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These are the results as promised. If I get anymore toad
ay, I will include them in the article in Aqua-Corps.
Thanks to everyone who responded and my apols. for the errors.
RW
----------------------------------------------------
10/04/93
Techdiver List Survey Results
This is a report of the results from an informal survey conducted with the
subscribers to the techdiver list. Participation was voluntary and therefore
no claim is made or represented that these results represent the practices of
the techdiver readership as a whole. It is hoped however that these results
will give an indication of the practices of the subscribers.
21.65% of the population responded to the survey for a N= 42.
Age:
No respondents were below 20 years old. 51.22% were 30-39 years old,
with 24.39% being in groups 20-29 and 40 years and plus. One
respondent did not answer.
The oldest respondent was a 44 year old male. The oldest female
respondent was 39 and the youngest was a 21 year old male.
Gender:
92.86% of the respondents were male with 7.14% female. This represents
2% more women in the techdiver list than the survey conducted by aqua-
corps at their conference.
Marital Status:
23% of respondents were married, 17% single and 2% have been married
twice and are currently married. I respondent was in the process of getting
divorced.
It would appear that technical diving is not particularly hard on the
marriages of techdiver list subscribers.
Children:
54.41% of subscribers have no children, 10.26% have one child, 30.77%
have two children and one respondent or 2.56% had more than 3.
Education:
Techdiver Subscribers are very well educated. Over 80% have degrees
with:
21.43% Professional
26.19% Bach.
28.57% Masters
9.52% Doctoral
2.38% Post Doctoral
The remaining all have had some college education
Employment:
Nearly three quarters of all techdiver respondents (71.11%) are employed
in a technical capacity. Two subscribers share technical and administrative
duties with a total of 13.33% in administrative fields. 15.56% of
individuals answered other with 5 mentioning teaching, and 2 being
students.
Country:
59.54% of subscribers are living in the USA. 17.04% are British, 12.20%
Australian, 4.88% from Finland and one each from Germany, New
Zealand, Switzerland and Sweden.
Years Diving:
Over 46% of the divers have been diving more than 10 years with 9.52%
having been involved 20-29 years. No one reported 30 years or more.
40.48% of the divers have been involved with diving 1-5 years and only 1
responding subscriber has been diving less than a year.
Total Dives:
Since diving experience is exposure based, the respondents are an
experienced group. The forty two respondents reported 22,818 dives!
11.90% had less than 100, 33.33% had 100-250, 28.57% have logged
251-500 dives, 14.29% have between 501-1000 dives, 9.52% of the
respondents have between 1001-2500 dives, 0% answered 2500-5000 and
one person had over 5000 dives or an estimate 5400-5600!
Certification:
100% of techdiver subscriber respondents are certified. 80.95% had
advanced certifications by US certification standards. 14.29% of the
subscribers had NACD or equivalent cave certifications with 9.52%
holding NSS cave certifications (4.76% holding both NACD and NSS).
23.81% of the responding subscribers have one form or another mixed gas
certification.
Dives by Type:
There were 18,011 open water dives logged. 408 ice dives were
performed by subscribers. Subscribers have made 2,797 wreck
penetration dives. Subscribers reported 1,083 cavern dives and 3,488 cave
dives. From these totals, 3,488 of the dives were deeper than 130 feet or
the metric equivalent.
Gases Used:
55.56% of the divers report using only air. 20.37% report using EAN
while 11.11 percent have used Tech Nitrox. 3.70% or two divers have
used He/Ox and 9.26% or 5 divers report having used Trimix.
Deepest Dive:
There were no subscribers who reported a deepest dive of less than 100
feet. Breakdown is as follows:
100-130 7.32%
131-150 34.15%
151-200 43.90%
210-250 4.88%
251-300 7.32%
300+ 2.44%*
* (The deepest dive was 468 FSW logged by this author using saturation
techniques on HE/O2 over a six day period. Since this type of diving is
not representative of technical diving, readers may wish to disregard this
one response.)
Number of Decompression Dives:
Seven respondents answered this question by stating that all dives are
decompression dives. Although this may be true, the intent of the question
was to determine the number of planned decompression dives that had
been performed by the respondents. The question was by virtue of these
responses poorly stated and should have read, "How many dives have you
performed in which decompression stops had to be made, i.e. planned
decompression dives, excluding 5 meter or 15 foot safety stops."
Respondents who did not indicate anything other than "all dives are
decompression dives" were eliminated from this response. Five
respondents indicated that they had not made any planned decompression
dives.
Based on the above, there were 4,315 decompression dives made by
remaining group.
This results in 18.91% of the dives made were decompression dives.
Decompression Procedures:
Table Use:
There was virtually an equal number of divers, 27%, using USN, DCIEM
and Buhlmann Tables. Considering the preponderance of US
respondents, this result is interesting. 12.82% of the respondents used
BSAC 88 Tables, while 2 respondents or 5.13% used SUSL 89 and one
respondent used Min du Tra. 74 (French) Tables.
Dive Computers
76.19% of the techdiver subscribers use computers. By brand rank
Aladdin was #1, with Suunto Solution #2, followed by Micro Brain and a
few divers using Oceanic Sports and Pros.
Custom Tables
Only 2 divers use custom tables or 4.76%. One was stated as having been
generated by
themselves and the other was commercially generated. One respondent
indicated that the table was Buhlmann based.
Custom Software
11.90% of the divers indicated using custom software as a decompression
management tool.
Incidence of DCS
11.90% of the respondents indicated having suffered a DCS hit with a total
of 7 episodes in five individuals. Only 4.76% (2) received treatment in a
chamber. There appeared to be no correlation between DCS incidence
and other answers excepts that all were experienced divers.
Based on the number of decompression dives there were 0.16% incidence
of DCS with decompression dives and a 0.03% incidence with all dives.
Rick Williams
rick515@de*.co*
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