Why the Aversion to Read the Instructions?

[oldschoolto]

The hell with the manual... They are way to long and dam near impossible to understand.. I use the get going fast page.. 99% of the stuff is useless... OK, maybe it's only 60%... But still.. Pushing and holding buttons 6to8 times.. WTF..

Jim...

 

[scubadada]

So I got an Oceanic Geo 2.0 last week. I read the entire manual before I bought it. Once I had it in hand, I went through all the menus and modes and settings, and then I took it to the pool for my next lap swim and wore it to see what it felt like, what the display was like to read in the water, and what the usability of the buttons was...

The Geo2 is extremely easy to use, especially compared to older Oceanic computers. Since having my 1st Pro Plus in 2002, Oceanic computers are not a problem for me. The newer ones are a cinch

It is potentially very dangerous, or, at least, inconvenient, to not know how to use your dive computer before your 1st dive. There's really no excuse for this to happen.

 

[redacted]

So, has anybody read their car manual cover to cover?

BTW, I looked at C card and did not find any depth restrictions.

 

[2airishuman]

So, has anybody read their car manual cover to cover?

Yes. Every time I get a car or motorcycle.

There are important things to know, like the fact that the cruise control is designed not to engage at speeds over 100 MPH (On my GL1800). I took their word for it. Running an experiment would exceed safe task loading at those speeds.

 

[John A Lewis]

So, has anybody read their car manual cover to cover?

BTW, I looked at C card and did not find any depth restrictions.

Back when I had a car, yes. Every time I got new one, too.

Each time, learned something peculiar to that car.

 

[Bob DBF]

As for training, I again agree with the OP….. OW in its wholeness is good to 130 ft. however training has broke the OW training into phases basic advanced and deep
with their own sub limits with in the ow max of 130. I have always used 60/100/130. Ow's should not dive beyond their training of 60. But no one enforces it.

Then the agencies that train train to a limit of 60' should rename their class, specify the limits, and not try to pass of inadequate training as being OW.

Both times I was trained as an OW diver, the skills were secondary to developing ones judgement on when to dive, when to expand ones limits and when not to take a
chance. In the shortened classes using the computer, one instructor for pool and another for OW dives, when is there time know a student and to develop their good judgement?

any dive op that does will not get customers to pay the bills. It always takes external forces to make change. gas availability needs a
C card to get it to be covered by the insurer of the shop. Perhaps dive ops should have the same enforceable requirement's. Want to get gas show me your card.
want to dive to 90 ft ,,, show me the card that you have been formally trained to that depth, or get off my boat. Of course different agency's would have to
standardize their cert language. most call deep >100 padi calls it >60. Some I have heard is >130. Is it any wonder why you cant get agreement from the professionals
on what is a deep dive.

The problem is that OW is for recreational limits which is now agreed to be 130' not the NDL to which I was originally non-formally trained, which goes to 190'.
What limits a dive op requires is up to the dive op and their insurance company.

As for formal training, it just depends on the instructor, so crappy AOW and crappy deep training gets the same card as good training, an OW diver with experience can be better than both.

And the biggy ::::: we are self regulated. We are not..... we are self exploited with no regulation other than what an outside agency, called insurance companies, place on various scuba operations.

Have to agree, regulation not only means making rules but also insuring that they are carried out properly. I see no active quality control by any agency to insure it's instructors and DM's are adhering to their regulations unless a problem brought to their attention by an outside source.

Given the behavior of senior/controlling aspects in our diving support systems why should anyone get a cert beyond what is minimally needed to get air.

There is no reason, actually that is why I took OW after 17 years of diving, should I go outside my area the chances of getting a fill dropped considerably. The reason I took other classes was because my grown daughter took up SCUBA and we made a bet, I wanted her to get more training as I believe the quality of OW and AOW have dropped over the years and I wanted her to get a more thorough training.

Agency regulation's that prohibit any training unless done through a shop. Kudo's for PADI and some others on that one, for getting it right. Give them the GIR award in that regard.

I don't see that as a complete negative. A truely independant instructor has no oversite whatsoever, and I believe that oversite and quality control is at the root of poor instruction. A good shop could improve the quality of their instructors, or remove those who should not be teaching.

They use the computer to see what you did, just like your car insurer uses you cars black box to reconstruct an accident.
If you die with a 500k policy at 90 ft and only have ow card on file with the boat you can be sure they are going to do everything to see that they don't pay if you have no proof of further formal training.

The problem is knowing where you died. Say I'm an OW on a wall at 30' and croak, I'm found at 100' at the base of the wall, so my insurance is invalid because my computer can't tell when I died. I hope my wife gets a good lawyer.


As for reading instructions, I have no problem with reading them, however sometimes there is no way to make sense out of them.



Bob
---------------
I may be old, but I'm not dead yet.

 

[tlj3071]

I am a software engineer with 30+ years of experience, and am also formally trained as both a technical instructor and somewhat less formally trained as a technical writer. I am appalled at the poor manuals for dive computers, and also at the inane user interfaces - even with all my experience it still took me dozens of hours of poring over my DC manual to figure out when I should hit the mode button vs mode + select vs holding mode + select for 2 seconds. I have used this computer on over 100 dives and still occasionally have to futz (technical term ) with the buttons to get to the screen I want.

It shouldn't be that difficult to have a non-software professional diver read a manual before a manufacturer decides to release a new DC to ensure it makes sense! Perhaps even better would be to get a diver to work with the U/I team to design a usable interface in the first place - maybe one that wouldn't even require reading the manual!!!

Just my opinion, and in absolutely no way represents the opinions of anyone else.

 

[admikar]

Operators require computers not for the benefit of the diver but for the purpose of operators lawyers (to prove the diver exceeded their training) in event of a death all the while knowing they are sending a diver to a place they are not papered to go.

Well, I thought I was trained to be responsible for myself, not to let someone I have never met before to be responsible for me, so why should dive op be responsible if you exceed your training, providing they give you complete info on planned dives?

When you get an Open Water card, you are certified to 130 feet. You aren't certified to 60, or 90, or 108, you are certified to 130.

Nope, CMAS is clear on that. CMAS* is up to (or down to) 20m/60ft. CMAS* is equivalent to PADI OW. And now comes the difference, if I want to go for CMAS **, there are clearly expressed minimas regarding experience, both with number of dives and dive profiles. With PADI you go straight for AOW after initial cert.
My point is, to go to 130 ft, you need extra training/certs.

 

[AdivingBel]

Nope, then CMAS* is not equivalent to PADI OW if this is the case. PADI OW is good to dive to recreational depths (130 ft.). The rest of the depth limitations are training guidelines and recommendations only. Individual dive ops may place restrictions for advanced training for certain dive sites, but that is their call (their boat, their rules).

 

[boulderjohn]

RTFM! Every trip (i'm a vacation diver) I see people that stare at their gear with a puzzled look on their face.

The problem is that if you only dive occasionally, let's say a dive trip per year, it is very easy to forget what you learned. Pooking at your computer with a puzzled look can be far superior to simply acting on what you have misremembered. I was recently asked to do a refresher class for a woman who was pretty experienced and had only been away from diving for a year. She turned out to be a pretty good diver who did not really need a skill refresher, but a serious problem became evident when she set up her gear. It was all her own gear, and it included an air integrated computer. When she turned on her air, she checked the computer, saw how much gas pressure she had, and mumbled something about the computer reading the gas mix in the tank as it should--32% nitrox. I told her computers do not read the oxygen level in the gas. She insisted that hers did, and she showed me that it was reading 32%. It took me a surprisingly long time to convince her that the computer was showing her what she had set it for at some time in the past. I assured her that the shop was not going to give her 32% for a pool refresher class--they didn't even have the ability in that shop to make nitrox.

That means that at some time in the past she had set her computer for 32% and had been following those readings on her dives no matter what was actually in her tank. If she hadn't mentioned her belief that the computer was reading the oxygen level loud enough for me to overhear it, she would have walked out of the refresher still believing that her computer reads the oxygen level.

---------- Post added December 15th, 2015 at 11:30 AM ----------

Well, I thought I was trained to be responsible for myself, not to let someone I have never met before to be responsible for me, so why should dive op be responsible if you exceed your training, providing they give you complete info on planned dives?

Because in the lawsuit that follows the accident, the plaintiff's lawyers are likely to argue that they should be, and a jury is likely to believe them.