive computers that would be outfited with a locator. Maybe an organization like DAN could run the command center and charge a small fee like the lojack people charge their customers.
The diver's lojack code could be somehow associated with their cert card number and then the boat captain of a charter that comes up one diver short. would contact the command center and say "JOE Diver, PADI #xyzabc is missing."
the command center would look up that diver and activate his locator.
Of course there would be problems with whether the diver is on the surface or still at depth and other electro-magnetic principles but should be fairly effective in theroy.
Or the charter boat could have a scanner that the captain could use to scan the dive computers of all their divers for that trip and have a limited range local control option.
Joe diver is missing, the captain activates his locator and if the dive is still within range he is detected. If not the captain passses the number up to the next level say a regional control center that has a broader search area and then they try to detect the lost diver with their equipment.
just ideas