At what elevations you set your audible?

[SFBayArea 0]

Just wondering what altitudes people set their audible altimeters?
I set mine at
5300, 4000 and 3300.

[DcloudZ 0]

Break off, opening, hard deck

"Better to have a short life that is full of what you like doing than a long life spent in a miserable way." -Alan Watts

[7eleven 0]

With the quattro:

1. Wake up call
2. Wave off
3. Opening
4. Last call

[ufk22 32]

depends ion the jump
AFF 6, 4.5, and 2.5
RW small 4.5, 3, 2
RW large 5.5, 2.8, 1.8,

This is the paradox of skydiving. We do something very dangerous, expose ourselves to a totally unnecesary risk, and then spend our time trying to make it safer.

[NWFlyer 2]

Breakoff (varies by size/type of skydive but "default" for me is 4500), 3500 and 2000.

"There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

[SFBayArea 0]

DcloudZ

Break off, opening, hard deck

What elevations you set up each of your points?

[SFBayArea 0]

So most of you guys only use two alarms? Meaning the last one is only used in case something wrong and you need to know that this is the bottom elevation that you have to do something, cut away, pool reserve, etc.

[NWFlyer 2]

SFBayArea

So most of you guys only use two alarms? Meaning the last one is only used in case something wrong and you need to know that this is the bottom elevation that you have to do something, cut away, pool reserve, etc.

If all goes as planned, I never hear the final alarm. On the rare occasions that I do (which, so far, has always been after deployment but before full canopy deployment), I find it rather obnoxious. Which is the point, since if I ever hear it at a point when I haven't taken action to get a good canopy over my head, I want that obnoxious noise to wake me the fuck up.

I use the other two to signal breakoff time and main deployment time. What else would you suggest I use the third for?

"There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

[wmw999 2,314]

I set them for just below where I expect to take actions (breaking off and pulling -- the decision one is set to decision altitude). Why? Because I prefer to mainly rely on eyes and altimeter; it helps keep my internal clock honest. If I'm keying a bigway breakoff, then I set it to honest breakoff altitude -- others are in charge of looking at the ground (but I peek every now and then).

But I do belly, where I'm nearly always at least facing the ground (although most of the time looking at other jumpers). And as far as breakoff, well, it depends on the formation size. For opening, I generally pull a little above 2500; I'm from the old days and I pack for a fast opening. I'm comfortable with pulling down to 2000 normally, I just don't do it much any more.

Wendy P.

There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

[evan85 0]

NWFlyer

I use the other two to signal breakoff time and main deployment time. What else would you suggest I use the third for?

I agree with this. I hear people talk about "warning", "breakoff", and "pull", but which is really the most important altitude of all? Hard deck. If you blow breakoff by 200 feet because you're a little surprised by the alarm and not ready to go right away, not a big deal. (*Yes, I understand this is a big deal in big ways, large groups, etc., but OP's jump numbers and the nature of his question indicates that he is not on these sorts of jumps.) Even if I blow pull altitude by 200 feet, I have mine set high enough to take that possibility into account; not a big deal. If I blow through my hard deck, I am taking away time for my reserve to deploy and me to find somewhere to land, and land safely. That is not time I'm willing to give up.

So my answer is:

Breakoff: 4500 or 5000 depending on the jump
Wave-off & pull: 3500
Hard deck: 2000

What do your three altitudes (5300, 4000, 3300) represent to you? The numbers are meaningless without that information.

The reason the third alarm sounds like a siren going off (on most audibles) is that it's meant to tell you, "if you don't have a perfectly good flying canopy right this second, you need to cutaway."

I'm the kind of person who is likely to look for solutions/try to fix things, so I want an alarm that tells me "I don't care how close you are, or if you think you are about to get out of this--cutaway immediately." (Of course I know that in a low speed mal--depending on how low speed it really is--the third alarm may not go off at all. Always keep your eye on your alti when trying to fix a mal, if you've decided that you have enough altitude and the mal is fixable.)

If you really want to have a "warning" alarm before break off, buy a quattro -- then you can have warning, breakoff, pull, and hard deck.

[DcloudZ 0]

SFBayArea

***Break off, opening, hard deck

What elevations you set up each of your points?

I have the low-speed alarms set but I don't pay attention to them

"Better to have a short life that is full of what you like doing than a long life spent in a miserable way." -Alan Watts

[councilman24 37]

3300 is my first one. YMMV

I'm old for my age.
Terry Urban
D-8631
FAA DPRE

[cazzercam 0]

I set mine for
5500 (breakoff)
4000 (check alti and pull)
2500 (why the fuck dont you have a chute?)

i do this for the 500 feet of "thinking" time, it doesnt take long for you to fall 500 feet, and I fall fast!
I see it as by the time you have heard the warning, and then done the action, you have already wasted time. so I would rather have a little extra "doing" time than have a warning at 5k for breakoff, because by the time you have heard it and turned and gone, your lower than 5k!

plus I dont trust anything!

[SFBayArea 0]

"What do your three altitudes (5300, 4000, 3300) represent to you? The numbers are meaningless without that information."

First 5300 altitude is to stop doing formation and/or any other kind of activity.
Second 4000 warning is to wave off and pull by 3800.
Third is absolute pull main canopy in case I blew by my second warning and did not take any action.
However, after reading what most of you guys do, I think for this weekend I will change my alarms to:
1st - 5000 break away altitude
2nd - 3800 wave off and pull
3rd - 2500 "hard deck"

[weaverd 0]

this is how i set mine:

3500 you better think about pulling

2500 you better pull now!

2000 holy fuck pull or think about your EP's

[pchapman 277]

It all depends on the type of jump.

The first alarm is breakoff:

4500 in my most used set of alarms. (A good common modern breakoff altitude.)
3500 in another set of alarms for old school RW or whatever doesn't need to be way up high.

Second alarm to say I'll probably want to pull soon:

3000 to go with the 4500 breakoff
2500 to go with the 3500 breakoff

Third alarm, the siren:
1500
(Last ditch reminder if one lost track of time.)

For PFF, tandems, & tandem video, I use a group of alarms set to 6000, 5000, 3000. That has to be a compromise to suit different applications. One always has the choice to change the numbers.

[mattjw916 2]

1. break-off (or close to it)
2. better be pulling by now
3. decision time

5k, 3k, 2k

Depending on what canopy I was using I would occasionally snivel down to my third alarm but by that point it was usually pretty evident looking up whether or not the canopy was a ball of shit or my dytter just got scared.

NSCR-2376, SCR-15080

[ridebmxbikes 0]

I set my first alarm for breakoff, changes almost every jump depending on who I jump with and what type of jump.
The second 500' before pull time to come out of track and wave off, usually about 1k below breakoff but preferably 1500' so the alarms don't blend in.
The third is my hard deck which can also change, usually 1500 but if Im pulling @ 4500' or higher I set it to 2000'. I figure if I pull higher and I still haven't fixed it by 2k it probably isn't gonna get fixed anyway.

[MikeBIBOM 0]

About the same, but because I know I can lose that altitude quickly while getting into position/deciding which way to go/applying the brakes to my track, I give myself 50m to react to the alarm. Except for my decision altitude, which I give 100m.

Breakoff: 1550m (5085')
Pull: 1150m (3775')
Hard-deck/Decision altitude: 800m (2625')

I don't want my automatic reaction to the last alarm to be to cut, I want time to assess and make my decision by 700m, rather than blindly cutting away without knowing what's going on.

[jurgencamps 0]

1st: 4000 (or 4500, 5000) (break off)
2nd: 3000 (pull)
3rd: 1600 (pull that damned reserve or you have to deal with a two out situation)

[shropshire 0]

1100ft,
800ft
450ft

(.)Y(.)
Chivalry is not dead; it only sleeps for want of work to do. - Jerome K Jerome

[nigel99 295]

I mostly do small rw (4 to 16 ways)

4500 breakoff
3000 wave and pull
2000 hard deck

Just a comment on some.of the people doing 1000 foot between breakoff and pull, that isn't giving yourself much opportunity to properly track away. Personally I think you should be looking at 7 -10 seconds to reduce the risk of collision.

Like most others I'll occasionally trip the third alarm, as the canopy snivels.

While I don't jump in the US and therefore the revised BSR isn't binding I might bump everything up by 500 foot to get used to the new norm.

Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

[DivingWombat 0]

shropshire

1100ft,
800ft
450ft

If you put in meters instead of ft, I might agree...

[holie 0]

...
1500
1000
500

and it's meters ;-) for any kind of jump.

[IJskonijn 44]

DivingWombat

***1100ft,
800ft
450ft

If you put in meters instead of ft, I might agree...
Those sound perfectly reasonable for canopy alarms. I have mine set to 900ft, 600ft and 300ft, so I'll cover exactly the same distance in a no-wind situation on each leg.

For freefall, it really depends on the type of jump and my mood. Sometimes I feel like pitching at 6000ft, just to play around with my canopy. Third alarm is always at 2000ft, and lowest setting for second alarm is 3500ft (which is lowest altitude I want to pull my pilot at)