New and Improved Superior Tank Banger
The tank-banger is an invention known to many divers. A rubber ring with a plastic ball mounted on the bottom of the scuba tank, it can be used to generate a noise by pulling the ball off the tank and releasing it. The ball impacting the scuba tank causes a “boinggg” noise which can be used to attract the attention of fellow divers. The tank banger is popular with dive masters who don’t pay much attention to their clients wandering off, and need to remind them acoustically to stay with the group.
Let’s look at the Pros and Cons of the tank-banger:
Cons: The disadvantage of the tank-banger is that its highly annoying sound travels far and wide (due to the well-known physics of sound in water) and that the human auditory system can not easily detect the direction of sound underwater. Hence, the “boinggg” sound is loud and annoying to anyone within the same dive-site as the tank-banging diver, but is of limited use, especially if there is more than one dive-group leader using it to attract the attention of his or her group members.
Things get worse if all members of dive groups with open-water certifications but with less-than-open-water skill-sets have mounted tank-bangers on their tanks. These divers will inevitably tank-bang whenever they see any “rare” marine organisms such as “Nemo” or a coral. This generates a symphony of “boing – boiiings” which instantly, completely and utterly destroys the tranquility which so many divers seek out underwater.
Pros:
The New Improved Superior Tank Banger
This new, advanced tank-banger has solved all the problems the old, conventional model has. It’s modified so that it does not produce annoying, distracting sounds anymore. There will be no cacophonic symphony of banging noises coming from hordes of divers with this one. Underwater peace and silence is re-stored with this model. A simple but brilliant modification of the original tank-banger has achieved this big step in the right direction.
Crowd mind: should I start selling this improved model? How much would you be willing to pay for it?
