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Rick writes: >survey because of that, I elected not to include it. Another reason I >did not do it was because it would only document the income of techdiver-l >subscribers and not techdiving population at large which has been done. Pete Young comments on someone elses comments about my comments: >But you could say the same thing about the entire survey - it is a >survey of those members of techdiver@opal.com who could be bothered >to respond, and in those terms it may be interesting. However, I'm not >sure that you can infer anything about the techdiving population >at large from the results of this survey. I believe I made that point in the opening to the results. >One point that survey made was that techdivers make up 7-10 percent of the >overall population but account for approx. 40% of the installed base of >equipment and 30% of the annual dive spending in the US! If those results >are valid, I think it fair to assume that techdivers are affluent and >Those results of course may be valid for the US but are not valid for >the rest of the world, who make up a sizeable proportion of the >membership of this mailing list. First, I'm sorry I didn't put in there that it was only applicable to the US. I thought the "in the US" would cover that. Second, I'm not sure what the breakdown is on the national breakdown on list is so the question is define sizeable? I can only state that the mail went out world wide and majority of respondants were from the US. >As a related issue, I'm not sure that the term `techdiver' is >one that can be easily defined in the UK, although I will happily >accept suggestions. Ok, how about this: A techdiver is an individual who makes use of available technology regardless of the standard practices of their country. But, as an aside, thew survey wasn't to define techdivers but to survey techdiver subscribers. >Where I noticed a variation between the Aqua-Corps survey and the one done >here was that the techdiver-l subscribers are better educated. >But this shouldn't be a surprise, because the vast majority of people with >access to this mailing list are either based at higher education >establishments or are employed in posts which require a higher standard >of education. And this might lead you to suspect that they are more >affluent. I didn't say I was surprised, in fact I would have been surprised had it been otherwise, I merely reported the result. (;-> >Besides this skewing towards well-educated individuals, the sample >size of this survey is far too small to allow any conclusions to >be drawn from it. I agree! That is a general problem with diving. No one can say with any certainty how many people are diving, how many certified divers there are, What kind of diving they do etc. Without a census, there will never be a way to judge the accuracy of any survey. But, the survey does indicate and those indications are as valid as any observation! >My personal experience of diving with other divers with preferences >for deep diving, wreck diving, decompression diving or cave diving >(which seem to me to be the kind of thing that begins to define >`techdivers') is that there is NO correlation whatever between >social status, occupation, intelligence or income they may have >and the type of diving they do. That may well be true for the UK and I in some general forms it is true, but to use your own criteria, I'm not sure that is completely true here in the USA. In fact although people of all economic levels take part in diving, market study after market study does show strada lines and a preponderance of participants within what we (US) would term upper middle class and more to the point, given levels of expendable income regardless of income. For example lets look at cave diving. Based on US practices for full cave, we are looking at totally redundant systems, large cylinders and several other goodies. I would guess based on my own experiences that a low end expenditure would be around $2500+ or more to get started. In addition to basic equipment. Hardly a poor persons sport! Although there are certainly exceptions, hence my comment about the monk society since I know people who spend virtually every nickle they make on diving! >>insured group than ordinary sport divers, and how the treatment refusal >>rate for DCS compares with the larger sport diving population...(....) >Refused treatment for DCS? Or inability to pay for it? I don't see any >possible scenario in the UK whereby I could be refused DCS treatment, >although there might be an argument about the bill. Once again, this >is too US-centric to be relevant to this mailing list. I cannot comment on this since my question did not deal with this issue. However, I am writing a survey for the scuba -l list which address several of the points made here, including other methods of treatment and I believe have managed to address several of the nationality problems. However, considering the number of US based readers, I'd say there is some relevance. Best Rick
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