beacon woes ?

Dear Tay-ers,
I have a beacon problem –or should I say a partner problem, and I need your advice.
One of my partners- a strong skier and reliable guy with a good 4wd, beer money, and a flexible schedule is… how shall I say it? He is somewhat old fashioned when it comes to equipment. Now I don’t really care if he doesn’t wear the latest fashions or even if his skis are skinner than most, as long as he can keep up, carry his weight and break his share of track- which he does. What I care about is his antiquated beacon. This thing looks like some old WWII radio found at an army surplus store! But every time we do our beacon check I pick him up just fine with my state-of-the-art beacon. When I ask him to check me his beacon makes some strange whistling noises straight out of an episode of “lost in space” and then he says he’s got me fine. When I raise my eyebrows and express my skepticism he assures me that his beacon is “perfectly fine” and even seems to get a little defensive about it. Then he tell me how they don’t make them as good as they used to and he goes on to make some comment about the “build quality” of his old beacon or the “ingenious positive battery contact” or even the friggin “handsome color” of the faded plastic case! Then he stares at it affectionately for a second before lovingly putting it back in his “custom made beacon harness”.

But I remain unconvinced.

What should I do?
1. Chew him out and refuse to ski with him until he gets a modern beacon?
2. Offer to trade beacons with him (so he can find me) and see how he feels about the prospect of getting buried while his partner tries to find him with an old 8-track cassette?
3. Just buy him a new beacon for Christmas?
4. Show up with an equally crappy beacon and see what he says when we do the check?

He is a great guy and I’d hate loose him as a ski partner but he really does seem unusually sensitive about his beacon. Maybe (if you know how to use ‘em) these old “analog” beacons really do work great and I’m just being paranoid?

Are you 30ish, married with kids and have recently taken a basic level headedness 1 course?

Do some practice drills with him. 30 minutes in a snowy parking lot will be a great refresher for both of you! If he can't find you in a few minutes in a 30m x 30m area then you SHOULD be worried...
If he finds the beacon consistently, well then praise his superior antiquated technology!

Hmm, having better gear than your partner might provide incentive for them to dig you out, but it doesn't give them incentive to do it quickly.

Trees4me has a great idea. I'd only add that you and your friend should run the drill two ways - using your friend's beacon as both the rescue and the victim beacon. You might also want to consider doing a range check with both beacons (again, both sending and receiving for both units). That will also to help make any differences clear to your buddy.

Older analog beacons can still be effective, but they come with some baggage that's going to get tougher and tougher to manage as more people get digital units and the analog units age. Signal drift is for real - check out these links for a quick summary of the issue:

beaconreviews.com/transceivers/pdfs/Frequency_BCA.pdf
beaconreviews.com/transceivers/Frequency.asp

Testing the device both ways would help to make the point. And practice is always a very good thing (note to self - go bury some beacons with a few friends, bring beer and hot food for maximum participation...). Maybe the articles will help too.

Great question. Thanks for asking, others are probably facing the same issue.

Last point - I am not an avy pro! If anyone else wants to pile on with a professional POV on this, please by all means do so.

Buy him a new beacon for Christmas.
You are never going to shame him into getting a new one since he's not ashamed to be lugging this one around.