Out of air! Wireless pod

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DrMack

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Location
Dallas, Texas
I'm an air hog. My wife has a consumption rate that is only half of my own. Grrr. I'm trying everything that old hands suggest. It's getting better. Two weeks ago in Fiji, Rainbow Reef. Amazing dive. 1st class dive operator. Crew handles every detail. Very expensive. Treat us like royalty. Set up our gear for us. Ready to dive. My wife uses a Suunto Eon Core and I have a Suunto D5. She has trouble with the connectivity to her pod so we go through the sync procedure and it clears up without a hitch. Our BCDs and tanks are next to each other on the bench. I check my D5 for air and it reads close to 200 bar (she prefers psi so hers is near 3000). Roll off and down we go. Incredible sights. All the things we dream of as divers. 30 minutes in and we compare our gas. I'm at 132 bar! Amazing. Have I finally cracked this consumption problem? She's at 1700 psi. Not even halfway. Wow! We're cookin'.

We like to be close. We take this buddy thing verrrrrry seriously. Most of the time we hold hands. 5 minutes later: I'm like, ooooo, that was a hard breath. Next one: nada, empty, no air, completely out. I tap her shoulder. She turns to me and I give her the "out of air" signal. It takes a second to sink in. I'm on her octo before she can present it, locking arms, just like in training. She tries to pull away but I have an iron grip on her arm, per the drill. Oh, this is real. No worries, I'm breathing. She looks at her supply, still half a tank (no surprise). So now we're in the drill and slowly up we go to a safety stop. Long 3 minutes but we hang in there. Finally up to the surface where I have to manually inflate my BCD.

On the boat we figure out what happened. Lesson to everyone who uses a wireless connection for gas supply. The crew had inadvertently put my reg (and pod) on her BCD and hers on mine. She had trouble with sync before the dive, remember? So we synced her computer to MY pod which unbeknownst to us was on HER tank. I could still read supply because when I checked, I was right next to her rig which had MY pod and I was still synced to it. Problem was, her pod was on my BCD synced to nobody. So when we took the plunge we were both synced to MY pod which was on HER tank. I was reading her gas all along thinking it was mine.

Won't do that again! Every pre-dive check now includes verification of the serial number of the pods that our two computers are synced to.

Another lesson learned: the buddy system developed for a reason. We have always practiced it and that practice paid off. It literally saved my life. So I'm all in. OK, it doesn't mean that you have to hold hands like we have always done, but it DOES mean that you need to be aware of how many fin strokes you may be from the alternate air source that will save your life. When you run out of air you will know only AFTER you exhale your tank's last breath. So think about how far you can swim AFTER you exhale before that next life saving breath becomes possible.

Not embarrassed nor ashamed. Hope everyone can learn from this.
 
I think @Diving Dubai has mentioned he has color coded his transmitter and that of his wife. I'm assuming they have some way of telling reg sets apart, as well.
 
Not understanding why she tried to pull away from you after you gave her the OOA signal. What did she expect you to do exactly?
 
If it sounds too good to be true.... Red flags should have been flying when your air consumption suddenly became half of what it was formerly.

Glad you were able to manage the situation - we hear so many people take an attitude that they will never run out of air.
 
I'm a little surprised she wasn't calling low on air when your tank was close to her computer - Obviously it should have been, if you could read hers.

Maybe each of you should get moldable mouth pieces to tell your regs apart.
 
Hi - Mr. OOO and I have the same reg set and wireless transmitter on a hose set up. We label ours with dive stickers with our names on it. Maybe that would work for you? We always know which one belongs to whom.

I always like to set up the equipment myself. I always tell the crew I appreciate it and I know they have a lot to do, this is one less thing for them to have to worry about. :)
 
OP - As @Marie13 pointed out, I have multiple regs and transmitters which are coded for my wife and I (or me if I steal them all for a dive) - Ours are on QD so I can switch them between rigs quickly and hence I have them marked

The D5 uses teh same Pod as the Eon's. Thus once paired it stays paired.

I have the last 4 digits of the serial no written on the tx (pod) in paint marker which is then covered in clear nail varnish. By going to the gas screen you can confirm then that the pod assigned is the pod on your gear.

I once paired my wife's tx to my gear, in a rush it confused here when it didn't read, when she called me over it did, then as I swam off it didn't. Hence clearly marked tx

I've painted the end of the my wife's pods Pods again with nail varnish, and marked them with M or P (main or pony) as they are assigned to different tank sizes on the computer.

All that said. Your first error was allowing someone else to rig your gear. It's your gear, your're diving it, you should rig and check it. If you have identical regs, then colour code them easily done. We have differnt coloured hoses but our gear is packed in our own bags and we it up ourselves

Only turn one of your tanks on at a time and check pressure - then it's easy to see if your Comp is picking up your tx

We still both have conventional spg's on our rigs as a just in case, one thing I've learnt in nearly 1000 dives, is that I continue to be fallible
 
A few things come to mind.
First off, this is why I will never trust a computer for my air pressure. They are prone to several failure modes that give you false reading. AI is nice but IMO a standard SPG is a requirement.
Never let anyone set up your equipment, esp if it has special items like have to be synced together.
Pay more attention to how your gear "feels". You state one hard breath then nothing. I can assure you your reg was getting harder and harder over a number of breaths but you didn't notice it. Once you get past the IP of a reg ( about140psi/ 10 bar tank pressure) your reg will get harder and harder with each breath, its barely noticeable at first and gets very hard as the tank gets closer to empty but they never just stop completely until your tank is at 0 ambient. While like sucking mud through a straw, you can always get a few of more and more difficult breaths from a very low tank. And as you ascend, since the ambient pressure is dropping, you can suck a couple more difficult breaths depending on depth.
It's a great exercise to occasionally breath your tank to completely empty to get the feel of a truly empty tank. The simulation done in class with a shut off valve is not a true representation of how it actually feels. This is done in water shallow enough to standup in obviously. I do this to my tanks when they are in need of inspection, the inspector has to empty them anyway.
 
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