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Here's a few thoughts on this thread. A tether is inherently dangerous,
costly, and probably won't help determine position. It will give you some added
communication, but I don't think it would help give you a good record of
position, say if you found something and wanted to return to that exact spot
sometime later.
If you are down say 1000 ft. and the tether/antenna is following along
behind, it could be up to 1000 feet off of vertical, depending on currents,
waves, and travel of the sub it's attached to.
I would think a better method would be to drop a ''sounding'' buoy
anchored to the spot, and use it as a beacon to find again. Of course, the
deeper it is, the harder it will be to locate again. If it is emitting a signal
you can track, that would make returning to that spot easier ( but not easy
)
A pinging buoy could be pretty inexpensive, so if you lost it, well, it
wouldn't be that bad.
Let's say you find a site worth investigating but you need to come back
later. Drop a buoy with a 1500 foot line on it, and move on through the search
grid dropping buoys where ever you get a ''hit''.
Then, once on the surface, you could locate the buoy, and follow the line
down to the site.
The line would only need to be a very small stainless wire, (like mig
wire?) strong enough to hold the buoy. A means of deploying the buoys would need
to be developed, like an arm that grabs one off the shelf, and drops it on site,
while the buoy spools out and returns to the surface.
You might be able to carry several of these on the outside, within reach of
the arm.
It would also be possible to develop some type of map while on the surface
as to where the buoys are floating, and of course while you're there, take GPS
readings on the floating buoys. Again, while on the surface, you could attach a
lighted beacon, or maybe even put something around the wire tether and let it
slide down to the site to make it easier to find once submerged.
I'm no electronics whiz, but maybe, you could slide something down the wire
that a side scan sonar or magnetometer could easily pick up. Once you have the
spot marked, there are lots of things that come to mind.
As far as keeping a record of your location, I think that a compass and
some type of dead reckoning, maybe tied into a video record of the bottom, and a
second by second computer calculation of speed, current, direction, etc. could
be loaded into a computer on land, and drawn out on a map. ( OK, I don't really
know HOW to do this, but I bet SOMEBODY does.)
Am I rambling ? any way, just some thoughts. Frank
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