"Throughout my years of carp fishing I’ve managed to work my way through most of the bite alarms on the market from the humble old Heron Antenna versions right up to the modern day Delkim’s. Reliability is perhaps what counts most where bite alarms are concerned and you need to be able to look away from the rods or sleep safe in the knowledge that should something occur you will know about it straight away. The saying ‘you only get what you pay for’ certainly rings true with alarms, there are plenty of cheap versions around and to start with they generally seem ok, but I’ve learned the hard way that sooner or later (normally sooner) they will let me down. I’m pleased that I can honestly say that so far my Delkim’s are the most reliable alarms that I’ve ever used and with about two years of constant use (and abuse) all four still work as well as the day I got them out of their boxes.

Another thing that I really like is the battery life that the Delkim’s give. I’ve had other ‘top-of-the-range’ alarms where the battery in the sounder box lasted just eight hours, which made them unusable as far as I was concerned, but in the Delkim sounder box the battery life is incredibly good and in the heads themselves – well I’ve only needed to replace them once in the two years of use, which I think speaks for itself.

The sensitivity, volume and tone controls are all easy to set up or change when needed and I do find the need to change quite often. When fishing at close range on a small, pressured English water I need to know about every little bit of movement and when set on full sensitivity with the lightest of indicators and slack lines the response is just amazing. But when fishing at long range with braid on some huge water abroad too much sensitivity can be a pain. It’s not an easy thing to get the balance between decent bite indication and not being kept awake all night by the constant bleeping but what I’ve found is that by flicking the switch underneath the alarm head over to ‘minus’ and then turning the sensitivity down a little, even in strong winds the false bleeps are kept right down to a minimum.

The tone variations are pleasing to the ears. I know that as long as you hear them it should be enough but I’m sure I’m no different to most people out there and find a tone setting that you like to hear most. Personally I like the low tones but every now and then have a little change around and go a little higher – but I’m past the days of the ear-splitting high tones now.

I was asked to give a genuine ‘warts and all’ account of my Delkim experience so far and I suppose this all sounds a bit like a sales pitch but the truth is that I really have been very impressed by the alarms. The only thing I can think of is that I do keep getting caught out by the anti-theft alarm in the sounder box, which sounds off when the head is switched off before the sounder box. I keep forgetting it when I switch the alarm off to do something but I can put up with that as it is a good thing to have but thankfully it has never needed to be used for real yet. The other thing is perhaps more of a tip. That is when the alarms have sat out in the rain for a night or two it is best not to pack them straight back to the plastic cases but instead leave them uncovered to dry out first. I have heard that packing them away wet can cause the odd problem but it’s not something that I’ve experienced yet so letting the air get to them seems to work.

Other than that it’s all been plain sailing and the alarms have not only been pleasant to use, they have been 100% reliable up to this point. I know that most people I speak to tend to regard Delkim’s as the best alarms out there and I would agree with that. Things have come a long way since I first used my old Heron’s, in their day they were ground-breaking and innovative but things have moved on a long way and now as far as I’m concerned it is Delkim that leads the way."