I'm currently working on that and hope to demonstrate at the convention this year...check the archive back in the December time frame for details. Be sure to hold on to your shorts when you get the quote from Reson....the quotes I've got from several of the commercial companies are well beyond out price pain threshold. Al ----- Original Message ----- From: vbra676539@aol.com To: personal submersibles <personal_submersibles@psubs.org> Sent: Mon, 15 Mar 2010 13:32:44 -0000 (UTC) Subject: Re: [PSUBS-MAILIST] Desert Star Sport Andy, I put a request in to Reson this morning for a transducer quote. A basic UQC is simple electronically (or so I've always been told). If the transducers aren't out-of-this-world expensive, do you think we could group up and figure out a base unit to drive it? With all David's work, it seems likely that we could. Then we could have a home-grown system. The transducer itself is actually the most difficult part for the home-builder. If we can get that within our reach, couldn't we just build our owna? Or maybe lock David in the basement with a shopping cart full of parts and enough pizza to keep him alive until he gets them all built!! If that seems even slightly reasonable, do you have any other ideas (cheaper) about proper transducers for this application? Vance -----Original Message----- From: andy goldstein <andy.goldstein@videoray.com> To: personal_submersibles@psubs.org Sent: Mon, Mar 15, 2010 7:43 am Subject: Re: [PSUBS-MAILIST] Desert Star Sport Hi all. A couple of points. An echo-sounder, fish finder, etc. as normally installed would require the surface vessel to be almost on-top of the sub. A side scan typically would require the surface boat to always be moving back and forth with the sub broadside in order to image. I think both would have pretty sever operational challenges when trying to track a sub. The sport/scout do require the receiver to be in the water. As delivered the sonar transducer and display electronics are co-located in the same housing. So, yes you would get wet when attempting to use if from a surface boat. It would be fairly simple to open up the receiver, disconnect the sonar transducer from the display electronics, connect it to a coax cable, and run the display electronics remotely (like on a pole or in the cabin). This would void the warranty... Remember that the transducer is directional, so if it's rigidly mounted the relative positions of the sub and chase boat would have to stay constant. You could run spirals or something if you lost contact. If you do rigidly mount the receiver I'd get a second one too. That way if you had to send divers or an rov down to the sub you could relocate it easier. A configuration which would be more like the typical diver application, would be to pinger on a pole off the boat, and the receiver on the sub. The sub could always get back the surface boat without surfacing. If you want to move up to a "real" tracking system. There are lots. Desert star has an sbl for about $10K, Linkquest was mentioned at $15K for their USBL, then there is sonardyne, tritech, applied acoustics, ORE, ixsea. I think that is everyone. There are companies like Asthtead which rent these systems, which may be an option. If I had to had to have a fixed budget though I'd get other gear before a nav system I think. 1) Comms, like a OTS phone or something 2) Altimeter/depth sounder on the sub 3) Some imaging sonar, scanning or multibeam if I had the $$ 4) Surface beacon (strobe/radio) 5) SBL/USBL acoustic nav system. On 3/15/2010 12:18 AM, Jon Wallace wrote: > > Frank, > > Not addressed to me, but I'll throw in my two cents. Most commercial > pingers are ultrasonic. The hydrophone that David came up with uses a > "sonic" piezo element centered at around 3khz so it would not be > resonant to the higher frequency commercial pingers and would not > detect them. > > The Desert Star scuba pingers provide both direction and range and can > be used exactly as you've described. Unfortunately we have never been > able to succeed at getting directionality out of the HBH (home-built > hydrophone) using 3khz piezo elements, however my experience was that > it was very easy to determine range based upon the loudness of the > "ping". Therefore, by running a grid-pattern you could "home" in on > the pinger by just listening to whether the sound was getting louder > or softer. Not the most efficient way of finding an object by any > means, however, and similar to what you would have to do with a > down-looking sonar or fish finder. > > Jon > > > ShellyDalg@aol.com wrote: >> In a message dated 3/14/2010 8:06:39 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time, >> alanjames@xtra.co.nz writes: >> >> I have only had experience with cheap fish finders & have >> questions about their reliability, >> >> Hi David and Alan. Gulping air......well, OK. >> Now back to the question of finding a sub...... >> If a sub has a pinger attached, could a surface boat find it with the >> hydrophone you ( David ) made ? >> Depending on directionality of the array, a direction for the sub's >> location should be possible. Maybe then the pilot could motor over in >> that direction and as the pinger got louder you may be able to tell >> how close you're getting. At least staying within a pre-set minimum >> distance. By rotating the pick-up you would know if the surface boat >> needs to go left or right. Now, if you passed OVER the sub and the >> pinger signal was now coming from behind the pick-up the pilot would >> then stop or get out of the way in case the sub was ascending to the >> surface. Be a bummer to ram your own surface crew. >> Maybe you could have two pingers with one stronger ( louder ) or more >> frequent so by listening you'd be able to tell how close you were. >> What makes a pinger anyway ? Is it just a thing that sends out a >> sound wave at a set interval ? It seems the pick-up part is the hard >> piece to make. So the returning signal can be figured how far away it >> is ( function of time ? ) and what direction it's coming from ( array >> set-up in degrees ?) >> Frank D. >> > > > > > ************************************************************************ > ************************************************************************ > ************************************************************************ > The personal submersibles mailing list complies with the US Federal > CAN-SPAM Act of 2003. 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