Hi Andy, For a Sub and tracking using the Sport or the 32kHz
units. How do they work for a chase boat to see where the Sub is?
Do you have to hold the instrument over the side of the boat in choppy water and
get drenched or do you have a wand type of arrangement? How easy is it to
convert them if required? Can they be used other than by divers?
Appreciate the feedback. I am a potential customer. I know that the
Scubaphone have a Pinger built in but you still need a direction finder.
Linkquest have the full banana but it is 15k. Chs Hugh
From: owner-personal_submersibles@psubs.org
[mailto:owner-personal_submersibles@psubs.org] On Behalf Of andy
goldstein
Sent: Monday, 15 March 2010 4:38 a.m.
To: personal_submersibles@psubs.org
Subject: Re: [PSUBS-MAILIST] Desert Star Sport
Dean & All,
A couple of notes on the Desert Star products...and yes I have a sorta biased
view...
There really are no other commercially available products in that price
range. There used to be a few other recreational diver pinger/pinger
receivers, but I think Desert Star is the last man standing. There are
other more expensive units that are used for applications like finding aircraft
black boxes. Those tend to cost a few thousand though.
The sport and scout were really designed to be used by divers to relocate
something. Like, the anchor line, dive buddy, expensive gear, etc.
As such, they are optimized for that application, and maybe not ideal for use
by a suface boat trying to follow a sub. The receiver must be in the
water to pick-up the signal. This may be difficult to do from a surface
boat, without really long arms ;). They could conceivably be modified to
work better as a surface relocation device.
And just for clarification the sport and scout both work at 72KHz, the
transmitters are omni-directional and the receivers are directional (45 deg for
the sport and 90 deg for the scout) The frequency was dictated by the
availability of low cost transducers and size contraints. John is correct
in that it does not conform to the ABS requirement for a 32KHz beacon.
DSS do have other pingers that can operate at 32KHz, but they are about $1.5K
-$2K IIRC, not including a receiver. I think this is still on the lower cost
end of the spectrum.
I'd be happy to answer any other questions you have.
Best,
Andy
ps. Jim if you are reading this, your sub looks AWESOME!
On 3/13/2010 1:23 PM, David Bartsch wrote:
Jon,
That sounds like a really great tracking device. Hope one is available
to see it at this coming convention. I might have a need for one.
Kyle's pinger is not based upon the HBH design but uses the underwater
speaker (transducer for solids instead) It is still broadband so would be
subjected to the interference you mentioned. This unit sounds much better and
more reliable.
David Bartsch
> Date: Sat, 13 Mar 2010 11:47:45 -0500
> From: jonw@psubs.org
> To: personal_submersibles@psubs.org
> Subject: Re: [PSUBS-MAILIST] Desert Star Sport
>
>
> If Kyle's pinger is the same HBH designs that I used in Spring testing
> of 2008, there's no comparison. Andy Goldstein brought a "Scout"
unit
> (scaled back sport version) with him to the Maine convention and it
> easily outperformed the HBH acoustic pinger that I brought. The Desert
> Star unit is ultrasonic which cut through the salt water without issue,
> and more importantly it was directional. The HBH/pinger still has a use
> I think as a last ditch method of drawing attention to oneself
> underwater, and especially since they can be made for about $15.
> However, with our Desert Star discount the cost of the ultrasonic units
> is somewhere around $120 for the scout, which is quite affordable. The
> only drawback I saw with the Desert Star unit was that it did not use
> the ABS approved frequency for pingers, 32khz if I remember correctly,
> and was centered upward in the 40-50khz range. For tracking purposes by
> a surface boat however, that wouldn't matter.
>
> Jon
>
>
> David Bartsch wrote:
> > I am curious as to how the locator pinger on Kyle's #7 measures up
> > against the desert star sport for tracking purposes.
>
>
>
>
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--
Andy Goldstein
Director Software Engineering
VideoRay LLC
580 Wall Street
Phoenixville PA 19460
Tel: 610.458.3006
Cell: 401.490.1707
Skype: videoray.ag
http://www.videoray.com
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