RE: [PSUBS-MAILIST] Desert Star Sport

["Hugh Fulton" <hc.fulton@gmail.com>]

Okay Andy,
I am listening hard.  I have OTS comms, Depth sounder yes, Surface beacon
and VHF. What are you recommending for  Number 3 and 5  Imaging Sonar and
acoustic NAV system.  Also what is SBL/USBL?
As always limited budget but not too limited.  I followed Cliff's advice on
comms and got scratch and dent 8 channel with diver unit for the sub all for
$3,500. I am a bit leery of Interphase now having heard of the recent
problem but David might fix it. Echo pilot is another forward sonar but I
have not heard of anyone using it. Eventually I would like an INS and I know
there is a guy trying to get one to the market for under 50k.  What is
Desert star.s SBL.  How does it compare with Linkquest?  Hugh 



-----Original Message-----
From: owner-personal_submersibles@psubs.org
[mailto:owner-personal_submersibles@psubs.org] On Behalf Of andy goldstein
Sent: Tuesday, 16 March 2010 12:43 a.m.
To: personal_submersibles@psubs.org
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.
>>
>
>
>
>
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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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