Anyone sporting a DOXA Sub

njburke · 18-03-2020 12:45am #1

I've been drawn lately towards a DOXA sub, orange faced of course
I 've been aware of them for years, it's like a niggle or an old injury that flares up every now and then.
I'm beginning to think that buying one might cure it. A 1200T professional for about 1500€ should do it.
I'm not on TZ, so if anyone spots one let me know.

I dropped in to the group for a bit of light relief and distraction. Glad I did.

unkel · 18-03-2020 10:53am

I had to look that up:

doxa-sub-1200t-professional-limited-edition-divers-wristwatch-p6989-20249_image.jpg?v=1481047918

Pretty cool watch. But not for me.

Cyclingtourist · 18-03-2020 11:13am

I'm more a Duro type of guy.

Wibbs · 18-03-2020 11:28am

They're a lovely watch in the flesh. They have a big following. When the design first came out in the 60's they were a premier dive watch. Pricey too. I had a vintage black dialled one years ago. I must have a pic somewhere.. The only Doxa I have now is a little older, smaller and less waterproof.

njburke · 18-03-2020 1:04pm

I've seen a few from the sixties, the design is relatively unchanged. It's very much a tool watch. The bezel is dual marked with the US navy dive tables, NDL no decompression limits.
On the surface you set your bezel and reset the max depth needle on your bourdan tube oil filled depth gauge. You need to be back on the surface before the elapsed time indicated by the NDL for your maximum depth. It's old school, but simple. I did a week's diving that way recently when my dive computer algorithm locked into gauge mode.

Those tables and the research behind them is an interesting story.
I have an orange monster for the past 17 years, so the orange is familiar.
I dive and would wear it diving. We'll see what turns up over the next while.

I see a few doxa pocket watches fitted with lugs for sale, hardly a practical watch at 50mm dia.

Wibbs · 18-03-2020 1:12pm

The only thing that puzzles me with the Doxa NJ and any dive watch with orange in the dial or hands, is that orange is one of the first colours to wash out with depth. IIRC if it's actually florescent orange it doesn't(activated by UV light which penetrates more deeply), but the Doxa dials aren't, or certainly the 60/70's ones i've seen aren't?

njburke · 18-03-2020 1:56pm

I used to design underwater lights, so I used to know the UW spectral absorptions in the euphotic zone, its a fuzzy memory now. Doxa did testing in the sixties and came up with orange as the colour of choice. At depth our colour perception goes, there is darkness and a spectral shift. Hence the underwater torch, these days high brightness LEDs with colour temperatures up around 5000K are preferred. It puts the blue back in lobsters, a halogen with its lower temperature spectrum does not.

To read a watch,depth gauge or a computer, basically you hit the instrument with the torch and you have luminescence, the dive computers I favour have both a backlight and phosphur layer. I rarely use the backlight and use the torch/phospur instead.
Contrast is the key.
The monster I have was perfectly readable, the domed crystal increases the viewing angle underwater, flat crystals and the air to water refraction can just disappear at certain angles underwater.

Wibbs · 18-03-2020 2:13pm

I've heard that about flat crystals alright. I suppose most diver watches today are "desk divers" and actual divers rely on more advanced kit. When you look at the vintage stuff from the 60's and 70's before dive computers, where they could mean life or death there was more actual testing. You can see that with the 60's Rolex Subs and Omega Seamasters that the UK military evaluated. They found both lacking in actual use. The Omega because the seals were crap and they often came back from dives looking like spirit levels, so they stipulated the screw down crown, the Rolex mercedes hands were considered too hard to read so stipulated the Omega hands instead and they changed the bezel, made it slightly larger with more graduations.

When the US military tested various watches in the early 60's they were in favour of the Blancpain and Enicar watches over the Rolex. Of the latter they criticised the bracelet and funny enough found the watch to be the least waterproof of the bunch and constantly prone to fogging and recommended it be deleted from the navy's approved list.

njburke · 18-03-2020 4:23pm

DCI, decompression illness or the bends is taken very seriously by all divers, in particular a subset of divers called tech divers. They for example will dive a pre calculated dive profile, which is depth versus time, they don't rely on a real-time simulation that a dive computer makes. They use a depth timer, they could read that every minute.
Keeping track of depths and time is a skill every diver learns.

Anyone sporting a DOXA Sub

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