James
I have been out of the country for several weeks so am just now getting back to psubs. My experience has been similar to Dan's on the OTS U/W communications gear. Dan put me on to OTS equipment at the Psubs convention in Vancouver. See this link
http://www.psubs.org/reference/comms/R300-comms.pdf that details how I have integrated both my OTS gear (SSB-2010 and CDK-6 in the boat and STX-101 base station) and the Raymarine Ray 45 VHF marine radio I got from Alec into my boat. To install the systems, I used a subconn BH4F and IL4M connector. This connector set has 4 color coded wires coming out of both the BH4F and IL4M connectors.
The first step in installing the equipment was to go to a local swimming pool and play with OTS equipment to confirm it worked which is did. As Dan noted, there are two modes, VOX which is a voice activated menu system and a manual PPT mode. You have to practice a little to get the VOX system to activate but very quickly you find the volume and tone necessary to use the VOX mode. The PPT mode is bullet proof. I was able to purchase both the OTS SSB-2010 and STX-101 from their scratch and dent department (
http://www.oceantechnologysystems.com/scratch_dent.shtml) at a substantial savings compared to list price. I had to pay full retail for the CDK-6. I did a similar bench testing of the Raymarine VHF radio. Now that I was comfortable both comm systems worked out of the box, I removed approximately 45 ft out of the 55 ft
transponder RG-58 coaxial cable that comes with the CDK-6 unit. I fabricated a SS mounting bracket for the transponder end to mount this to the fiberglass shell behind my viewport. I then spliced the transponder cable, which was about 3 ft long, into the Subconn IL4M connector. As this is a coaxial cable, the shield is soldered with one of the connectors and the center conductor the other. The remaining two conductors on the Subconn IL4M connector were soldered to the two conductors from the 3 ft VHF radio antenna. To water proof these four connections, I potted the connections in a small piece of 1/2 inch PVC about 3 inches long with RTV. On the inside of the pressure hull, the four conductors from the Subconn BH4F connector were likewise soldered to the two coaxial cables, one coming from the VHF radio and the other from the CDK-6 cable piece that plugs into the SSB-2010 radio. These
were potted as before.
To test the assembled system in the shop, I placed the transducer that comes with the STX-101 base unit in contact with the similar transducer now mounted on my hull and held them in place temporarily with a rubber band.
The SSB-2010 unit (now in the boat) powers up when you connect the transducer cable. A red LED light on the unit indicates when the power is on.
Like Dan, I have found the equipment to works just fine. Passing both the VHF and the U/W comms antennas through the same bulkhead connector works fine with no noticeable degradation in performance of either radio.
I can recommend the OTS gear without hesitation, particular if you can get it at a discount through their dent and scratch department.
Cliff
Cliff Redus
Redus Engineering
USA Office: 830-663-6445
USA mobile: 830-931-1280
cliffordredus@sbcglobal.com
From: James Frankland <james@guernseysubmarine.com>
To: personal_submersibles@psubs.org
Sent: Thu, August 26, 2010 8:29:05 AM
Subject: [PSUBS-MAILIST] Underwater Communications
Hi All,
Does anyone have any experience with the OTC dive communicator, or the divelink model.
http://www.divelink.net/beltmounted.htm
http://www.oceantechnologysystems.com/ssb_2010.shtml
I am considering using either one of these for sub to surface communications.
From the websites, it looks like i would be able to buy 2 of the surface communication sets. 1 on the boat unmodified and the other on the sub with the antene passing through a bulkhead connector.
Has anyone used these before? Does anyone know if cutting the antene and passing it through a bulkhead connector would effect the performance?
Kind Regards
James