Is there a rule of thumb to determine comm hardwire length? Our largest lake is about 1000 acres with gently sloping shorelines and a max depth around 50-55 ft. that would have to be accessed via boat. Based on limited training from the shoreline with a plain tether, longer lines start causing us issues. We've been throwing around numbers from 125' to 200' with about 150' coming up most often.
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The two type hard lines we have is the 120ft comm line that makes up 90% of our dives and the expensive 300ft comm line that is rarely used and we only have 4 of. If we are not within range for a shore dive we use boats with a quad anchoring system for still water and small objects. Another thing we noticed is that the OTS lines are getting more fragile as we replace the older ones which means we can't tow or pull as tight as we used to.
Jared, thanks for your reply, which parallels my thoughts. I don't know if I can justify sets of long and short hardlines to the bean counters, but we can operate from a boat. I'm disappointed to hear that new lines are becoming more fragile. The instructors at DRI tied knots all in them and said that they were very rugged. That's yet another obstacle to overcome at budget time. I would appreciate others weighing in if you see a major need for us to go longer than 120-150 ft.
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