Diveline Messaging
How Will Diveline Change The Scuba Landscape?
Scuba sign language is effective at short range and when the visibility is good. Often the visibility conditions can go down to a meter or less very quickly and without warning. Added to this scuba divers can get separated and find it hard to locate one another. Scuba diving has developed a buddy system and they are expected to stick to the buddy like glue as the buddy can be the life-line if a situation develops. Often however divers get separated from the buddy as well and find no way of locating or alerting the buddy. The only option remaining is to cut short the dive and wait for the buddy at the surface hoping the best for the buddy that he returns to the surface safely or another predesignated point.
Diveline brings huge benefit by being able to communicate with the buddy or any other diver or the boat at anytime during the dive. If the buddy is out of sight or cannot be located the diver has the ability to re-connect and give status. Further an emergency message can be broadcast to any other diver or boat so that they can come to assist using Diveline Nav function. The boat can have peace of mind by inquiring status of the divers and if necessary recall the divers.
We are also developing a system where divers can make up messages on demand and transmit. This would not be as convenient as preset messages but still give the ability to make up a message for the given situation.
When a situation develops time is critical and getting a message for help in time can make a dramatic difference in the outcome. Diveline will increase the comfort and confidence allowing greater peace of mind to the diver to enjoy the pleasure of scuba diving. This benefit cannot be brought to the scuba experience in any other way. Effective communications is vital and necessary especially in a high risk sport.
Current Diver Communication Practices
Divers have developed a fairly complex sign language to communicate underwater. Every scuba diver needs to learn at least a minimum set as it is vital to communicate different situations that can occur during the dive. However the sign language is limited and sometimes divers find it difficult to communicate the situation at hand effectively.
The other methods are technology based and the most prevalent is full face mask (FFM) voice communications. As the name suggest the diver is expected to have a full face mask and the microphone and earphone are mounted within this structure. FFM diving is not that prevalent compared to normal scuba. The FFM technology is based on analogue modulation of the voice onto higher carrier frequency. Due to Doppler and reflection issues underwater the communication range is limited.
There are other diver messaging and recall systems that have not gained much market acceptance due to communication reliability issues.
What Differentiates Diveline?
Diveline is built on the world leading and reliable acoustic wireless communication technology of DSPComm. This technology effectively solves the Doppler and reflection (multi-path) problems and has been proven over 15 years in various industries globally. Without this stable foundation attempting to develop a diver communication system is futile and we have seen many attempts fail. This communication technology has now been miniaturized and tested successfully in sea trials and now we are packaging it for the scuba diver.