Sidescan & Magnetometer for Newbies

[aussiejohn]

Sidescan & Magnetometer for Newbies

Hi Guys,
I've just joined and am looking into Sidescan and Magnetometers for amateur shipwreck searching.

I'm located in Sydney, Australia - a lot of the wrecks in question are steam ships or WWII wrecks built over the last century.

Depths up to about 500 feet.

We're experienced deep wreck divers, have borrowed a basic magnetometer 10 years ago and would appreciate an update re. the state of play at the moment. Ideally pros, cons, costs, suggestions etc.

Thanks for your help (and sorry if this sort of thread has already been posted in the past).

Cheers,

John

 

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[Cablava]

Re: Sidescan & Magnetometer for Newbies

John

There's a lot of stuff on the forum regarding this subject. You can pay a lot or a little, lots of small units on the market now for amateurs. You get what you pay for in the end, The cheap units which are basically fishfinders, they work well you can find some exampoles of the scans if you search back a few months. If you want a better picture and log your positions (always a good idea) deep water and have a wider field of vision you need a better machine, some times a low frequency machine for a shallow pass in deep water then a high freqency machine to take a deep run at the targets to (sometimes) get a better picture. I used a Westmar SSS500 for years for general stuff and hired in an EG&G for the fancy stuff.

Mags have come on a bit over the last few years, search back a bit you will find plenty of info on here.

Regards

Mike Collins

 

[Dinkydick]

Re: Sidescan & Magnetometer for Newbies

Hi Cablava

I see by your post that you have used a Wessmar SSS500. Would you by any
chance have a spare recorder stylus belt? If not, would you know where I could
buy one?

I am also looking for information on how to convert the 500 from a paper machine
to a video machine. Do you know of anyone who has done this? Would you think
that a SSS700 processor would work with the 500 transducer? I have a
107KHZ transducer.

Thanks for any help. BTW I used to be an underwater welder for Titan Maritime.
Worked for them for 6-7 years. Did a bunch of salvege with them.

Dinkydick

 

[Cablava]

Re: Sidescan & Magnetometer for Newbies

Hi Dinkydick

Sorry I have no parts for the 500, I also have a 700 main box and fish but the umbilical is somewhere else only thing I do not know where. I always found Westmar to be very helpful so give them a call they have a lot of upgrades for their machines, the 500 is a bit long in the tooth now for parts but if it works then its a good machine. The transducer should work after all its just a noise signal. Its the processing that matters.

Titan are a great company, Dave Parrot is a lovely guy I hope things are well with him, sadly his protegee Scott Mercer was killed a few years back and I am sure Dave took that very hard (a blowback from a gas pocket he burned into I believe). We also had a bad one on the Joint Venture, one of my divers Davey Evans was burning holes in the stern (we had cut the stern off and turned the house through 90 degrees so the prop was pointing upwards) when he hit a gas pocket and the ensuing explosion took his KM17 off and knocked him out. we were lucky a diver working deeper heard the bang and went up to him and the standby reached him at the same time, between them they got the hat back on and untangled him from a rope and got him to the surface fortunately there was no decompression time and he recovered.

It can happen easily the stern was like a Swiss cheese with the holes we had drilled to let out the gas but we missed this one and were very lucky to keep Dave alive. Once he recovered he was offered a job with Titan full time, I was happy to see him there. The picture in the salvage thread is of the stern section after we got it onto a barge. I am not sure but I think that is Dave Evans on the top by the prop.

Regards

Mike Collins