Well just finished the first dive of the day on the spectacular Big Brother and, like yesterday, was struck by the sheer number of shakers, air horns, tank bangers and a myriad of other ‘innovative’ noise making devices around the dive site.
This also occurred to me yesterday, but I never got as worked up over it as I did this time.

Now, personally I disagree with the very concept of necessity for these products, because all they are is a blatant crutch for insufficient diving skills.
It is calimed that you ‘need’ one in order to be able to get the attention of your team mate, whether because of an emergency or just to show them something interesting. But in reality, you should never be so far away from your team mate that you need to use the thing in the first place, or, if you do need to get their attention so badly and are planning to be too far apart to maintain easy touch contact (arms length apart) you should be taking a ‘real’ multi-purpose signalling device with you, such as a primary light.
Sometimes this will not be feasible, such as here in Egypt, typically during daylight hours the visibility and light penetration over recreational depths is so good that even a 21W HID torch is barely noticeable or usable as a signaling device. In such a case the answer is simple – just dive closer together.
The introduction of noise devices, whilst seeming a logical sidestep to allow for keeping a slightly larger distance between team mates and sitll being in contact becomes fundamentally flawed when 20 people have a similar device in use at the same time (such as in Egypt). Nobody knows who’s banging who’s tank and therefore everybody’s dive gets disrupted because some dive guide wants to show some monkey a lion fish, or even worse a shark (at which point the idea of a ‘Silent Planet’ gets lost).

“But hold on a minute Dave”, I hear you say, “Aren’t you a dive guide?”
Yes, yes I am. Buut I don’t use a tank banger. Why? Well, if I’m diving with just one other person then I discuss with them buddy team distances, contact distances and the like before the dive, and if I’m guiding a group then I’m doing just that – GUIDING. I am not Team Captain, I am not responsible for keeping people together – I am responsible for giving QUALIFIED divers the information they need to conduct the dive safely before the dive and then jumping in the water to act as a waypoint for those who wish to follow me.
I am not solo diving, as I will always be just in front of the first buddy team that wishes to be guided. And, if none of the buddy teams wish to be guided then I am simply ‘shadow guiding’, hanging around and floating between groups to make sure everything’s ok.
If when I’m guide leading people want to see things, all they have to do is occassionally reference where I am and I will point out anything I see that’s interesting – no need for a tank banger.
If a group gets pushed off the reef by current or for whatever reason, I should have already personally verified that those people can shoot bags and share gas, and briefed them on what to do if they were to find themselves off the reef. So I shouldn’t need to worry about them navigating the reef on their own. If there are people that aren’t comfortable performing such skills, then they simply won’t dive unguided, and when they dive guided it is their responsibility (along with the other buddy teams being guided) to keep close together and in visual contact with the guide. So, again, the tank banger / sound device shouldn’t be needed.

And yet, people continue to use them. Why? Because it’s easier – it’s a crutch to account for not having taken the time and effort to fine-tune one’s own diving skills and habits, or to instill a reasonable level of safety and mental activity in the minds of those you are ‘guiding’.
The fact is simple – that the low standards and ‘quick buck’ approach to diving has left a huge portion of the market without any real thought-making processes or common sense for them to make their own decisions and so fall back on all the things that make it ‘easier’ to compensate this lack of training. This then proceeds to instructor level, with people still monkeying their way through without ever really having to have thought about what they’re doing and why, which then passes on again to their next wave of trainee divers. The use of tank bangers and these other noise-making contraptions is just one small piece that perpetuates this problem and passes it on to the next generation in whatever way can be thought up.

I don’t know the details / myths / rumours about whether these devices attract marine life, repel marine life, have no noticeable effect and to be honest, that doesn’t bother me. What bothers me is the devices in the first place. It genuinely ruins a dive for me, and irritates me greatly!