How to Communicate Air Level

[yukoneer]

Or BSL or any of the other variants.

However none of those are very effective in diving.

Thick gloves and cold hands means bending certain fingers to produce those gestures is impossible. You just dont have the dexterity.
Certainly useless if wearing 3 finger mitts in very cold waters.

I dove using drysuits and damn thick gloves in puget sound, as well as the great lakes. I was able to easily fingerspell numbers and letters, as well as sign.

My buddy, she had small fingers and she was using dry gloves with liner gloves underneath, absolutely no problems fingering out numbers.

Some people here commented "9" and "10" can be confusing... I never use "10". If I wanted to say 10, I just sign "1" then "0" - not hard to figure it out. It is rare for me to use the "9" sign, and it usually comes with something mentioned immediately afterwards. For example, if I have 900 psi, I just sign "9" with a "C" following immediately - which simply is 900 in sign language.

3-finger mitts... :shakehead It'd certainly change how things are communicated - just deal with it before a dive.

 

[Thalassamania]

If you know someone well enough to work out these elaborate system for communicating numbers (I'm surprised no one wants to use exponential binary) you should know them well enough to trust that an OK means my air's OK. These all seems like a huge fuss to solve a non-problem, if it is so important that you really, really have to know the exact figure ... just look at the gauge.

 

[String]

If you know someone well enough to work out these elaborate system for communicating numbers (I'm surprised no one wants to use exponential binary) you should know them well enough to trust that an OK means my air's OK.

I dont like that. If leading the dive an "ok" is meaningless when trying to work out when to turn around, start back send an SMB up or whatever. You need an exact figure to work that out.

If i ask someones air and get an OK does that mean 150 bar? 120 bar? 100 bar so we need to turn around, 50 bar so we need to send DSMB up and so on. Do you wait until they say the air ISNT ok but then does that mean they're nearly out, they're on 50 bar, theyre on 100 bar and so on. That applies for diving with someone you know and someone you dont know to me.

 

[Rick Murchison]

Ok, the thread's getting too long to wade through and tally up the methods.
I think I have most all of 'em covered in the poll I've put at the beginning of this thread. Please go back there and vote for your preferred method, so we'll have a nice summary.
I've chosen "1900" (psi, if you like) for the number to signal.
Rick

 

[Thalassamania]

I dont like that. If leading the dive an "ok" is meaningless when trying to work out when to turn around, start back send an SMB up or whatever. You need an exact figure to work that out.

If i ask someones air and get an OK does that mean 150 bar? 120 bar? 100 bar so we need to turn around, 50 bar so we need to send DSMB up and so on. Do you wait until they say the air ISNT ok but then does that mean they're nearly out, they're on 50 bar, theyre on 100 bar and so on. That applies for diving with someone you know and someone you dont know to me.

All I'm saying is that if you know someone well enough to work out a complex number system then you either know them well enough to take an OK as being meaningful or you know that you need to look at their gauge. This is an intricate error prone solution to a non-problem. If your problem is that you haven't made a plan for what's bingo gas or when to send up a bag or that you can't trust the diver's you're with to read their spg and indicate OK, low on air, or up ... well the you've much bigger poblems then we talking about here.

 

[Thalassamania]

Why on earth would I want to? (signal 1900 psi, that is)

 

[El Orans]

Ok, the thread's getting too long to wade through and tally up the methods.
I think I have most all of 'em covered in the poll I've put at the beginning of this thread. Please go back there and vote for your preferred method, so we'll have a nice summary.
I've chosen "1900" (psi, if you like) for the number to signal.
Rick

How about us bar types?

 

[Rick Murchison]

Oops! Forgot ASL
Added.
Rick

 

[String]

All I'm saying is that if you know someone well enough to work out a complex number system then you either know them well enough to take an OK as being meaningful or you know that you need to look at their gauge. This is an intricate error prone solution to a non-problem. If your problem is that you haven't made a plan for what's bingo gas or when to send up a bag or that you can't trust the diver's you're with to read their spg and indicate OK, low on air, or up ... well the you've much bigger poblems then we talking about here.

Open water you dont need a rigidly followed plan. You go diving and go from there quite often. Knowing exact amount of air you can decide whether to go over that ledge for a look, poke around the wreck a bit more of if its a bit low go back up the reef to a shallower depth to extend dive time. Just getting "OK" wont help answer any of those questions for whoever is leading.

As for complex systems, we train here to always show the gauge. Simple, effective.

 

[String]

How about us bar types?

Yeah ive never had a 1900 bar fill either

Yet again metric wins out for being simple