Found a cheap trick for comms that saved my ass in Port Arthur

Was working a dock job in Port Arthur last month, the usual underwater inspection gig. My earpiece kept dying because of sweat and salt, tried three different headsets and all of them crapped out within an hour. Buddy on the barge told me to wrap the speaker in a condom and tape it over my ear, weird but it worked. Ran 6 hours straight of dive time with zero static or cutoff. Anyone else got a ghetto fix for comms when the fancy gear fails?

2 comments

2 Comments

jordang3220d ago

Remember reading a piece in a dive magazine years back about how commercial guys in the Gulf were doing the exact same thing with surgical gloves. They'd cut the finger off and stretch it over the earpiece. The condom trick works better though because it's thinner and you get a better seal against the ear canal. I've also heard of guys coating the speaker in clear nail polish before a job, lets the sound through but keeps the sweat out. Never tried it myself but the logic checks out. Salt water is brutal on that little mesh screen, anything that keeps it dry is worth its weight in gold.

kai91419d ago

Respectfully, @jordang32, I gotta push back on the nail polish thing. I tried that once on an older pair of earbuds before a trip, and it killed the bass completely. The sound got all tinny and hollow, like I was listening through a tin can. The condom trick, sure, I get that, but the polish just cakes up in the mesh and changes the whole tone. Salt water is nasty on gear, no argument there, but I'd rather just rinse the earpiece in fresh water after a dive and let it dry. That mesh is tougher than people give it credit for, it's mostly the salt crystals that scratch things up over time. Keep it simple, that's my take.