underwater text messaging

OceanOpportunity

geez-o

Overview

lots of interesting features that actually seem very useful if you need to transmit data.

nav system is appealing as well

no mention of cell monitoring

__________________
Michael Lombardi
Oceans of Opportunity
www.oceanopportunity.com

Elected Director, Society for Human Performance in Extreme Environments

MN'07, The Explorers Club

Project Manager, Diving a Dream

diverklondike

These guys were at DEMA and there are a few other challenges...

1) No constant pp02...

2) No "He"

AD_ward9

That is a very nice system.

Talking about underwater communications, one of our suppliers (Larry, Integrity Technology) kindly sent me the following this morning:

YOU HAVE TO READ THIS FIRST BEFORE LOOKING AT PICTURE.

Family on holiday in Australia for a week and a half when husband, wife and their 15 year old son decided to go scuba diving. The husband is in the navy and has had some scuba experience. His son wanted a picture of his mum and dad in all their gear so he got the under water camera ready to go. When it came to taking the picture the dad realised that the son looked like he was panicking as he took it and gave the 'OK' hand sign to see if he was alright.

The son took the picture and swam to the surface and back to the boat as quick as he could so the mum and dad followed to see if he was OK. When they got back to him he was scrambling onto the boat and absolutely panicking. When the parents asked why he said 'there w as a shark behind you.' The dad thought he was joking but the skipper of the boat said it was true but they wouldn't believe him. As soon as they got back to the hotel they loaded the picture onto the laptop and this is what they saw.

Attached Images

image.jpg (13.0 KB, 282 views)

Buck-O-Five

Urban Legends Reference Pages: Scuba-Diving Tourists with Looming Shark

Sorry it's a fake story and a photoshopped picture.

__________________
"The Brandon" www.sdtechdiving.com

AD_ward9

The picture did look fake when I received it this morning, but the story fits the comms issue of this thread. I will let the supplier know he has been rumbled. Thanks for the link.

A picture that I don't think is fake is one I saw in a book on the Doria.

I was walking down the quay side towards our dive boat to take us to the Doria: this is after we flew in to the wrong airport and had to drive 400 miles and take a string of ferries get to Montauk, none of our baggage or dive gear arrived (BA), and Mark Reeves was telling me "Alex, too many things have gone wrong on this trip, someone is telling us something..",
when he saw the sign on the Montauk quay that said "White Shark Capital of the World" and lots of shark jaws in the windows.

Mark is not too keen on sharks, and said "Alex, you never told me that this place was the shark capital. You know I don't like sharks", to which the reply was "Don't worry. This is America. It is just advertising. You know how good Americans are at marketing. The White Shark Capital of the world is off South Africa - everyone knows that". OK, we got on the boat.

Just after it pulled away, a book in the lounge fell open with a picture of a guy decompressing after a Doria dive with a huge shark behind him, with its mouth open about to munch his head. I have several books on the Doria, but never saw it. Anyone here know which book it is in?

It seems the gentleman thought his buddies were kidding him and was never aware the shark was there, until they developed their photo and showed him. Days before photoshop.

The skipper then started his intro, and explained there is no diving on the Doria after 7pm because the beasties get hungry, chomp the dive ladder etc. As it turned out, it took us until 7pm to borrow enough kit from the other divers, so our first Doria dive started at 7pm, and as BA had not delivered Mark's mask with optical correction, all he saw was dark shadows. Mark was made of stern stuff and dived anyway, but you can see why we used to get called the Escapees from Ward 9 .. in fact, we were infamous which is just as well because we arrived late due to the unexpected drive but the divers on the boat kindly waited for us just to see how crazy we really were (which was very kind of them: they were an outstanding bunch, great divers, and lending us all the dive we needed to boot - a wing from one, a dry suit from another, a harness from another, a pair of regs etc).

Anyhow, when we got to the wreck, Mark and I headed different ways, met up again at deco, and we managed to communicate. Short of it was, when I read his dive computer, he had 5 minutes more deco to do than me. We then debated whether it was better to get back first, or second. Mark's view it was second as they would munch the first silhouette on the surface, while the second diver made his escape. My theory was the first diver would just get their interest, then they would munched the second. The big dark shapes going round and round were definitely getting closer, probably watching all the miming going on between us. I have never swam so fast on the surface in my life.

I don't think proper comms would have helped us there, unless it could do a Dr Doolittle.

Alex

jvk

@ Alex - Montauk is home of the annual shark tournament where they butcher threatened and endangered sharks for fun vunerable thereshers, makos blue sharks, tigers and great whites. June/July is where the sharks are out in numbers, especially on the cooler summer days. I'd give diving the Doria a miss around this period


The texting ability of this unit is just a gimmick which the company seems to be using as the main marketing angle, or so their press releases seem to point to. Wonder how well the navigation / homing beacon works. It uses the doppler shift principle so you have to be on the move to get a bearing. Wonder how practical it'll turn out to be. It'll cost $1000 but I doubt they'll be able to stick to this price.

AD_ward9

That is worth knowing. No need to guess the time of year we went ...

Actually I quite like sharks being around. They are fantastically graceful and beautiful creatures.

No need to say on this forum, but I will, that they do not behave with even one iota of the aggression man shows to them, unless one is either very unfortunate to meet up with a juvenile White in a seal area, or dumb enough to challenge a bull in its own territory. They just go around in circles a lot.

Your avatar is really interesting. Any more pics, or info on how your gas management works? There was another guy with a similar sort of set up, but horizontal, who used to be around.

Alex

jvk

hehe. I've yet to experience sharks in the water but ditto, there are places were large sharks swim close to very crowded beaches yet there has never been an incident. More chance of lightning striking, fatal coconuts falling on your head, and so on, I could go on

That would be the insane & wonderful Leigh Cunningham. I thought it's fitting since he's wearing 10 tanks and this is a rebreather forum!! He's going for a dive to 333m soon.

I don't own a rebreather yet, just waiting for a certain safety-minded CCR to go into production

EBT

I read their website and frankly its got all the hallmarks of vapourware.

Things I noted 'we use text messaging technology'. Nice. An attempt to associate with the SMS experience, yet sms doesnt use predefined messages you set on the surface.

No statements at all about range etc or anything that would let you understand how it works.

Maybe I'll be proven wrong, I hope so, but as an industry we're awash with vapourware and promises.

__________________
Eagles May Soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines!

Rebreather World Terms of service

lizardland

They did a similar annual shark tournament when I used to live on Martha's Vineyard. It was supposed to be good tourism marketing based on the island's association with the Jaws film... how a load of bored fat men with too much money butchering sharks 25 years after they shot the film there is good tourism marketing is beyond me.

Seeing how fast storms blew up on the island has always put me off diving the Doria, lot of money to gamble on not diving... from this side of the pond anyway.

Cheers,

Stuart

__________________
Can you imagine drifting along in the sea with your mouth open and a load of f***ing plankton going in? You'd like it, would you?

www.westons-cider.co.uk

Azerbaijani Association of Technical Divers Publicity Officer and Goat Wrangler