Suunto Gekko bookmark feature

[samuel150]

I have been reading through the manual on how to operate it and came accross the bookmark feature. However, the manual only gives a brief description on how to activate it.

So my question is when would you use the bookmark feature?

 

[reefduffer]

The vast majority of my uses of it record accidental presses of the left button during dives. Always useful to look back and remember these. :cool2:

But more seriously, you could record the depth of an object you're next to, without needing to write it on a slate or wetnotes. In the same vein, you could get a rough idea of the position of an object if you know something about the path you took on your dive.

Not a compelling argument for the feature, but it didn't cost much to add it; the log already records events like ascent rate alarms and surfacing, and the left button isn't otherwise used in dive mode. Maybe others can describe something more useful.

I almost overlooked that you asked this in the context of Gekko. The Gekko is a hobbled Vyper, with the most significant missing feature the PC log upload. (But see http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/co...lyzers/133089-suunto-gekko-dive-download.html for a way around that). In the absence of the PC upload, I'd think bookmark would be of, to say the least, of more limited utility.

However, it's not useless; if you look at the on-screen history display, the fourth screen for each dive is a scrolling depth profile. If you use the bookmark during a dive, the on-screen bookmark icon will flash during the display of that interval. Per the manual, and I hunted down one of my accidental button presses on a dive from last April, found it not yet overwriiten in my Cobra (a Vyper with AI), looked at the profile scroll, and sure enough, there it is. You have to really want that bookmark data, but it can be done in a Gekko, I expect.

 

[samuel150]

Ok thanks for the information.
I didnt realise you were able to download the data from the Gekko. I will have to take a look at this.

 

[DerekDives]

If you do use the bookmark feature, does it also record the temperature at the point that the bookmark is set?

 

[hongrace]

Ok thanks for the information.
I didnt realise you were able to download the data from the Gekko. I will have to take a look at this.

Yes, you can! Thank for the help and instruction of members in this forum, I purchased a third party cable and a third party software to download my Gekko onto my Mac. Work like a charm!
But you can also use the Sunnto download cable and download software on pc. Search on the SB will generate a lot of tips.

Oops. Didn't realise that was quite an old post.

 

[reefduffer]

If you do use the bookmark feature, does it also record the temperature at the point that the bookmark is set?

Not to the best of my understanding. The bookmark, like the other alarms/events (slow, surface, caution, etc.) injects a byte into the profile history with a special out-of-range depth value. With the exception of these, all other bytes in the profile history are depth in feet, as a delta from the previous sample. There is no provision for putting a temperature or tank pressure in the profile. In addition to the profile, there is a formatted data structure for each dive, that contains start and end tank pressures (unused in a Gekko, of course) and three temperatures: air, max depth, and end.

My understanding is based on papers:suunto_protocol [Markus Fritze (MMM)] which has descriptions of the protocols for the various Suuntos, reverse engineered. These are not official from Suunto, they won't publish them, but it seems consistent with what the various software packages seem to have as available data. For purposes of that documentation, consider the Gekko to be a Vyper.