Air-Integrated Computers

[AltonK]

Anyone else had the same problem? Up to this point, I'd thought that all of the hoseless "bugs" had been worked out...

I have a data trans plus. at first I thought it was batteries, changed them still happened, Then a thought placement on primary but still happens. It happens the most when I dive in Dutch Springs a fresh water quarry with lots of metal stuff around.

cars buses boats etc. The pressure will start flashing and alot of times I can move it over my head (closer to the transmitter) or just move a bit and it goes away. I'm pretty sure it's due to multipath (reflected signal ) and there's less of it in saltwater due to attenuation. It's never caused me to abort a dive and I have a backup spg on a short hose just in case. But as a radio engineer I wouldn't trust it without backup If I were penetrating a lot of metal objects, try using your cell phone in a sheet metal building with metal stubs and you'll be sure to find a place it doesn't work.

I used to have a datamaxpro plus (hosed) and it was completly bullet proof.

Don't get me wrong I love the features of and AI computer but beware of it's limits

 

[SeaJay]

Very interesting. I had heard that there might be problems, but thought that the issue was left over from decade-old computers that used to do things like this.

You're using a Vytec? That was the hoseless, AI computer that I was looking at.

Sheesh. I plan to do a ton of wreck diving. And I was hoping to get rid of the hose. Hmmmm...

Maybe not.

 

[AltonK]

my computer is an oceanic data trans plus the same as thr aeris brand. But I don't think it's the brand as much as the physics. Granted the signal only has to travel 3 ft or so but water is a terrible enviroment for radio even at low frequencies. I'd recommend a hosed AI for alot of wreck diving. I've also had a couple of rescue diver candidates pull it off my wristed when I was pretending to be paniced (pushing on thier head) It hasn't come off on it's own but grunging around in a wreck it could easily happened and at $1000 list I would be forced to get out the reel and start doing search patterns

 

[SeaJay]

AltonK once bubbled...
my computer is an oceanic data trans plus the same as thr aeris brand. But I don't think it's the brand as much as the physics. Granted the signal only has to travel 3 ft or so but water is a terrible enviroment for radio even at low frequencies. I'd recommend a hosed AI for alot of wreck diving. I've also had a couple of rescue diver candidates pull it off my wristed when I was pretending to be paniced (pushing on thier head) It hasn't come off on it's own but grunging around in a wreck it could easily happened and at $1000 list I would be forced to get out the reel and start doing search patterns

What's worse, is that I often do open water salt dives. I can't imagine diving with a school of fish on an anchored buoy in 300 fsw and being limited by deco times, then watching that thing come off my wrist and fall 150' out of my dive capability.

I hear a lot of guys do the "bungee strap" thing, which is supposedly a little safer on the wrist.

I just really like the idea of having it on my wrist, where it's easy to do periodic checks on time, depth, and pressure. This seems especially true when I'm doing a river dive in 6" (yes, that's "inches") of visibility. No matter how streamlined you are at that point, you ain't gonna see your SPG if it's clipped to your side.

So a wrist mount might be nice there.

I see a lot of locals strap their hoseless AI computers to their shoulder straps. I often wondered why, and what the point was of going hoseless if you did that. Now I understand.

Still, I'll be doing a ton of penetration at the Betsy Ross, a 430' Liberty Ship that was sunk as an artificial reef. It's only 17 miles offshore. And you can bet that the whole thing's metal.

 

[AltonK]

I've seen some guys with holders that allow them to put it on a retractor. I'm a great fan of that and thats how I do my compass now. When I was using the hosed datamax pro I would use a retractor on my right should d ring so that the hose ran under my right arm and stayed next to my chest then I could pull it to where I could see it , here in melbourne shore diver can be zero viz affairs too. I put my compass on a retractor on my left shoulder. I have a Scuba pro air inflator/octo so that removes one hose. I carry a 13 cf pony with a 6 ft hose (I think you saw the fight earlier tonight) I use surgical tubing to hold the excess length onto the pony and route the reg under my right arm to the golden triangle clipped to a d on my right shoulder. It works pretty good. I've had to give out the long hose a couple times but its usally after a student rips the primary out of my mouth. It's not DIR or typical but I keep coming to the top with it so I figure whatever works and is comforable

 

[SeaJay]

AltonK once bubbled...
(I think you saw the fight earlier tonight)

Nope, sure didn't. Care to point it out to me?

Lemme guess... DIR vs. the rest of the world?

 

[erichK]

AltonK once bubbled...
I've seen some guys with holders that allow them to put it on a retractor. I'm a great fan of that and thats how I do my compass now. When I was using the hosed datamax pro I would use a retractor on my right should d ring so that the hose ran under my right arm and stayed next to my chest then I could pull it to where I could see it , here in melbourne shore diver can be zero viz affairs too. I put my compass on a retractor on my left shoulder. I have a Scuba pro air inflator/octo so that removes one hose. I carry a 13 cf pony with a 6 ft hose (I think you saw the fight earlier tonight) I use surgical tubing to hold the excess length onto the pony and route the reg under my right arm to the golden triangle clipped to a d on my right shoulder. It works pretty good.

Two points:

1) Could you give a little more detail on how you set this up. I recently re-recertified, and my daughter (13) and wife bothe cetrified for the first time, and although bothh have bright yellow octopuses, I have an air-2, and an additional air supply larger than the rather silly little SpareAir bottles with a highly visible and accessible regulator would seem to be an excellent idea.

2) Related, butr really another thread:
What kind of clips and retractors are you using? A little incident at the gym last week really drove home to me the "suicide clip" issue that I reading about in LAST DIVE (or was it DEEP DESCENT?). Whichever book it is reports on the drowning of a man (named John Ormsby, I think), on a dive to the Andrea Doria as a result of becoming hopelessly entangled in a mass of wire and cables. When the body was cut loose the next day, they found that one of little spring loaded carabiner-like (roughly D shaped) clips on the back of his his tool belt had likely preipitated the whol disaster.

What drove the danger of spring loaded clips home to me was the seeminglu impossible way the clip of my gym bag got caught on the handle of a wire basket when I brushed past it. It took a screwdriver and a pair of pliers and several minutes to detach this seemingly impossible mating (the bag clip seemed too small and well-protected to ever have have "grabbed" the 3/8" thick wire.

The fact that something so apparently unlikely can happen even with a much smaller an less accessible clip made me understand why those oh-so-handy little clips (which I'd seen other divers use to secure their auxillary regs, consoles, etc. on a recent series of dives) are so potentially dangerous.

Be *very* careful what you have hanging out there---especially where you can't see it.

P.S. I'm still trying toi figure out the best way of wearing/securing my new Cobra.





erichk

 

[AltonK]

1) Could you give a little more detail on how you set this up. I recently re-recertified, and my daughter (13) and wife bothe cetrified for the first time, and although bothh have bright yellow octopuses, I have an air-2, and an additional air supply larger than the rather silly little SpareAir bottles with a highly visible and accessible regulator would seem to be an excellent idea.

As far as the pony goes I have a 13cf pony (many argue for a larger bottle, but depends on the type of diving you do) it seems to be fine for recreational, non deco, non penetration diving.

There are many mounts but I use one called the quickdraw quickdraw web site

they have mounting info and pics. The only problems is a maintainence one. It has stainless pins in aluminum and needs to be silicone greased reqularly.

As far as the reg I have one of my older regs (a Sherwood Magnum, simple bulletproof) and a six foot hose. rather than having the hose dangling or wrapped around me DIR style (which wouldn't be appropiate as it is not my primary) I have the extra length folded under two bands made from surgical tubing.

tubing example this example is for a stage bottle but shows the surgical tubing with the hose looped throught it. To make the rubber bands use some surgical tubing and get some straight barbed tubing connectors. Make a loop by putting both ends of one piece on the connector(cut to length of course) sercure both ends of connectors with cable ties.

As far as the clips are concerned make sure you do two things,

1. don't use boat/suicide clips

these are the ones you use:

.

not these

2. make sure anything attached by a hook is attached to you in a non metal to metal way. (i.e. hook, rope,hook) (hook, retractor, hook) that way if it does snag you can cut yourself free without a band saw.


I use this retractor for my compass.

and these for everything else.

but I remove the ss ring and add another clip (then I can use them for most anything. The retractor cord is nylon and easily cut in case of emergency.

 

[erichK]

Thank you for the informative and detailed reply. The simple pount about attaching metal hooks, etc to more easisly sererable straps, etc is an especially good one.

A genereal query: since we mostlly have to fly and travel to dive, I wonder whether there is a fairly commonly available pony bottle size that we could also find in places like New Zealand and Cuba (we've just had to cross Indonesia off that list. I don't mind taking along the mounting hardware and extra reg, but tanks are usually impossible.

Erich K
saskatoon, Canada

 

[AltonK]

It's almost impossible to find a pony for rent any where. I'm in Princeton, NJ working on a job here and live in melbourne, Fl. I fly home every other weekend (or at least once a month) and dive up here in quarries. I also travel around the carib. I always drain my bottle, leaving about 100 psi, (some shops won't fill it from compeletly empty) , stuff it in my gear bag, check it and go. After dozens and dozens of trips I've had no problems with the airlines.
Most times they don't bother with it (I don't tell them it's in there, spank me). The worst that can happen is they may make you drain it completely (get a yoke to yoke adapter hose to partially fill it when you get there so the shop will fill it) or remove the valve, heard rumours of this happening but never happened to anyone I know.

To summurize my pony's has alot of frequent flier miles.