Found a trick for clearing comms underwater that my old instructor never showed me

Was working a job off the coast of Louisiana last spring on a pipeline inspection. My comms kept cutting out every time I went past 60 feet. Changed batteries, swapped headsets, did the whole dance. Finally the tender on deck told me to wrap the cable around my ankle once before plugging in. Something about the tension keeping the connection steady. Worked like a charm for the rest of the dive. Has anyone else picked up weird cable tricks from surface crew that actually hold up?

2 comments

2 Comments

mary_foster9223d ago

The ankle wrap is a decent field fix, but the reason it works isn't the tension. The real issue is usually the cable getting water in the connector or a bad ground at the deck box, and wrapping it just pulls the strain off that connection. I've seen guys do the same thing with zip ties to the tank valve. It's a workaround, not a fix. If you do it long enough, you'll end up with a corroded pin and a dead comms at 60 feet anyway, and then you're re-wiring the whole line. Better to check the O-ring on the bulkhead before you go down, but you'll probably learn that after it fails on you once.

bennett.mason23d ago

Same thing happened to me on a night dive in rough seas. I spent an hour fiddling with the deck box before I realized it was just a loose pin on the bulkhead connector, not the cable itself. A quick shot of dielectric grease and a fresh O-ring fixed it for good, never had to mess with tape or wraps after that.