Wow, nice first post Mr. Socketpuppet12345, who joined just this morning! Way to contribute!
For the record, there are manufacturer subforums for flagwaving, chearleading, etc. The regular regulator forum is fair game for criticism, and IMO its valid to question a diveshop "review" of a
regulator that hasn't gotten wet yet.
Since we are dredging this thread back up...
The most disturbing post in this thread was Bob Vincent's post where NOAA (a federal agency last I checked) would seem to be doing some sort of marketing deal with Oceanic. Hard to tell from the outside whether this includes a special pricing for NOAA. At a minimum since this is a governmental transaction that should all be public knowledge. Let a little taxpayer sunshine in, at least post the entire study that was done so it can be vetted by third parties...
What is most disgusting is that Oceanic and NOAA would disregard the real mistakes made by that ill fated Coast Guard dive, and the memories of the two divers that died as a part of it. Many things went wrong on that dive from the commanding officer's judgement to a complete lack of disregard for protocols and regulations to poor regulator handling at the surface (the single largest cause of coldwater freeflows in my experience) to divers being severely overweighted, none of which was going to be solved with the latest Oceanic regulator technology. If this was the result of an honest root-cause analysis then maybe I could see it, but given that there are companies around who pioneered coldwater regulators and have been at it far longer than Oceanic, it seems more like sales oneupsmanship on the backs of two Coasties who were
serving their country. I find the entire thing to be morbid for marketing's sake and I, for one, think Oceanic and the brass at NOAA should be ashamed of themselves.
And this doesn't even begin to address common sense issues. Imagine the operational issues that a Delta IV recall could cause if all of NOAA's coldwater regs are that same make and model. Recalls do happen, IIRC the CPSC has announced several Oceanic regulator recalls including as recently as December 2007. What does NOAA do then, suspend all coldwater dives until a fix or retrofit is in place? From that perspective alone it doesn't pass the smell test. After all, the DVT (and Aqualung's ACD) is relative new technology, at least in "scuba years".
I'll get off my soapbox now.
Flame on...
I'm quoting the relevant part of Bob's post in case it inadvertently gets changed at some point in the future:
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced its new regulator pick. In the June issue of Undercurrent, we wrote about NOAA's new rules and regulations for government divers in response to the death of two Coast Guard divers in Alaska last summer. One major change was giving the boot to all regulators Coast Guard divers had previously used for cold-water diving. After testing of multiple regulators, NOAA found Oceanic's Delta IV to be the most reliable.
"It consistently came up first for meeting all our criteria, and it won't freeze up in cold water," says Lieutenant Eric Johnson of the NOAA Diving Program. The Delta IV is an environmentally sealed diaphragm regulator and its first stage has Oceanic's Dry Valve Technology, designed to stop moisture and contaminants from entering and to prevent corrosion of internal components. NOAA bought 350 of the regulators and now requires its 500 divers to use that model when diving in water temperatures of 50 degrees or less. Johnson says the Navy's experimental dive unit is using them, too. The Delta IV is also commercially available for sport divers; Oceanic's suggested price is $570.
