Hot take: old school hard hat comms vs modern through-water units

I was reading a report from the IMCA last week that said through-water communication systems still fail about 30% of the time past 50 meters depth, which surprised me since everyone I know swears by them now. Meanwhile my old buddy Doug still runs a hard hat with a wired mic and says he's never had a comms failure in 15 years of offshore work. Is it worth the cable management headache for reliability, or are you guys seeing better luck with the wireless stuff down deep?

2 comments

2 Comments

king.aaron25d ago

My buddy runs a through-water unit on his boat and swears the issue isn't depth, it's battery life. He's had two die mid dive because the charge indicator is a liar.

scott.jana24d ago

That battery issue is super common with those units, and I've heard the same complaint from a few guys at the marina. The charge indicators are basically just guessing based on voltage, and they're totally unreliable when the battery is under load. A dead battery mid dive is scary, especially if you're using it as your primary comms or safety line. Your buddy should probably swap to a dedicated lithium battery pack with a real BMS that shuts off cleanly. Some of the higher end units let you hot swap batteries too, which would fix the problem completely.