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I bough the Sport a year ago for lobster hunting. It's great to be able to find the boat when doing a free ascent. A few weeks after I started using mine, I lent it to a friend to play around with. He was so impressed that he and two other friends of mine each bought one for themself. It is very accurate and always gets me back to the boat.

I've tried hanging it a 20 ft from the surface and 20 ft from the bottom (on the anchor line). I prefer hanging it from the surface as it's easier to find during a free ascent.

I think there are a few things that can be improved:

1. The battery cord in the transmitter is a little short and a little too thin for my liking. I'm always worried about breaking it when I change batteries, especially if doing so on a rocking boat while wearing gloves. It also seems like it will eventually break due to normal handling.

2. It would be nice if there was a lock on the on/off switches. I've had to replace batteries several times because a unit was accidentally switched on when I put it away.

3. I would prefer that the battery low light was changed to a power on light to indicate all is well instead of something is wrong. Alternately, a power on light in addition to the low battery light would be great. I'm not so worried about battery life implications, especially since I think they would be minimal.

4. Rather than having a wired battery carrier in the transmitter, it would be better if the carrier was completely removeable and had contacts on it so when it is inserted, the battery pack makes contact - like the 9v on the receiver.

5. If the Sport Tracker receiver functionality could be packaged in a Scout size device, it would be a very good product. The Sport package is a little large (but I still love it).

6. Often, I use the tracker on my scooter. I mount it with some large rubber bands. It would be nice if there was a bracket that could be attached to hold the receiver in an upright angle when mounted against a round object (like a scooter body). I'm thinking 2 detachable feet set about 90° apart. These would work on both flat and round surfaces.
 
Keeping all the comments in one location:

My friend Twisted Gray, who has been most helpfull in getting me my Sport tracker unit, has asked me to put up a little review on our experiences with it. So, here goes. I have designated my wife as senior navigator and custodian of the Sport reciever, and she keeps it on a tether and secured in one of her BC pockets. She claims no problems with this, and states she barely knows she is carrying it most of the time. When needed, it slips right out and goes to work with no fuss. We have had excellent results with it pointing the direction back to the liveaboard, which had the transmitter hanging from the side of the dive deck about 10 feet underwater. (The liveaboard people were highly interested in this, and were most accomodating with the whole business.) Some people have complained about the design of the retention clip which holds the battery compartments in place, but I have not experienced a problem (yet). Speaking of batteries, we found excellent battery life during a recent week-long trip, and did not need to change batteries once. (We did turn everything off between dives, and hauled the transmitter up out of the water) In conclusion, we are well pleased with the unit, and certainly would not dive without it in the future. Woody

I recently returned from a 10 day trip to Bonaire with my wife and father-in-law. My father-in-law recently purchased a Sport and Bonaire was the first trip that it was used on.

The Sport transmitter and receiver came packaged in a padded Pelican case with all the needed batteries. The Pelican case with transmitter and receiver weighed approximately 5 pounds. The transmitter and receiver are both approximately 2.5" x 5".

The batteries are easy to install into both the transmitter and receiver after you figure out how to open the end caps. Battery life seemed to be pretty good. We used the Sport on 4 dives and the low battery indicators never came on. The receiver was turned off until it was needed to save as much power as possible.

I attached a bolt snap to the transmitter along with a short piece of nylon line for clipping the transmitter off on the mooring bouys at the dive sites. The receiver was then clipped off on my BCD. The receiver is a little large, but it is not too noticeable on a hip D-ring.

We used the Sport by clipping the transmitter to the mooring bouy on the edge of the reef. When we were returning, we would turn the unit on. The directional signal of the receiver was easy to read, and the hi/lo switch helped alot with getting a little additional directional accuracy. Please note that we were using this in water with visibility from 60-80 feet and natural navigation on Bonaire is prety easy as well. The device seemed to lead us right back to the mooring bouy. When used with natural navigation, it made it extremely easy to return to the bouy.

We also did several night dives with the Sport and had similar results. I am eager to try it out in water with lower visibility to see what the unit can really do.

I do not think that it would be a good idea to solely depend on one of these units for navigation, but with that said, it seemed really easy to return to a specified location when using it in additon to natural navigation and a compass.

Overall, I think that the Sport is a really cool tool that is user friendly and could be very nice to have in unfamiliar areas with poor visibility.
 
I just returned from a liveaboard trip to the Bahamas. I used my Scout and was very impressed. My wife was comfortable on night dives, since she didn't have to worry about navigation since she had a receiver too. The only suggestion I would make is; how about about adding slots to the receiver to allow us to thread something like a watch strap through them and strap the receiver to the forearm. That way you could just point your arm in the direction of the signal and not have to worry about dropping the receiver, it would make it much simpler to use. Overall, I think it is a great product....
 
Like a small U groove to allow threading a watch strap through, this would make it easier to carry.
 
I was on a liveaboard in the Bahamas in early May and had my Scout. Several of the divers on the boat were very interested in the system and tried it out. At least 2 said they would be ordering a system as soon as they got back, and everyone who saw it was impressed.
 
I have had the scout dive tracker since 95/96 and have had a favorable experience using it. I understand the limitations of packaging a device with the long range (over 1/2 mile in my experiences) power of this unit in a smaller package, and therefore cannot complain about the size of this unit. I have logged hundreds of dives in close to 15 years use and the only problem was a lost end cap retainer wire. Which by the way, I just talked to Thomas at Desert Star about and he is mailing a new retainer out at no cost. The product serves its purpose well and has eliminated many surface ascents I would have had to make to locate my boat while exploring and spearfishing.
 
I have had the scout dive tracker since 95/96 and have had a favorable experience using it. I understand the limitations of packaging a device with the long range (over 1/2 mile in my experiences) power of this unit in a smaller package, and therefore cannot complain about the size of this unit. I have logged hundreds of dives in close to 15 years use and the only problem was a lost end cap retainer wire. Which by the way, I just talked to Thomas at Desert Star about and he is mailing a new retainer out at no cost. The product serves its purpose well and has eliminated many surface ascents I would have had to make to locate my boat while exploring and spearfishing.

So there is no confusion, he has the Sport and not the Scout :coffee:
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/peregrine/

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