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The pool behind the Fort Sill Patriot Club served as a classroom Thursday for dive teams from Lawton Police Department and Fort Sill's Directorate of Emergency Services.
The divers were learning how to use LPD's new underwater communications system that will make dive team operations safer and more efficient, according to Lawton Police Lt. Robby Edmondson.
"It's something we've been working on for years," he said.
Lawton Assistant Police Chief James Apple said a little under $36,000 from a $534,541 stimulus grant was used to buy the new underwater communications gear. Lawton Police Lt. Tom Crawford, supervisor of the LPD dive team for the past 11 years, did much of the legwork on getting the gear writing the specifications, putting the packet together and getting bids on the equipment.
The package includes 10 diving masks equipped with four-channel transceivers, a main surface station and two mobile surface units that can move to different locations to communicate with divers. The digital communications equipment made by Aquacom allows two-way traffic between diver and surface. In addition, the divers can talk to each other.
Lawton Police Sgt. Robert Bishop said he works with the dive team "top side," sitting in a john boat monitoring the divers' air bubbles as they rise to the surface.
"This is going to be different. Instead of me watching bubbles, we can talk," Bishop said.
"It's going to enhance our operations tenfold," Edmondson said.
"Most of the dive operations we conduct are in zero visibility. Communication from diver to diver has been by hand signals or ropes. They can't see each other a lot of times," he said.
There was basically no communication to the surface, Edmondson said. The international sign for a diver to come up was to bang on metal.
The new communications system will bring about a tremendous increase in safety, he said.
"It allows us to be more efficient because we can direct our divers from the surface," said Edmondson.
Friday, September 03, 2010 |
