Salvo HID - first time out

[JohnK]

After taking the plunge and getting the much merited Salvo 9aH 21W umbilical, I took it out for its first dive yesterday. In short it was great, but I did suffer some "newbie to umbilical momemts"

The torch was very bright and the focussable head a nice touch. The goodmans handle is adjustable and after dive 1 had to tweak it a bit to suit my hand/glove size. One problem I found was that after the dives, my left wrist was acheing to hell - reason being that when I swim, my normal position is with both hands clasped just in front of me. In this position the light head obviously points off to the right so I had to tweak my hand position which was not comfy.

Barry - for those of us who dive this way - any chance of modifying the attatchment of the handle to the head such that the head can be offset on the handle - maybe a groove where the top screw is fitted so a position can be selected/adjusted ? Please - before all you hardened tekkies flame me, I have never used umbilical before so these are virgin comments !!

Either that - or can someone tell me what I am doing wrong - dont want to alter my dive position. Maybe its just me !!!

The focussing mechanism on this torch is simple to use - even with 5mm 3-fingered mitts.

The light beam was nice and tight - however I noticed that there was a "defect in the beam" which annoyed me - probably because I was looking for things that might not be right. I put this problem down to the reflector which is perfect apart from a 1cm high number "3" that has been embossed into it. The beam defect seemed to coincide with the position of this. I would suggest that this (surely a manufacturing notation of some sort) is moved somewhere else.

My next challenge was the cable. Not too sure that I like it trailing across my body. Eventually wound a bit of it around my left arm to take up some slack. This is purely ME not being used to the umbilical appraoch and I will get used to it.

The battery pack is a beauty - small and tucks away nicely. Only problem I had was that when fully kitted I struggled to reach the switch - minor in water adjustment (loosened off the retaining buckle a bit) sorted this and using the switch with mitts was OK.

Overall a superb bit of kit - well worth the money - I need to get more used to it but that will come. I would recommend this kit from Barry.

Any comments from folk will be welcome

Now if I can only get the head to swivel..............................