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Jammer <jammer@oz*.ne*> wrote: >... the tank I carry the argon to the resort in is an old 72, which I >then trans-fill (or whatever the term is) off of for the rest of the trip. > >It has no special markings, and certainly isn't brown. Of course, the >welding shops, who are AWARE of who is responsible, are all happy to fill >it with argon, because they know that THEY aren't responsible, ... It's not a problem for the welding shop because no welder in his right mind would even dream of breathing off his welding tanks. Take a common SCUBA tank onto a divesite, though, and sooner or later some moron is going to grab it, strap it on his back, and jump into the water. Problem #1: because recreational SCUBA went 40 years without anything but air to breathe, content markings were never instituted (what else would be in the tank BUT air?) and divers were never trained to look for any. They did talk about hydro and viz markings in the basic course, but what good that's going to do you before a dive isn't clear. All they tell the average diver is how soon to expect to pay more money at the dive shop. Problem #2: the first alternative gas to become popular was nitrox, so huge green bands screaming "NITROX!!!" got introduced to scare the untrained diver away. Instructors have started telling their students about that, but the words "trimix" and "argon" still mean nothing to a large number of divers and even instructors. I'd just as soon not use "NITROX!!!" banding on a set of doubles that has air most of the time, nitrox some of the time, and maybe even trimix. However, there needs to be something to scare off Joe Idiot Diver who has never used anything but a rental tank in his life and just grabs the first tank he sees on the boat. I'd be just as happy with a "screamer band" that said "READ CONTENTS LABEL" or "IS THIS AIR? ARE YOU FEELING LUCKY?" or "MY TANK - OWNER USE ONLY" or whatever, just so long as it stops him. IMHO what might work best is if we simply went all-DIN, and Joe's reg wouldn't fit any of our tanks so he'd move on to another one. Promulguate a new standard that DIN tanks have current-contents stickers (see below), and leave yoke-valved tanks to the great unwashed masses for air and maybe EAN32 (good to 130') only. OTOH, I don't want to spend the money to switch over any more than you do. Meanwhile, the "shock label" aside, the tank should then have some modest labelling with current contents, and the label could be torn off and changed when/if the tank is filled with something else. This could just say "Argon" in typewriter-sized letters. I think Ted is on the money with this. The only other useful markings would be MOD on breathing gas, and diver's name, per the WKPP method. -- Anthony DeBoer http://www.onramp.ca/~adb/ adb@he*.re*.or* (here) adb@ge*.co* (work) #include "std.disclaimer" -- Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aquanaut.com'. Send list subscription requests to `techdiver-request@aquanaut.com'.
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