Avalanche Transceivers

i still have an old orthovox F1<br><br>i remember a thread on cascadeclimbers talking about how beacons that are both analog and digital can be hard to pick up with a beacon that is just analog or digital. anyone know anything about that?

Re dogs and beacons:<br><br>I seem to recall reading a report where a dog wearing a beacon was rescued before the owner was found. Unfortunately, the owner was not found alive. I'm not sure on the details in that case ( trauma vs axphyxiation ), but something to consider. <br>

I've been using my Ortovox F1 focus for a few years, and am very happy with it. With practice, I find I can locate a beacon as fast as others using digital-display beacons. <br><br>Jack, <br>I think that the instrumentation that picks up the signal is the same for a "digital" or "analog" beacon. An "analog" beacon only has an analog display ( beep and signal leds), while a digital beacon interprets that signal, and uses some formula to display direction and/or distance, which may not be 100% accurate ( 2m may not be actually 2m, depending on how the two beacons are oriented). Some newer models have 3 coils (antennas) to pick up signals, which should lower the variance introduced by having the buried beacon and search beacon at different axes. <br><br><br>Perhaps an idea situation would be if some in your group have analog beacons, and some have digital display beacons. The analog models have about 20 meters greater range, which would be helpful for the initial search, but the digital display may be more useful for close range searches.<br><br>I'm not a beacon or electronics expert, so if I'm off, please correct me, but this is what I recall from my avy course.<br><br>Coulior magazine has had some good articles on avy beacon technology. Some of them can be found here:<br> earnyourturns.com/gear/accessories/acces_avy_index.htm

The Tracker and Orto digi's have 2 antennas, and the Pieps DSP has 3. I have the Pieps DSP, the main reason I bought it was that its effective range is supposedly nearly twice the Tracker's. If you read the CouloirMag or ttips av forum's stuff about beacons (which is excellent) you'll also find out that range comes as a tradeoff against tolerance around 457 that the receive mode has to account for crystal drift and it's probable that the Pieps gets most of its added range by being tighter around 457 than necessarily because of improved signal processing and/or the 3 antennas, but there might be some of that involved. Pieps also has a periodic deliberate sweep built in that is supposed to offset the possible risks of being narrower around the band. The Tracker is an older design, older enough that the designers chose to factor in higher chance of interoperation with lots of analog-only designs that were presumed to be quite drifty in their frequency either because of design or use/abuse, and therefore had to build more tolerance into it, and they've stuck with that basic principle because they saw no reason to change it (in fact they use it as a differentiator/sales point).<br><br>I've noticed that experts tend to like beacons that still support an analog pure-signal mode (like Barryvox) because for an experienced searcher, the analog signal is more discernable to them for a multiple burial case. The Pieps DSP is supposed to address this with its digital logic, but I haven't seen a comprehensive writeup on proof from an expert standpoint. I am NOT an expert, so part of the reason I chose the Pieps was that it was basically as easy to use as the Tracker on first impression plus longer range and more sensitive towards pinpoint under 2m than Tracker or Orto's because of third antenna helping "flatten" fluxlines into real space. If the multiple burial really works as well as advertised (I'll try it out at Beacon Basin for sure this year to see) that's a bonus, but I almost always tour small.<br>One thing that seldom gets discussed: another good way to choose a beacon is, which ones do your most frequent touring partners use? There are obviously strict engineering guidelines around interop for these things that no one is supposed to fall outside of, but nothing can be surer than a direct equivalent unit send/receive case.

That's a good point Wolfs. Almost 99% of the people I tour with have Trackers so we're darn consistant. I think people dig the Tracker since it's so easy to use. Easy to use = less error for mistakes in real life situation.

Still leaning heavily towards the Tracker, however I will be the 1st person in the gang of hopefulls (friends i need to convert to BC users) to purchase a transceiver.  I suppose I can lead the way amongst my peers.  Seems most folks have had good exp. w/ the tracker as well.