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Suunto Mosquito question.

Thread Status: Hello , There was no answer in this thread for more than 60 days.
It can take a long time to get an up-to-date response or contact with relevant users.

DeepThought

Freediving Sloth
Sep 8, 2002
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Greetings.
I understood that the Suunto Mosquito doesn't get automaticly into 'free' mode. I also heard that it gets out of 'free' mode after some time if the dive didn't start, or if interval is too big between dives.

My questions are:
1) how long does it stay in 'free' mode after activated?
(or after surfacing from a dive in 'free' mode incase it is different.)

2) If it gets out of 'free' mode, does it change the way it counts interval time?

3) Is it just a simple button push to get it back to 'free'? or do you need to memorize the squence/look at display?

4) What happens if you freedive with it not set to 'free' mode?

5) In your expirience (if you have a mosquito, or a buddy with one), does the fact that you have to set it to 'free' mode manually makes a noticable disadvantage for using it MAINLY for freediving?

As you might guess, I'm contemplating between a Mosquito and a D3. Most of my diving is intended to be free. But in the odd occasion it might be used for the bubbly sin (partner can't freedive/dive site might tempt me to go scuba/might lend it to my dad etc). I'm considering paying the extra $$ for getting deco-tables with it. Just as long as it doesn't go against it's main purpose - freediving.

Thanks in advance. :)
 
Hi Michael,

The Mosquito does go automatically into diving mode when you dive and exceed 1.2 m depth. Depending on the settings, it will then be in freediving, air or nitrox mode. (You can also disable the diving mode altogether, so that nothing will happen when you dive past 1.2 m).

On to your questions:
1) It stays in free mode about 5min, maybe a little more after it has been activated. Could be longer after a dive, but not sure about this. Even if it does exit free mode during your surface interval, it will start again at 1.2m. This might cause a slight delay, though, so your dive time could be a little off.

2)No, at least not after a fairly short break.

3)Need to push one button twice

4)If you dive in air or nitrox mode, it will warn you about exceeded ascent speed and drive you crazy with it's beeps... And it won't let you fly for a while even after one 2m freedive, if done in scuba mode :) Also, I think if you dive (including freediving) in nitrox mode, you won't be able to change to air mode until the no-flying time is up.

5)Like I said, it will go into dive mode automatically, but better to do it manually if you want a more accurate dive time. Can be annoying if it gets out of dive mode just as you're about to dive, but I wouldn't say that's a big disadvantage.


You probably know about the advantages of the D3, like higher sampling rate and stuff like that? Never tried a D3, so don't know too much about it myself. For my freediving, the mosquito has been fine :)
 
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Michael
Just a suggestion. Try to find a group or forum to get some feedback on the Mosquito. Many of us are having problems with the D3. I don't know if it's just the earlier models or not. My Mosquito was very reliable, the D3 has a mind of it's own sometimes.
Aloha
Bill
There are two set ups, guage and free. Think of scuba and free. Changing involves three buttons and ten pushes. My answers are based on the D3 set up for free diving.
1 12 minutes after a dive, less if it switches to TIME + AC display
2 no, only the display changes
3 you need to push twice (easy to misswith gloves)
4 If you select time or a timer mode the watch doesn't record the dive. If it self-switches, all that happens is, the first 5 or 6 seconds aren't recorded or displayed (I'm having trouble with this).
5 If you can live with a two second sample rate (1 seconds on the D3) and no countdown timer, you'll be happy with the Mosquito.
 
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Thank you very much for your answers.

The advantages of the D3 as far as I know are:
1 second sampling rate - but I don't mind if my dive profiles will be of 2 second simapling. I can't really see how that'll affect dramatically any data I might try to get from profile.

It is chpear.

It comes in blue. :)

The advantages of the mosquito are:

Dive tables. (low priority for me)

Better relaibility - not sure of there's a new model for the D3, but I didn't hear about the new model of the mosquito having problems yet. Mosquito new model is recognized by the color of the scales on the sides of the display.

I can also spare the first meters of the profile.
What I care most in a dive watch is the interval time while up, dive time and depth while down. All for safety reasons, no need to be scientifically accurate. :)

Bill, what is this countdown timer?

Both has preset depth and time alarms for free mode, right?

I don't know if the D3 has a new model, but I'de be surprised if the D3's bought in the last year still have the problems the older ones had. Does anyone have info on that?
 
The most annoying thing with mosquito is that it doesn't provide tools for checking your buddys divatime. It does count your own sufcafe time and you can ofcourse try to calculate your buddys divetime from that.
I understood that the D3 has the functionality to do that.
Sampling rate of 2 seconds is defenetely good enough for me. I was able to break my mosquito by sleeping with it on my arm I guess that i had it under my head and the sweat + the pressure created something strange. Suunto replaced it with a new one free of charge.
Other than that I've had no problems at all with my mosquito. D3 looks a bit nicer though.. ;)

Tuomo
 
Originally posted by tuomo
The most annoying thing with mosquito is that it doesn't provide tools for checking your buddys divatime. It does count your own sufcafe time and you can ofcourse try to calculate your buddys divetime from that. I understood that the D3 has the functionality to do that.
How can your D3 count your buddy's dive time?!?:confused: it should have some pretty good sensors for it I guess. :D

I was able to break my mosquito by sleeping with it on my arm I guess that i had it under my head and the sweat + the pressure created something strange. Suunto replaced it with a new one free of charge.
rofl you have really mean head/sweat glands! Maybe you where dreaming of breaking the 150m mark? :D
It's good that they replace them with out too much fuss.

Does the mosquito has preset depth and time alarm? as in, can you set before the dive that it'll alarm you in 40m or 2 minute dive time for example?

Yes I think the D3 log several dives Tommy. Not sure how many, but I think it logs quite a lot.
The interface (a wire actually) for the Mosquito and D3 cost about 100$. So I don't know how many people actually bought it.
 
Michael,
Yes, the mosquito does have alarms for both time and depth. If I remember correctly, the backlight will also turn on with the alarm. So if you want to see your depth while diving in dark water, you could set the alarm to go off at, say, 20m and the light will be on after you pass that depth. Not sure how long it stays on, though... I guess untill you are shallow enough again, but I'll need to check that.

I use an old interface that was made for the Vyper with my mosquito, works just fine. It would probably work with the D3 also, since the D3 looks identical to the mosquito apart from the colour.
 
Originally posted by DeepThought
How can your D3 count your buddy's dive time?!?:confused: it should have some pretty good sensors for it I guess. :D

QUOTE]

I had the understanding that the D3 has the possibility to start a timer manually for your buddy, thus enabling you to know how long he/she has been underwater.
Don't know if i had wrong impression though.

Tuomo
 
The D3 has two built in timers. They can both be used at the same time (only one displayed). You can start a stopwatch and have it run while you use other modes, so you could keep track of another surface interval or time someone's dive. The count down is a preset stopwatch that runs backwards. When used in competition, it can show you how long until your start. The log function stores a thousand dives in guage mode.
Aloha
Bill
 
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Once the mosquito is placed in freedive mode it stays there until you change it. I have never had mine go into scuba mode unless I change it manually.
Jim
 
Sorry Tuomo, I was thinking of something a bit different, more persice..., not that simple. :duh

Jim, your mosquito stays in freedive mode no matter how long the interval is? if you'll go home and return the oter day it'll still be on freedive mode? (that's what I rather it'll do. :) )
 
It stays in whatever mode I put it in. Each day before I hit the water I scroll through the settings, establish that the free mode is still in place, do the battery check, and then dive. Its a great instrument.
Jim
 
Hmm, by Bill and Jussi's posts, it seems that your mosquito acts differently. Could it be that you've changed some of the default settings regarding this? or maybe you use some other display mode? I think that every freediver mosquito owner would treasure that feature if found.
 
I use my mosquito primarily for freediving. On the few occasions I do scuba, then I have to change it back to scuba mode.
JIm
 
My Mosquito is a set it and forget it deal unless you want to change modes, too. It stays in freevive mode or scuba mode until changed. Day after day.
 
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Ok, looked at the manual on Suunto's site, it seems that if the Mosquito is set to freedive mode (or any other mode) through 'mode set' option, it'll stay in that mode. I guess it has also a temporary way to set it to freedive mode, and that's what confused me.

10x guys.
 
Maybe I should clarify my earlier posts a bit:

The mosquito will never switch from one dive mode to another (from freedive to scuba, for example) by itself.
It will switch from free mode to "wristwatch" mode (showing just the time and date) by itself after a few minutes surface interval, and from watch mode to free mode when you start your dive.
So once you set it to free mode, it will always be in either free mode or watch mode until you change the settings again.

Hope that was a little clearer :)
 
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Michael,

I struggled between purchasing the D3 or a Mosquito. The big advantage of the Mosquito for scuba is if you are going to do any multilevel dives otherwise I'd be as happy I think with the D3 and tables. I have mine set to FREE and as soon as it gets wet it activates and logs every 2s at 1.2m and below.

If you scuba you have to change modes otherwise after 5 minutes it complains and tells you to surface as it hasn't been calculating you decompression times.

The plusses of the D3 are the 1s sampling [although I haven't found 2s to be a problem] and the guage mode for tehnical diving not that I do any technical diving. But if you are going to change gas mixtures etc. you can work from a dive plan and use the D3 in guage mode to know depth and time. The Mosquito will stick with the mixture you set and "bend" telling you to ascend, won't work for 48 hours etc. I don't tech dive but I figured that if I ever do I'll be a better freediver by that time so a D3 would be good fro guage but also the 1s sampling in free mode.

paul
 
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