Merits of a digital compass

[FishOutUvH2O]

I have a Galileo Sol, and I really quite like the compass in it. It reads accurately at full tilt and tracks very smoothly. I set the computer so that once I turn on the compass it stays in the compass display mode until I turn it off and go back to the regular display mode. While in the compass mode, I still get a display of depth, dive time, tank pressure, and NDL.

Bruce

I have to agree. The Sol's compass works great. There was definitely some issues to overcome when I first started using it. The hardest one being equipment confidence. Since I came from the mechanical compass crowd I was very skeptical (actually, hostile) of a digital compass. But after using it a bunch of times, side-by-side with my mechanical one, I realized it was just as accurate and really pretty easy to use. Another issue was sensitivity. The Sol's compass is a lot more sensitive than my mechanical one and if you're moving your arm side-to-side a lot, it can be hard to pin down the heading. Again, a few uses and the problem went away. A feature I really like about the Sol's compass is that once you set a reference bearing on it, the compass automatically calculates the headings for reciprocal/out-n-back, triangle, and square/rectangle patterns and places symbols on the screen for them. Now, if I could just get my "distance traveled" down, I'd actually be a decent navigator.

 

[Rainsey]

As with the SOl users, I agree, the compass is fantastic, I actually have the Terra which has the same compass BUT....

On a repetetive dive the other week, I was working close to my NDL's and needed to navigate back to my anchor line. So as normal I switch over to the compass to get a bearing back and immediately the computer switches me back to the main screen. Reason being that there was an alert indicating I had only 5 minutes before reaching my NDL. The Galileo, on an alert, defaults back to the main screen. Once this alert started it continues and as such it assumes that you are a dummy that does not know what you are doing and will revert you always back to the screen telling you what it thinks you need, not the screen that you NEED to be on and in this case, it was my compass.

I knew quite well what my bottom time limits were and I was working within them. All I needed was the compass up so I could navigate back and I could not. The software overrides your choice of screen.

To add to this problem, my wife also has a Galileo and her's was doing exactly the same thing so in effect, neither of us had a usable compass.

Now, I am not bagging the SOl or Terra as I love mine dearly and would not do without it but.. when you dive to the limits of the tables, be prepared to use a backup compass if you need to get back to your destination.

So.. to answer the question, digital compasses are terrific tools, mine will work at all angles and I have found in diving in environemnts with a lot of metal ( i.e. under bridges) it workes better than traditional compasses, but I now am of the mind set, especially of doing deeper and getting to the edges of NDL, the traditional compass cannot be beaten.

Cheers
Rainsey

 

[promocop]

but cant you push the right button and get it to read compass mode regardless of the nearing of the NDL?

 

[frozenwarp]

i used to have a suunto D9 and to be frank the compassed sucked, always needed calibrated and occasionaly would decide that no matter what way i faced it was South east :-(

recently upgraded to a Uwatec galileo SOL and i love it!!!!
thing works great, i was recently teching a navigation course and even though i had a mechanical compass on i was seeing how it compared and it makes triangles, recipricales and all really easy.

as long as the technology keepps imroving at the current rate i forsee alot of good digital compasses in the future,

Brad

 

[Rainsey]

but cant you push the right button and get it to read compass mode regardless of the nearing of the NDL?

On the Galileo, holding the right button brings up the compass and the compass stays visible for the period set up in the config, or permanently if you have overriden the default. 9 times out of then this has seved me well. But..... once you have a warning in the background, the compass is deemed by the computer secondary and shoots you back to the main display showing the alert.

In my case the compass dispalyed but, before I could get my bearing back, it reverted back to the main screen, i.e. immediately. To make maters worse we had a bit of a current on the bottom that was side on to us and knocking us off track. It was a pain in the preverbial back side to fight with the computer when all I needed was a compass up for only 30 seconds to get my reciprocal bearing.

Probably one of the bad practices I have gotten into was, because the Galileo compass is so good, instead of actually looking at the compass reading when I make my initial bearing on the bottom, I hit the middle button to mark the bearing and just work back off the recipricol marker. In this instance, due to my obvious poor practice, I did not really know what direction I needed to go so the minute time the compass was displayed, a North, South East or West indicator meant nothing as I wanted to orient myself the the return mark on the display.

Anyway... have learnt from this big time.... have an analoge backup!

 

[Rainsey]

recently upgraded to a Uwatec galileo SOL and i love it!!!!

Another great thing about the SOL compass is it is big. For the hard of sight like me this is a feature that I cannot brag too much about.

Oh, also, every time you take a bearing it annotates your dive log when you down load it to your computer. Very good feature.

The only thing that I have reservations about on the SOL compass is that its up date time or sampling is very fast resulting in a compass display that is constatly on the move. No different than an analoge one I hear you say but, a liquid filled compass has a degree of dampening in it through its design. A digital one does not.Still, would not give mine away for anything.

Cheers

Rainsey