subject: The History Of The Electronic Bite Alarm [print this page] The modern day bite alarm is a 'must have' tackle item in the modern day carp angler's kit, in this article we give you a brief run down on its history since the 1950s and how it has shaped the way today's carp anglers fish.
The most famous bite alarm is probably the Optonic manufactured by Efgeeco in the early 1980's, these indicators were the first to use a roller system and revolutionized the way carp anglers fished, they could fish all night without the need to reset the bite alarm and the Optonic also indicated drop back bites too when used in conjunction with a monkey climber or hanger on the line. The only problem anglers at the time had with the Optonics were that they were far too quiet so some innovative anglers began to convert them with telephone GPO speakers to make them louder, two anglers called Del Romang and Kim Donaldson were such innovators in this field and started converting Optonics for friends then commercially and the now famous bite alarm company called Delkim was formed, their converted Optonics became the standard on most carp waters up and down England.
After a legal battle Delkim ceased converting the Efgeeco Optonics but went on to develop their own bite alarms and today Delkim are the leaders in the industry with their vibration based indicators being very popular with today's anglers and with the new digital technology, remote sounder boxes. The vibration idea came to Del during a dream in 1983 when he woke up with in the middle of the night and ran naked down the stairs to run a section of mono across the stylus of his record deck. Finally in 1992, after 9 years development time the vibration based bite alarm was finally manufactured.
Nowadays there are many other companies manufacturing bite alarms such as Fox, Gardner, Steve Neville, Prologic and TF Gear and the bite indicators of today have many functions such as flashing LEDs, volume, sensitivity and tone control, remote sounder boxes, drop back tone definition etc. and can be bought from as little as 20 for a basic version up to over a 120+ for a top end model.
The bite alarm is an essential part of the modern day angler's kit and you will find most carp anglers that spend time on the bank will be seen behind a set of rods sitting on bite alarms while they soak up the lake's atmosphere knowing that if they get a run they will be alerted straight away.... Bleep, bleep, bleeeeeeeep, looks like were in!
